Hey, look, I exist!
So, yeah, I haven't posted anything on here in like...yeeeahh. Well, I got busy. :P For those of you who don't know, I'm in NYC now doing a year with City Year, which is a non-profit affiliated with AmeriCorps. (We actually pre-date AmeriCorps, and I'm told that we were a big part of Bill Clinton's decision to make that a priority...he visited CY Boston and thought we were SO COOL he went and modeled some programs off us and pushed AmeriCorps through as soon as he got into office. :D)
So, yeah. Here's my life right now, on a typical Monday - Thursday
6:45 am: Wake up. E. is getting up out of the bottom bunk, her alarm on the second ring. L. is still sleeping in the top bunk, as is C. in the tiny bedroom on the other side of the living room in our (awesome! Yeah 4B!!) Astoria apartment. My light-up alarm clock is bright enough to wake me.
6:50: My alarm goes off. I hit the snooze.
7:00: Snooze goes off; hopefully I've already taken my meds and am ready to get moving. L.'s alarm goes off for the first time.
7:05: E. is out of the shower and will be leaving soon, C. is up now and going in. Get dressed, brush my hair, wash my glasses, get my boots on, chug some OJ, brush my teeth, throw lunch and a granola bar in my lunchbox, and get out the door. Say goodbye to C. and L., who will be leaving about 15 minutes after me.
7:25: Catch an N/W train.
7:33: Transfer to a 7 train, making sure I'm in the very first car.
7:35: Bolt off the 7 and try to get down the stairs without getting caught in the bottleneck mob to transfer to the G/E/F/V station. It's under construction, so there's only one open stairwell. Thus why I need to be in the first car.
7:40: Get on the G train.
7:54: Get off at Bedford-Nostrand, and go up to wait for the bus. Hopefully catch the B38. If it's not in sight, get the next B44 that goes by to take me a few short blocks to the B52. Either way works; it's pretty much whatever comes first.
Now, I've been having a hard time getting out on time, so a lot of times I end up on the next train and I'm rushing a whole lot. Two days a week I go to my school, and the other two days I go to a park near Bedford-Nostrand, so then I don't need to take the buses.
8:15: First circle. We do a "readiness check" where we go through a little chant to make sure everyone's got all their uniform parts.
8:18: PT, or 'physical training'. Wakes us up, creates a sense of unity...and makes a scene so people take notice and want to know what we're doing. Twice a week we're in a park with our sister school; twice a week we're in the schoolyard with the kids.
8:25: Head to our school from the park, or just head up to our office. Go through announcements for the morning, and have a few minutes of down-time to get ready for the day. Drop off reminders for Bringing Books to Life for the day, and make sure I have enough stickers in my tutoring folder.
8:55: Go down to the 1rst grade classroom I tutor in. Walk around sharpening pencils and telling the kids for the 100th time that no, I don't have any erasers. I never have had erasers, so I don't know why they think today will be different! Help the kids with their morning phonics assignment, and answer half a dozen, "Miss Bridget, she took my pencil! That's mine!".
9:15: Start pull-out with my tutoring kids. There are 7 altogether. Some days I take them in small groups, other days a few are with the English Language Learner specialist and I do one-on-one with the others. We read our book for the week, and, on later days, work on phonics things like finding short "e" words, or words that rhyme. After each 20-minute session, I give the kids stickers if they were well-behaved.
10:15: Last small group done. Check in with the teacher about how they did, both academically and behavior wise, and head upstairs to our office.
10:20: Depending on the day, I may have prep time or a BBL session. During prep I do lesson planning and get together materials for other lessons, or work on securing donated materials for upcoming events, which is my role on the team. Everyone has something they're the point person for; mine is in-kinding. For BBL days, I gather our materials with the other two people on my teamlet, and the three of us head off to a classroom.
10:25: BBL begins. We do a warm-up activity and review what we did last week. Then we do a read aloud from the book. Each week we read some of the story and do an activity related to it. Over the 8 days in the school in a two-week cycle, I have 6 BBL classes during 3rd and 4th periods. The other 10 periods are prep time.
12:00: BBL and/or prep time is over. Start to get ready for the 5th period lunch clubs. I'm in the drama club and the games club. Each run two days a week.
12:15: Head down to the lunch room. Usually the kids are still getting their lunches.
12:25: Bring the group of 5th, 6th, and 7th graders to the extra preschool room, where we hold both the clubs I'm a part of. With my teamlet, oversee sign-in and tell the kids the activity for the day.
