Busy Busy
Ack, everything feels much too rushed right now. Too much to do.
School especially has become really hectic. Bunches of events and responsibilities are all arriving before the end of April. Looming ahead of me in about ten days' time is my "every three years" teacher appraisal, where my Vice Principal goes through all my planning and evaluation books and sits in on my classes for the day. Not really concerned about her classroom visits, but I'm plugging away at my paperwork to make sure everything is in order and detailed and filed and typed. Ah, man, I do not like paperwork.
Been working away at class speeches. The students presented them yesterday and today and I have to pick the two students that are going to represent our class in the school speech competition next Thursday. I'm running and moderating the Gr. 4-6 speech competition, so I have to make sure we have judges and certificates and medals and meet with the contestants and set up the gym and all that.
Working on a bunch of school music stuff, too. Today was Harry Potter day in Gr. 3, so as I've done for the last two years I visited Gr. 3 as "Professor Durno of the Musical Arts" to teach them
filkerdave's "Just A Boy Named Harry" and a parody called "Every Flavor Beans" set to the tune of "Yellow Submarine". They thanked me with a wizard card, a chocolate frog and an every flavour bean (black pepper). My classroom novel study of the third HP book starts in two weeks. Must reread the book sometime soon and see if I can set up a movie field trip for June 4th.
Also preparing to direct a group of student singers at a school Mass on Monday and on Wednesday I'll be playing guitar with some other teachers to prepare for a professional development day coming up in May. I've also agreed to prepare a song on guitar to sing at a teacher retirement dinner at the end of May.
Whew, what else? Setting up new reading and science units that I will be appraised on. The science unit is on Structures using K'Nex building materials and the kids loved it last year, so I'm counting on it to run smoothly. The Guided Reading unit is still a fairly new technique, so I'm nervous about being evaluated on it. Pluses- it's cutting edge Gr. 5 literature stuff, so I'm being innovative. Minuses- It's a new program in Gr. 5 this year, so I'm still working my way through the procedure and learning as I go along.
Have to get moving on my Social Studies unit on the three levels of Canadian government before we take the Gr. 5 classes to Queen's Park (provincial government buildings) in Toronto in June. I'm also looking forward to spending a day at the board office at the end of April learning how to use educational software that should make planning new units, like all of these above, much easier.
We also took the school choir off to the "Music Alive" Festival at Trinity United Church in Newmarket yesterday. The kids did a terrific job and they impressed the judge who was reviewing them, earning a gold ranking for their singing. At the end of the festival they sang "A Kyrie For Our Times" along with the other five schools involved that day and the sweet voices and harmonies of six choirs were just amazing to hear.
And, of course, there's "Annie", with the presentation dates just eight weeks away! We're working away like mad on the acting, singing, dancing and all the costuming, sound, prop and set preparations that need to be done. It will be nice to have my appraisal, choir and speeches done at the end of April to put more focus on just "Annie".
Quite enough to keep me out of trouble for the next few months.
School especially has become really hectic. Bunches of events and responsibilities are all arriving before the end of April. Looming ahead of me in about ten days' time is my "every three years" teacher appraisal, where my Vice Principal goes through all my planning and evaluation books and sits in on my classes for the day. Not really concerned about her classroom visits, but I'm plugging away at my paperwork to make sure everything is in order and detailed and filed and typed. Ah, man, I do not like paperwork.
Been working away at class speeches. The students presented them yesterday and today and I have to pick the two students that are going to represent our class in the school speech competition next Thursday. I'm running and moderating the Gr. 4-6 speech competition, so I have to make sure we have judges and certificates and medals and meet with the contestants and set up the gym and all that.
Working on a bunch of school music stuff, too. Today was Harry Potter day in Gr. 3, so as I've done for the last two years I visited Gr. 3 as "Professor Durno of the Musical Arts" to teach them
filkerdave's "Just A Boy Named Harry" and a parody called "Every Flavor Beans" set to the tune of "Yellow Submarine". They thanked me with a wizard card, a chocolate frog and an every flavour bean (black pepper). My classroom novel study of the third HP book starts in two weeks. Must reread the book sometime soon and see if I can set up a movie field trip for June 4th.Also preparing to direct a group of student singers at a school Mass on Monday and on Wednesday I'll be playing guitar with some other teachers to prepare for a professional development day coming up in May. I've also agreed to prepare a song on guitar to sing at a teacher retirement dinner at the end of May.
Whew, what else? Setting up new reading and science units that I will be appraised on. The science unit is on Structures using K'Nex building materials and the kids loved it last year, so I'm counting on it to run smoothly. The Guided Reading unit is still a fairly new technique, so I'm nervous about being evaluated on it. Pluses- it's cutting edge Gr. 5 literature stuff, so I'm being innovative. Minuses- It's a new program in Gr. 5 this year, so I'm still working my way through the procedure and learning as I go along.
Have to get moving on my Social Studies unit on the three levels of Canadian government before we take the Gr. 5 classes to Queen's Park (provincial government buildings) in Toronto in June. I'm also looking forward to spending a day at the board office at the end of April learning how to use educational software that should make planning new units, like all of these above, much easier.
We also took the school choir off to the "Music Alive" Festival at Trinity United Church in Newmarket yesterday. The kids did a terrific job and they impressed the judge who was reviewing them, earning a gold ranking for their singing. At the end of the festival they sang "A Kyrie For Our Times" along with the other five schools involved that day and the sweet voices and harmonies of six choirs were just amazing to hear.
And, of course, there's "Annie", with the presentation dates just eight weeks away! We're working away like mad on the acting, singing, dancing and all the costuming, sound, prop and set preparations that need to be done. It will be nice to have my appraisal, choir and speeches done at the end of April to put more focus on just "Annie".
Quite enough to keep me out of trouble for the next few months.