"Quiero saber que pasa durante un día típico. Que enseñas por la mañana? Por la tarde? Qué y con quién almuerzas? Te gusta tu ropa profesional? Te duelen tus pies? Tienes zapatos confortables y de moda? Los existen? jaja!"
It's probably against "blogging rules," but I am re-using Brittany's words to continue this post, filling in a few more details about my life teaching. For the sake of clarification, I'll translate her words:
"I want to know what happens during a typical day. What do you teach in the morning? In the afternoon? What and with whom do you eat lunch? Do you like your professional clothing? Do your feet hurt? Do you have comfortable yet fashionable shoes? Do they exist? haha!"
As I already addressed the clothing dilemmas that I experience teaching, I'll turn to the "typical day" part of Brittany's question. Per usual SG style, this is far too long of a blog post. Since I like writing every detail, I can't promise a change of heart (or writing style).
One of the things I love most about my job this year is the diversity of what I get to do every day. It is unheard of for a teacher to have Pre-K through 7th grade students in a mix of three subjects. Yet, I love it. I doubt that I will ever again have such an eclectic schedule.
My day starts sometime between 5:15am and 6:15am, depending if I go on a run, have my quiet time, or oversleep my alarm. In a perfect world, I would spring out of bed and directly into my running clothes to start the day. Alas, however, the world is not perfect, and the beautiful cool weather has become a deterrent for my morning run. Oh the irony. Run or not, I am downstairs by 7am where my sweet mom has started making my lunch. I am off to school by 7:15, a trip which usually includes a morning call to or from Annabelle, my cousin teaching high school English in Tulsa with Teach for America. My drive is relatively smooth as I head opposite traffic, and my biggest concern is how bright the sun will be in my eyes on the middle leg of my drive.
Once at school, I begin the flurry of activity, usually with about 30 minutes of preparation time before kids start arriving. Morning activities are relatively diverse, ranging from unpacking my teacher cart, to finishing paperwork, copying (or attempting to copy on our struggling copiers), last minute preparation, catching up students on their work, talking with the other teachers, fixing the jammed copier, stapling and hole-punching, setting up for Chapel on Wednesdays, or dealing with some other unexpected situation. Most mornings, I stop by Mr. Kouba's room, where my 6th and 7th graders get ready for Bible--I love these students, and it is fun for me to see them in the morning.
As I never teach first period, I continue with preparations for the day and never-ending lesson planning. Wednesday and Friday mornings are full with 5th grade Latin and 3rd/4th grade Latin. I love teaching Latin, in part because I like the language but also because the students are ever-excited to be learning it. 5th grade Latin is using a book called "Minimus," which looks at a family in Vindolanda (Roman Britain, up by Hadrian's Wall). We are following Minimus, the mouse, as he leads us through the lives of Flavius, Lepidina, Iulius, Flavia, Rufus and their slaves, Corinthus, Candidus, and Pandora. I am preparing an "activity book" for each chapter, including a variety of hands-on activities for the kids that supplement our reading in Latin, culture lessons, vocabulary, grammar lessons, and class discussion. In 3rd/4th grade Latin, I have been basing my lesson plans on Song School Latin, which is basically a musical approach to Latin. Each lesson has a song to help remember the 4-ish vocabulary words. We sing the songs, do activity pages, act, play games, write with chalk outside, etc. My job is basically to find as many creative ways as possible to teach vocabulary. I end both 3rd/4th and 5th grade Latin most days by reading from Detectives in Togas, a mystery novel set in ancient Rome. In fact, I am reading from the copy of the book that I read as a 5th grader at TCA--who knew that book would serve me so well? 3rd/4th grade really loves the book because they have each been assigned a various character, so it is their job to "act out" that character as I'm reading.
Instead of Latin on Tuesday mornings, I meet with Jody, my head of school. My time with her is an incredible blessing because of her wisdom, advice, and encouragement. Thursday mornings are full of copying and preparations for the following week.
At 11am each day, I teach 6th/7th grade history. I am excited to see my Middle School kids each day--even though I love each one of my classes and students, I am most comfortable with these older students. They are fun, interested and continually make me laugh. As with all of my classes, we are much more "in a routine," and I am enjoying the structure and order of each class period. They start class with 5 minutes of "Daily Geography Practice," where they look at the same map all week and answer around two questions/day. We then move to our lesson. At the end of class, the kids take out their "student planners" (proud teacher moment: I designed and made these planners--they are copyrighted with my name on each page) and write down homework for the night. It is nice to have a system.
