Saturday, June 21, 2014
It's a Wall! (Sort of)
Anthony and I have been working on getting our basement updated and redone. I am slowly learning how to use the tools and be more handy myself. Yesterday I built my own wall! It's a small one, but the studs are straight! It is the side for our new closet. I was going to do more until I realized that I needed to put a beam across the ceiling to finish the closet. The picture is fuzzy from lighting, but it gives an idea.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Summer is Here!!!
I made it!!! I made it!!! This has been one of the craziest years at work ever! Now that I have some time again, I am hoping to spend more time doing things like blogging. I love reading everyone's blogs and am inspired by some of the photography and blog design Carrie has been sharing.
Today is my official first day of summer. I still have some things to do for work. Today I am supposed to try to finish uploading orchestra videos and email student families as their final project with me. Last year it took awhile for the videos to load, so I am hoping it will go smoother this year now that I know what to expect.
Now that my year is done, it is nice to reflect on making through it. I was working pretty much time and a half since last August. It helped pay for the wedding and Rome and it was a good year to do it, but it definitely takes a toll on you mentally and physically to be so stressed for a long period of time. The hard part about this year is that my jobs overlapped and I was always running late to the next event it seemed like. If I even stopped to go pee, some kid wasn't getting their full services that they were supposed to. Then, when I am pulling them out of their classes, what I am offering and teaching them better have been damn well worth pulling them away from their quality core classes. It was stressful knowing I expected high of my self, but also that I had to prove myself to other teachers and be a part of selling the new reading program and making it worth it's time in our school. We tracked data regularly and if students seen by us weren't making gains, there was some real eye brow raising and questioning about why they weren't improving. Luckily, most of them did make fantastic gains in reading this year! We did an end of the year report showing how much gain the students in the reading program made. I am thinking of one first grade girl I worked with most of the year who jumped HUGE! She made about 40 points growth when only about 16 points is the typical for first grade. What's even better though is now she recognizes herself as a reader and is confident and proud moving into second grade. After one of her spring tests, I showed her how many more words she was reading and she just had this huge grin and said something along the lines, "Yeah! I did so well because I can read now!" Those moments make the craziness of this year worth while.
That was just my morning job. I still taught the two orchestras (before and after school groups), flute lessons (turned Wednesdays into 12 hours days), played in the symphony (we have an awesome season coming up! Check it out and order tickets now if you are interested: http://www.midcolumbiasymphony.org/ , and taught general music in the afternoons. This year general music got challenging because we added so many classes to our schedule. It was back-to-back classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays I had no prep, so I would be with students from basically 7:30 am to 4:30 pm with just a lunch and a break. I'm glad I had those, but having no prep time on those days really killed me. If you have even taught, you know how important those prep times are, especially when you don't have the time before or after school student-free.
So, what did I learn from this year? I learned that I need to find more balance in my life. More money makes things easier and it did pay for my part of the wedding and Rome, but it is not worth it at the expense of my health, time to spend with people, and at the expense of not being my best self at work either. I think I really did a good job for what I was working with, but I know that I could have done even better if I hadn't been spread too thin. Next year I am headed back to my old schedule, which put me just under full-time again. Someday it will be nice to land right in the middle at full-time status. But, for next year that means the before school orchestra, the afternoon general music, and the after school orchestra. I will still be 7:30 - 4:30, but from about 8:30 - 11:15 I will be on unpaid time, so I can use that time to get work done if I need to, but I am actually going to try to use it for my health and go to the gym right next to my first school and Mom's and Dad's house. Maybe Mom and I could work on walking more together as well! We shall see how I do it for sure. I am a little worried about having to pay more for health benefits next year being less than full time. We had a 16% hike last year and they are thinking another 8% this year....I think someone is getting very rich on our behalf. =-( Either way, hopefully I will be individually more healthy and happy as a result! Well, that's enough recap on this last school year. I am going to leave with some pictures of us packing up our temporary school - we called in Camp Lincoln this year because it was like being at camp - and some pictures of our newly remodeled school. I can't wait until they let us in to unpack and see it!
Today is my official first day of summer. I still have some things to do for work. Today I am supposed to try to finish uploading orchestra videos and email student families as their final project with me. Last year it took awhile for the videos to load, so I am hoping it will go smoother this year now that I know what to expect.
