Like a Kangaroo on Steroids

Last week was the first full week of school. It included the introduction to our first major units of study in the school year, a lot of troubleshooting to get kids on chrome books, and my parent meeting for the fifth grade outdoor environmental education trip back to back with curriculum night. It was an exhausting week to be sure, but one that reminded me of why I'm in this profession.

Checking out the Learner Profile Attributes during a reflection.

The kids were excited to see photos of me participating in the DIG Field School's 2015 teacher field trip and see me with a partially excavated hadrasour scapula. It was easy to get them excited about investigating the theory of continental drift with that introduction. After I told them the story of Alfred Wegener cutting up an atlas to see if his observation of the continents looking like puzzle pieces that would match up where the fossil record matched up across oceans, they were ready to try it themselves, only using photocopied maps rather than actual atlases.

2015 DIG Field School

Cutting out Continents

Next week we will begin our first round of MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing of the school year. The MAP test is new to my school and new to me, but is supposed to create a personalized testing experience for each student based on their answers as they progress through the assessment. Then it will give the student and me immediate feedback about where they are and what they are ready to learn next. We will give the test three times a year, and use it to measure student growth as well as drive individualized instructional decisions. It all sounds like it will be great - if we can get our wireless set up to handle the demand of more than one class testing at the same time while the students and teachers are getting used to a brand new testing system.

Lots of collaboration and peer helping going on.

Thursday brought my annual parent meeting for the fifth grade Outdoor Environmental Education trip to Camp Seymour. Since I am going earlier than I have ever gone in the school year before, my meeting was earlier than it has ever been before, and ended up being scheduled for the same night as the school's curriculum night. I was in my school building for 14 hours straight on Thursday, but was able to pull off two enthusiastic presentations with the help of an evening cup of coffee and the letters my students wrote to their parents thanking them for coming to the meetings. One in particular made my day with a student's awesome simile and thoughts on the first nine days of being in my homeroom.

Like a Kangaroo on Steroids.