12:50: Walk the lunch club kids back to the caf, or to the stairs to go to the middle school on the 3rd floor. Bring club materials back to the office.
1:00: Lunchtime.
2:00: Team circle. Go over what we need to get done before afterschool starts or what we have planned for the afternoon. Do afterschool prep, or do a group roll-out of a new lesson plan for the following week.
2:50: Go downstairs to our Starfish classroom. Set up desks and chairs and put up posters and behavior charts and whatnot. Wait for the kids to finish their "dinner".
3:30: Kids arrive! Mondays and Tuesdays we have "Shooting Stars", for K-2. Soon, we'll be starting Starfish for 3-5 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They hang up their coats and get out their homework. We help them with homework for half an hour.
4:00: Clean up homework and move kids to the rug.
4:10: Shooting Stars PT! Cutest thing ever. Silly little dance moves to get them moving and ready for the Shooting Stars lesson.
4:20: Introduce the lesson for the day. Shooting Stars is an age-appropriate adaptation of City Year's Starfish program (we're one of only two schools who gets to do it with the little ones! I think everyone should though; they're awesome!) The lessons teach the kids about their community and get them involved in simple service projects. We started later due to some issues with our school, so right now we do Shooting Stars both days. Soon, as we get caught up, we'll start alternating with rec days and after school clubs like arts and crafts.
4:50: Get the kids into their coats and finding their bags. Walk them to the front lobby.
5:00: Pick-up time.
5:15: Start calling parents of the stragglers.
5:30: There's usually one kid left now. Different kid every time, but someone is always late!
5:40: Kids are all gone, we final circle. Go over what went well and what could've been better for the day. Listen to announcements.
5:45 - 6:00: Break for the day. Hopefully get on the bus to head home, but sometimes I have stuff that needs a computer (which we don't have at the school) or things to do the for planning committee I volunteered for, so I head to the main office in Manhattan.
7:00: Get home. Shower. Start making dinner if none of my roommates are home.
7:45: Eat dinner.
8:00: Check my email, maybe read the news online.
8:30: Watch TV with my roommates or play video games, or get done anything that can't wait til the weekend.
10:30: Pack a lunch for the next day. Make sure everything I need is in my backpack. Brush my teeth.
11:00: Go to bed.
If I go to the office after work, I usually don't get home til 8:30 or later. Or if the bus takes forever to come, or if I need to stop for groceries or something...
They keep us busy! But it's fun...the kids are really cute. :D
And now I need to go shovel the slush off my parents' driveway. Eeeeeewwww.
So, yeah. Here's my life right now, on a typical Monday - Thursday
6:45 am: Wake up. E. is getting up out of the bottom bunk, her alarm on the second ring. L. is still sleeping in the top bunk, as is C. in the tiny bedroom on the other side of the living room in our (awesome! Yeah 4B!!) Astoria apartment. My light-up alarm clock is bright enough to wake me.
6:50: My alarm goes off. I hit the snooze.
7:00: Snooze goes off; hopefully I've already taken my meds and am ready to get moving. L.'s alarm goes off for the first time.
7:05: E. is out of the shower and will be leaving soon, C. is up now and going in. Get dressed, brush my hair, wash my glasses, get my boots on, chug some OJ, brush my teeth, throw lunch and a granola bar in my lunchbox, and get out the door. Say goodbye to C. and L., who will be leaving about 15 minutes after me.
7:25: Catch an N/W train.
7:33: Transfer to a 7 train, making sure I'm in the very first car.
7:35: Bolt off the 7 and try to get down the stairs without getting caught in the bottleneck mob to transfer to the G/E/F/V station. It's under construction, so there's only one open stairwell. Thus why I need to be in the first car.
7:40: Get on the G train.
7:54: Get off at Bedford-Nostrand, and go up to wait for the bus. Hopefully catch the B38. If it's not in sight, get the next B44 that goes by to take me a few short blocks to the B52. Either way works; it's pretty much whatever comes first.
Now, I've been having a hard time getting out on time, so a lot of times I end up on the next train and I'm rushing a whole lot. Two days a week I go to my school, and the other two days I go to a park near Bedford-Nostrand, so then I don't need to take the buses.
8:15: First circle. We do a "readiness check" where we go through a little chant to make sure everyone's got all their uniform parts.
8:18: PT, or 'physical training'. Wakes us up, creates a sense of unity...and makes a scene so people take notice and want to know what we're doing. Twice a week we're in a park with our sister school; twice a week we're in the schoolyard with the kids.