Teaching history: I have found making packets to be extremely useful for several reasons: the kids have a tendency to lose random papers, it's nice to have an entire unit virtually planned before beginning it, it is easier to get all of the kids on the same page, and I feel more organized. In history, I am not "textbook based," which means that I am using a ton of different resources and information to create each unit. I am continually trying to find fun yet productive activities to help the kids learn. My kids are on the dividing line of elementary/secondary education, which means that I need to be providing them with hands-on, fun activities even as I move them toward more traditional schoolwork. It is a difficult balance, but I am having fun figuring it out.
After history, we've made it to LUNCH! I love this time of day as I sit around and enjoy time with the other teachers. Honestly, if I ever doubted the fact that I'm 22 going on 47, lunchtime reminds me that I am indeed living in the wrong generation. I absolutely love the other teachers and am incredibly grateful for their friendships. We laugh, share stories, talk about families, and relax together for 30 minutes in the middle of the day. Every other week, we have a Bible study on Tuesday at lunch, a nice break as well.
Afternoons have a mix of Pre-K, 1st, and 2nd grade Spanish as well as 6th/7th Latin and Spanish Immersion. We just finished learning the days of the week in Spanish, and all of the kids made a booklet with writing (I wrote for Pre-K) and drawings about what they do on each day. They ended up being pretty cute :) For Spanish, I plan the units by coming up with a list of vocabulary words that we are going learn as well as a list of different activities that focus on different learning styles (aka differentiated instruction and activities). We play with play-dough, draw, play games outside, make crafts, sing, read stories, do puppet shows, act out the words, etc. 1st and 2nd grade are learning Psalm 23 in Spanish (we call it "El Señor"), which has been really fun, both for me and the kids. We have motions and practice it in different ways (loud voices, soft voices, mini motions, big motions, jumping up and down, standing on one foot, with our eyes closed, in singing voices, etc.). They know quite a bit so far--I love hearing them say it.
On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I take the 6th/7th graders outside for recess for 15-20 minutes, something I added when they could not sit still in the afternoon with me. Recess, of course, is a highlight. I actually enjoy playing with them too. I've won knockout a few times, and I love passing the volleyball. Getting in touch with my natural athleticism... haha. Sometimes, I have them run a couple of "laps" around the parking lot to get out some extra energy.
Afterwards, I teach either Latin or Spanish Immersion. Usually Spanish Immersion (Fridays) continues outside with some singing ("Cuando grupo juega," "Haciendo melodias," or World Cup Spanish songs) or "Pato, pato, ganso" (duck, duck, goose) before we head inside to do some grammar, vocab, reading--all in Spanish of course. Latin is usually about 30 minutes long, and we have recently started with the Cambridge Latin Course stage 1, where we have met Caecilius and his family. Since we only have Latin twice a week, we are moving very slowly through the material. Most fun recent activities: watching the Newsies song "Seize the Day" when learning about "Carpe diem" and creating our own "Cave" (Beware of...) signs from magazine clippings after learning that "Cave canem" means "Beware of dog."
At the end of the day: car lines. Oh the details of school. My "spot" is outside, putting kids in their cars. I like that last goodbye with them as they get passed off to their parents. It's also a good time for the quick parent hello, especially since I enjoy so many of the parents.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, I run "GIG" (Growing in Grace After-School Care) from 3:00-6:00. We have snack and do homework time first (including play-dough, games, puzzles, and reading to Lauren, the Pre-K student). Afterwards, we either play outside, in the tech lab, or games inside. Between after-school care and recess, I am definitely becoming quite the basketball player :) haha.
Even without after-school care, I usually stay around school until 6pm-ish on Wednesday and Thursday, lesson planning, organizing, grading, and trying to stay a couple days ahead in each of my classes. We have fun at teachers after school, too. Again, I love their company.
Home again, home again where my mom is usually preparing dinner for the three of us. It's nice to end the day with both parents and Sally for company. We do "day updates" during dinner, and I usually do a good bit of the clean-up. Mom helps me by looking over some of my unit plans and tests for history--it is good to have someone else who can help me process. The rest of the evening is more school prep before I head upstairs to go to bed. I've been reading a little bit before going to sleep, which takes away from some sleep time, but I enjoy it nonetheless.
Because I am certain that I just bored any potential reader to tears, I will stop writing (although I obviously have more to say). All in all, I do love my job and love the things that I get to do every day. The Lord has truly provided for me, and for that I am so grateful!
