I am as bad as the kids are ~ I do not want summer to end!!

One of these days I am going to find a nice tropical island that needs an English teacher!

Wake up!!

Back to Reality!!

Tomorrow is an in-service day for the teachers and the students arrive on Wednesday. I am excited and nervous (mainly nervous about the alarm and actually waking up on time)!!

Classroom management/discipline is not my strong suit. I am currently working on writing up classroom routines for breakfast, lunch, and bathroom. Breakfast and lunch are served in the classroom and I have already figured out how those routines will work but I am still working on the bathroom policy.

I will be more organized and more efficient this school year! I learned a lot last year and throughout the summer and now it is time to put it all into practice.

~newman out

For as long as I can remember the end of summer and the beginning of school has always been a little stressful. I always worried so much about what people would think of me. I even worried if my friends would still like me…I did not have the best self esteem. However, I am a grown woman and I am very comfortable in my own skin and I am confident in my teaching abilities…at least most of the time. I am starting my 3rd year teaching and I know that I will always be trying to learn new things to help in my classes.

I have spent a lot of time this summer writing down ideas/notes for this school year. I want to be more disciplined and more organized. I have written my rules on my class blog < http://englishisgr8.edublogs.org/ > and I agonized over how to write my rules. I want to be fair but I want to establish a respectful routine (it is almost embarassing to admit but discipline is not my strongest ability in the classroom).  I think I have a good start!

I want to establish a homework routine right from the get-go but I want to start off slow. I am thinking about doing a “Get to Know Me” type of activity. I found an activity where you give the kids a paper bag and they put 3-5 items in the bag that describes the student. I was thinking about giving my students the bag on our first day (a Wednesday) and on Friday (due date) I will have the students share their items or have them write a short story about the items they placed in their bags.

I think this activity is a great way to get my students doing homework from day one but I think my students will think it is silly. Silly is another angle I am hoping to play on. I teach alternative high school and my students are 13-18. Maybe I will just do this one with my younger classes..

That is what I am gonna do ~ the older kids will have a writing assignment of some sort!

Thank you for listening as I think some things through!

~Newman

I am in denial!

Not quite denial but I am a bit bummed about school starting. I totally love my students and I love my school! I am just not ready for summer to end! I have had so much fun hanging out with friends and my husband & daughter.  I do not want it to end!

Unfortunately, reality is calling!!

I am a bit nervous about back to school!

This is my “tenure year” ~~> this year plus one day next year and I get tenure. I don’t know why but this has me freaking out a bit.

I have decided to come back to blogging here so that I have a place to get my nerves, fears, frustrations and hopefully successes.

I wish I wasn’t so worried but I am. I have been planning and making notes for lessons and behavioral management “stuff” and will slowly be writing out my lesson plans for the first month.

This is a very choppy post but I am getting back in the swing of things here!

~Newman