Monday - I'm back at school after a fantastic weekend in Amsterdam with my mom and my aunt. I'm also into my second week of teaching a Grade 10 class which I'm doing in the absence of my Head of Department. It's different. I have never taught "big" kids so it's challenging for me to use a different skill set, personality and behaviour management techniques with them; it'll take some getting used to! They're currently teaching the lessons though and I'm meant to assess them with MYP Criteria C & D which is also a whole new ballgame for me to wrap my head around as well. I also had a lesson observation from my principal (which didn't go as well as I'd hoped...it never does in these situations! :P) and I go on teaching my normal scheduled classes. It's also my mom's and aunt's last night in Germany so I get home from school as soon as I can to spend their last hours here with them.
Tuesday - I don't go to school and my mom and aunt head off to Canada. It's a bittersweet goodbye as I wish I could hold on to my mom for just one more day but unfortunately, I can't. It also happens to be the first sick day I take off from school so I wish she could be home to nurse me back to myself again, but that's not how fate has played its cards.
Wednesday - I'm back at school again and have to say, the weather's been pretty spectacular and I'm absolutely loving that I get to be outside with my PE classes! I have a meeting with my principal to go over the observation I had on Monday and I learn that I didn't do as badly as I had thought...which is usually the case! Does anyone not work themselves up for these sort of things? Or psych themselves up during the observation itself? I'd rather have a camera on me the whole time (it happened in Korea!) instead of knowing that someone's sitting and watching. We had our monthly Junior School staff meeting until 5pm where we discussed the Kath Murdoch workshop we had before the Spring Break. During the meeting, we're told to come up with an action plan with our team (my team being the single subject teachers - IT, Library, Art, Music and me as the PE rep) that will put to use inquiry strategies that we learned from Kath while she was here. We discuss this in detail and decide that the best way to move through the inquiry cycle in our subjects, would be to take ownership, kick-off, guide and wrap-up an entire unit of inquiry in our subject area and have the homeroom teachers feed into us, instead of the other way around; this is how PYP should work, right!? We leave our meeting feeling empowered and excited to make a change and to raise the status of our subjects (I'll keep you posted!) and head home to an awkwardly empty apartment.
Thursday - It's a long day of teaching but I get to be outside again...and I am one day less pale! After school, I coach my middle school girls soccer team in practice until 6 and then I head over to watch the Junior School Choir and Drama Performance until 8. I get home, sit down, read a bit of a book I bought called "Coaching Girls' Soccer Successfully" and then I go to bed.
Friday - It's been a while since I've had a Friday at school and it's a pretty laid-back day for me. I taught my classes, we had a department meeting, I organized myself for next week...OH, and we had the most amazing lunch of the year - the Parent Appreciation Lunch! The parents all made some delicious food and served it to us, as they do once a year, and it was just fabulous. Amazing. Delicious. Awesome. It's the best day to be at school...well, at least for lunch! I also practised my basketball skills with the intern in our department and I kicked his butt at a game of 21; I scored a 3 pointer on my first attempt which will likely never happen again in my life. I decided after the teacher-student basketball game that I would work on my skills (especially shooting) because I do enjoy basketball after having hated it growing up thanks to a mean coach I had in middle school. After school, I meet a couple of colleagues at the lake for a drink, realize there's only 40 days of school left and thus, 40 days left with some amazing people that I work with who are moving on. Time flies...
Saturday - I get up, get some morning shopping done and then head up to school to coach my first soccer game of the season. We lose the game 0-7 and I leave feeling pretty deflated but motivated to make the girls work hard in the next week...and optimistic that our game on Monday won't be as bad a result! We play in a German league where the German teams practice throughout the winter; we do not as there are other sports going on in the gyms so there's no space available for practices. I come home, have an overdue long chat with my fiance and then meet up with some colleagues to celebrate the birthday of one of them. I also sit and itch at my legs and start to think I may have tick bites - there is a downside of being outside in the spring grass! Damnit!
Sunday - I am working on a photo album book for my mom and aunt with photos from our trip. This was originally meant to be a Mother's Day present for my mom but I figured that my aunt would appreciate it too as she forgot her camera somewhere...probably the airport. Great! I've invested a solid five hours on the project so far (I'm using Comic Life which I love) so I'll post the final product when I finish it! Comic Life is a great application to use for newsletters or anything, really! I did a really neat Flat Stanley project for one of my best friend's at home using Comic Life and she (and her students) loved it. I've attached it as individual .jpeg files for your viewing pleasure...it's projects like these that keep me connected to (or missing!) life as a classroom teacher. I also baked a carrot cake for my department which I'll attempt to ride to school with in the morning, while making a pit stop at the doctor to check out my nasty 2-week old bug bites that are not going away!
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend! :)
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