Now that my year is done, it is nice to reflect on making through it. I was working pretty much time and a half since last August. It helped pay for the wedding and Rome and it was a good year to do it, but it definitely takes a toll on you mentally and physically to be so stressed for a long period of time. The hard part about this year is that my jobs overlapped and I was always running late to the next event it seemed like. If I even stopped to go pee, some kid wasn't getting their full services that they were supposed to. Then, when I am pulling them out of their classes, what I am offering and teaching them better have been damn well worth pulling them away from their quality core classes. It was stressful knowing I expected high of my self, but also that I had to prove myself to other teachers and be a part of selling the new reading program and making it worth it's time in our school. We tracked data regularly and if students seen by us weren't making gains, there was some real eye brow raising and questioning about why they weren't improving. Luckily, most of them did make fantastic gains in reading this year! We did an end of the year report showing how much gain the students in the reading program made. I am thinking of one first grade girl I worked with most of the year who jumped HUGE! She made about 40 points growth when only about 16 points is the typical for first grade. What's even better though is now she recognizes herself as a reader and is confident and proud moving into second grade. After one of her spring tests, I showed her how many more words she was reading and she just had this huge grin and said something along the lines, "Yeah! I did so well because I can read now!" Those moments make the craziness of this year worth while.
That was just my morning job. I still taught the two orchestras (before and after school groups), flute lessons (turned Wednesdays into 12 hours days), played in the symphony (we have an awesome season coming up! Check it out and order tickets now if you are interested: http://www.midcolumbiasymphony.org/ , and taught general music in the afternoons. This year general music got challenging because we added so many classes to our schedule. It was back-to-back classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays I had no prep, so I would be with students from basically 7:30 am to 4:30 pm with just a lunch and a break. I'm glad I had those, but having no prep time on those days really killed me. If you have even taught, you know how important those prep times are, especially when you don't have the time before or after school student-free.
So, what did I learn from this year? I learned that I need to find more balance in my life. More money makes things easier and it did pay for my part of the wedding and Rome, but it is not worth it at the expense of my health, time to spend with people, and at the expense of not being my best self at work either. I think I really did a good job for what I was working with, but I know that I could have done even better if I hadn't been spread too thin. Next year I am headed back to my old schedule, which put me just under full-time again. Someday it will be nice to land right in the middle at full-time status. But, for next year that means the before school orchestra, the afternoon general music, and the after school orchestra. I will still be 7:30 - 4:30, but from about 8:30 - 11:15 I will be on unpaid time, so I can use that time to get work done if I need to, but I am actually going to try to use it for my health and go to the gym right next to my first school and Mom's and Dad's house. Maybe Mom and I could work on walking more together as well! We shall see how I do it for sure. I am a little worried about having to pay more for health benefits next year being less than full time. We had a 16% hike last year and they are thinking another 8% this year....I think someone is getting very rich on our behalf. =-( Either way, hopefully I will be individually more healthy and happy as a result! Well, that's enough recap on this last school year. I am going to leave with some pictures of us packing up our temporary school - we called in Camp Lincoln this year because it was like being at camp - and some pictures of our newly remodeled school. I can't wait until they let us in to unpack and see it!
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| Our firs time in our building last August. |
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| Music is a Treat! Standards poster I made for the wall. |
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| This year their entry songs included a listening and tongue twister! The tongue twisters were a hit and helped their listening and diction! |
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| Echo Song from April works on matching pitch and is Earth Day themed! |
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| Scout awards and clip boards. |
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| Schedule on the wall to keep me on task! |
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| Points chart - new behavior incentive I tried this year. |
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| Wrapped pallets. |
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| Pallets waiting to be wrapped and sent to our new building. |
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| The gym is filling up! |
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| Empy music room, ready for the next school to have temporary residence while they are remodeled. |
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| More empty room. |
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| Leaving the hallway for the last time. |
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| Can you see the xylophone boxes? |
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| Another music pallet. |
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| Our drums are all wrapped for transport as well! |
Saturday, April 19, 2014
Wedding Flashback
I posted the wedding photos on facebook since it is a good place to share photos with almost everyone, but since some people are having trouble seeing them there, I wanted to add a post here before I forgot. Enjoy!
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