8:25: Head to our school from the park, or just head up to our office. Go through announcements for the morning, and have a few minutes of down-time to get ready for the day. Drop off reminders for Bringing Books to Life for the day, and make sure I have enough stickers in my tutoring folder.
8:55: Go down to the 1rst grade classroom I tutor in. Walk around sharpening pencils and telling the kids for the 100th time that no, I don't have any erasers. I never have had erasers, so I don't know why they think today will be different! Help the kids with their morning phonics assignment, and answer half a dozen, "Miss Bridget, she took my pencil! That's mine!".
9:15: Start pull-out with my tutoring kids. There are 7 altogether. Some days I take them in small groups, other days a few are with the English Language Learner specialist and I do one-on-one with the others. We read our book for the week, and, on later days, work on phonics things like finding short "e" words, or words that rhyme. After each 20-minute session, I give the kids stickers if they were well-behaved.
10:15: Last small group done. Check in with the teacher about how they did, both academically and behavior wise, and head upstairs to our office.
10:20: Depending on the day, I may have prep time or a BBL session. During prep I do lesson planning and get together materials for other lessons, or work on securing donated materials for upcoming events, which is my role on the team. Everyone has something they're the point person for; mine is in-kinding. For BBL days, I gather our materials with the other two people on my teamlet, and the three of us head off to a classroom.
10:25: BBL begins. We do a warm-up activity and review what we did last week. Then we do a read aloud from the book. Each week we read some of the story and do an activity related to it. Over the 8 days in the school in a two-week cycle, I have 6 BBL classes during 3rd and 4th periods. The other 10 periods are prep time.
12:00: BBL and/or prep time is over. Start to get ready for the 5th period lunch clubs. I'm in the drama club and the games club. Each run two days a week.
12:15: Head down to the lunch room. Usually the kids are still getting their lunches.
12:25: Bring the group of 5th, 6th, and 7th graders to the extra preschool room, where we hold both the clubs I'm a part of. With my teamlet, oversee sign-in and tell the kids the activity for the day.
12:50: Walk the lunch club kids back to the caf, or to the stairs to go to the middle school on the 3rd floor. Bring club materials back to the office.
1:00: Lunchtime.
2:00: Team circle. Go over what we need to get done before afterschool starts or what we have planned for the afternoon. Do afterschool prep, or do a group roll-out of a new lesson plan for the following week.
2:50: Go downstairs to our Starfish classroom. Set up desks and chairs and put up posters and behavior charts and whatnot. Wait for the kids to finish their "dinner".
3:30: Kids arrive! Mondays and Tuesdays we have "Shooting Stars", for K-2. Soon, we'll be starting Starfish for 3-5 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. They hang up their coats and get out their homework. We help them with homework for half an hour.
4:00: Clean up homework and move kids to the rug.
4:10: Shooting Stars PT! Cutest thing ever. Silly little dance moves to get them moving and ready for the Shooting Stars lesson.
4:20: Introduce the lesson for the day. Shooting Stars is an age-appropriate adaptation of City Year's Starfish program (we're one of only two schools who gets to do it with the little ones! I think everyone should though; they're awesome!) The lessons teach the kids about their community and get them involved in simple service projects. We started later due to some issues with our school, so right now we do Shooting Stars both days. Soon, as we get caught up, we'll start alternating with rec days and after school clubs like arts and crafts.
4:50: Get the kids into their coats and finding their bags. Walk them to the front lobby.
5:00: Pick-up time.
5:15: Start calling parents of the stragglers.
5:30: There's usually one kid left now. Different kid every time, but someone is always late!
5:40: Kids are all gone, we final circle. Go over what went well and what could've been better for the day. Listen to announcements.
5:45 - 6:00: Break for the day. Hopefully get on the bus to head home, but sometimes I have stuff that needs a computer (which we don't have at the school) or things to do the for planning committee I volunteered for, so I head to the main office in Manhattan.
7:00: Get home. Shower. Start making dinner if none of my roommates are home.
7:45: Eat dinner.
8:00: Check my email, maybe read the news online.
8:30: Watch TV with my roommates or play video games, or get done anything that can't wait til the weekend.
10:30: Pack a lunch for the next day. Make sure everything I need is in my backpack. Brush my teeth.
11:00: Go to bed.
If I go to the office after work, I usually don't get home til 8:30 or later. Or if the bus takes forever to come, or if I need to stop for groceries or something...
They keep us busy! But it's fun...the kids are really cute. :D
And now I need to go shovel the slush off my parents' driveway. Eeeeeewwww.