We're planning to go to niece Ashley's graduation on Saturday in Dubuque. We are going Friday night to stay over, perhaps take in a movie or something as we won't have to get up early if we're already there. I can't believe she's graduating already. Next it will be Caitlyn and Ben! I've not gotten the chance to see all of Lynne's pictures of Italy yet, but saw her a week ago after she ran her 5K. She wasn't even breathing that hard! Sounds as if everyone had a great time at Tulip Time. School continues to wind down, lots of field trips messing up my schedule. The boss is supposed to come observe me teaching my math group this afternoon and tomorrow with a fire drill right in the middle of tomorrow's lesson. My evaluation never bothers me too much, but I would like to look like I know what I'm doing!

Counting down

I try not to do this, but something about this year and this time of year has made me count how many days of school are left. I usually love my job, and want to be here, but... there are 11 days of bus duty left, 10 more days of teaching the before and after school reading program, about 29 days of actual school and tons of reports and meetings left.

Yesterday afternoon at a meeting with the fourth grade teachers, we talked about the mandated changes for next year. No one sounded very postitive - that will make the job go easier, huh? I guess we feel as if we weren't let in on the planning stage to give our ideas and now we're stuck. Our administrator has been having his own problems, I guess. He was to observe me teaching on Monday. I was introducing a new theme in reading and a new story and had really planned some good activities to grab the student's attention and get them motivated. 45 minutes of my lesson had gone on before he came in. He apologized over and over, but what do you say? So, he came to observe me in another class - I was basically doing the same kinds of things, but had chosen the first class for him to observe because of the way the kids react - oh, well, I know he's not going to fire me!

And, it's raining again!

Can't wait

I can't wait to get home today! There should be a telescope on my porch. You know we save Coke reward points and after saving a long time decided to redeem them for a telescope. The neighbors are safe no more!! No, we really are both interested in space and planets and stars and now we will be waiting for clear nights so we can go out in the country a bit away from "city" lights so we can use the new toy.
Parent conferences are next week - lots of paper work still to do, but I still have my after school reading group to work with today, then it will be 5:00 and the inclination will be gone! I was here by 6:00 this morning, so maybe I've done my part today!

April Fool's

I hope everyone survived the jokes and tricks from yesterday. I did not have one student tell me there was a spider on me, or my shoe was untied! Behavior was bizarre though, for some odd reason. There were playground fights, one student used the playground for a bathroom, several ran away. Really strange and no one can figure the reason.
Monday I went on a field trip with my two fourth grades to the Science Center of Iowa. One of the teachers gets carsick so had to be in the front of the bus. The other is to give birth in two weeks, so she rode in the front of the bus, leaving me to be the heavy from the back of the bus. Parent chaperones often don't tell people to sit down and be quiet! In all, it was a good trip. The kids behaved well, the IMAX movie was spectacular (we saw Roving Mars) and all the exhibits worked. That is not always true. The only down was that we couldn't be on TV for the noon weather, the weather people stayed in the studio because of fronts pushing across the state.
As we start to count down the days left to go to school, we are looking at next year's calendar. Seems like we usually pick a calendar earlier - but there are some interesting choices - we usually have parent conferences in the spring 3 half days, but looks like they are changing that to 2 half days. That says to me we aren't going to see all the parents, maybe invitation only? It will be interesting!

Happy Easter

After church today we made the trip to my little sister's home. Its a long trip but it was so nice to see family and catch up with them a little. AND we had great food. It was interesting to drive through blinding snow and come out in a mile to sunshine. Is there such a thing a snowbow? School starts up again tomorrow and I have to say though I enjoyed the time off, I missed the kids!

vacation is coming!

Two more days until spring break! When the new trimester started at the beginning of the month our district decided to try something new instead of making up all the snow days in June. Each day we start 10 minutes earlier and then stay 15 minutes longer in the afternoon. If we diligently follow this policy, we will make up 4 snow days. It has taken some adjustment but seems to be working. Three days a week I am teaching or responsible for kids from 7:10 to 5:00.
I have a few things lined up for break, but not much. I'm supposed to give blood on Monday and we have a band concert at Penn. Thursday night church. Anybody need anything done in between?

Snow day number 9

I had a day off again yesterday. It really is icy out on the county roads. Today buses are running where possible. Whatever that means. I didn't get a whole lot done, my favorite sewing machine is sick. I cleaned up construction messes (again) and tried to do laundry. Just as I was starting the second load the guys came and turned off the water. I now have running water with pressure at all sinks. Even hot! My downstairs bathroom is fully functional even if it is not fully decorated. With Greg's help we will work on putting the wall back.
The excitement of the day so far? Dan was parked behind me in the driveway but couldn't back up because of the ice. Which of course meant I couldn't back up either. A few minutes of ice melt under the tires took care of it.