Just Jordan

As I mentioned in my September post, I spent a significant amount of time in the summer revamping my Math 9 course. With an idea and the guidance of a math leader in our system, I created a Mathematician's Workshop.  Every lesson is run over 2 days broken into 4 blocks (Teacher-led, Math by Myself, Math with Someone, and Math Technology).  Teacher-led instruction looks exactly like how you picture math to be taught. I do lots of mini whiteboards to spice it up. What are mini whiteboards?  Every student is given a small whiteboard and dry erase marker. They are then asked a question (like "-3 - 5", during our integer unit, or "Find the surface area of a cube with side length 8" in our square roots and surface area unit). Students then do their work on the board. Sometimes, like in the first question, there is only a answer. Other times, like in the 2nd question, there is some work to be shown. After an appropriate amount of time I ask students to flash m...

I headed back to work last Friday. We had just gotten over the puking flu. Well, everyone but Hugh*. It felt good to be back. I love planning and organizing and I had a couple of days in my new school to do both those things. It was a slow process. Being in a new building has it bumps. I didn't even know where to get Kleenex from, but I feel very confident that I am going love my new colleagues and students. Last week was a real test of my "super" mom abilities. I came down with a nasty cold on my first day back and ended up taking two half days off my full first week because I couldn't even function. If you have seen or talked to me in the last week, you likely commented on my voice. Between my cold, having previously lost my voice (it is more susceptible to injury) and projecting my voice to my students, my vocal cords have thrown in the towel. I really need this week to be better. Today I have felt okay. I also slept in until 7 am napped for 1.5 hours. I am ner...

Last week I got the news that a former teacher, Mrs. Degenstein had passed away. She taught me grade 5. She was wonderful. Mrs. Degenstein was the perfect middle years teacher. She was caring, firm, and liked to laugh. Looking back, I truly have the sense that she enjoyed spending her days with us. I have a number of very vivid memories from Mrs. Degenstein's classroom. I remember her standing at the front of the class with a bucket of water. I was completely flabbergasted when she swung the bucket around in circles and the water stayed in it. There have been a few moments in my adult life where I have thought back to that moment when thinking about something related to inertia. Mrs. Degenstein was a fit, athletic woman. I remember her teaching us what speed walking was and how annoyed many of the boys were that they couldn't go as fast as she could. She told us there was speed walking in the olympics and I honestly thought she should go out for it! Mrs. Degenstein also taug...

I know I may be ahead of myself, but I am already thinking about back to work and it is making me a little crazy. I will be starting semester 2 (Start of Feb.) in a new school and my teaching load has a number of challenges. One of the challenges will be the kind of students that typically take the classes. The majority of the students I expect to see in my classroom in February will not like math, nor will they be motivated to do it. I want all kids to succeed in my classroom, so this will be hard (particularly when some of these students will not care if they are taking away from others'  learning in the process). The other challenge I will be facing is that I haven't taught two of the 4 classes I am scheduled with. I am a planner, so right now this seems overwhelming. I found out about the assignment at the end of August and I am feeling a bit deflated that I wasn't told sooner. . . I am not blaming anyone. It is just how it worked out. . . Doesn't mean it doesn...

I was officially back to work Wednesday (students come on Tuesday). That being said, I have done some work over the summer and actually headed back to my classroom full time last Monday. I am teaching one new course and one of my courses I haven't taught in a couple of years, so it needed some tweeking. I always heard being a new teacher was being about survival. You would be crazy busy, but if you survived you were successful. Being a more experienced teacher (I'm in my 13th year) I feel almost exactly as busy, but survival is no longer the marker of success. As I have learned more about my craft, I want to do more things, so I can be better for students. All the teachers out there can call me crazy, but I love prep! I love getting notes packages ready and creating assignments for students. I love brainstorming (by my introverted self :-) different things I can do in my class to help fill a gap I feel or the students tell me is present. I love sitting at my desk, alone in ...

June has been crazy at our house. It feels like things should be winding down and our time commitments less, but there is so much work that comes from winding down. Things have to give when the craziness hits. I have missed the last two of my #DCMOOC classes. Luckily they are recorded and I can go back and watch them later. Those may be pushed to the summer. I have almost dropped my blog entirely. This is the one that hurts the most. I have so many things to write about but don't have the time or the energy when I do have the time. I recently read an article about enjoying your thirties. One of the things on the list were find a hobby you enjoy and take the time to do it. For me it is writing and documenting our family in videos and photographs. You have been witness to the slack-off in the blog department, but this slack-off has also occurred in the visual documentation of my family. In fact, this morning I was so distraught that I hadn't videotaped Boone in over a month tha...

A few weeks ago I got an email at work inviting me to participate in a MOOC (watch THIS short video to see what one is). At the time I had no idea what a MOOC was, but it was titled "Digital Citizenship" which intrigued me. I also had no idea what digital citizenship meant, but I love technology and although I am not always directly on top of new trends, I am usually only a step or two behind . Deena keeps me in the loop with what's going on! I think technology in the classroom can be amazing, so I wanted to learn more about it. I registered. . . . We had our first class this week. It was really cool. The class was presented by Dave Cormier and you log on to a website and he taught live to a group of over 100 people. We could see Mr. Cormier speak, he toured us around websites, and we also could comment . Mr. Cormier responded to those comments as he spoke (think old MSN messenger). The #DCMOOC is free and you can still register. Go HERE to check it ...

Being back at work is exhausting. I am beat at the end of the day. I would even say I'm considerably more tired than I was running after my two kids at home all day. Being at home can be exhausting in other ways, but I don't think my body dragged as much at the end of the day, nor did my eyes feel as heavy. Now don't start a working mom vs stay at home mom debate after I say this, but being a working mom is harder, FOR ME, than being a stay at home one. I have really had a hard time motivating myself to blog in the evenings. My brain keeps swirling and Facebook seems too interesting (and believe me, it's not that interesting!). . . . Today I was reminded that there are some ways in which grade 9 boys are exactly like 5 year old boys. In fact, I told a couple of them that they were making me feel like I was babysitting and not teaching today! Their new thing is putting garbage in each other's hoodies. Why? Why? Why? I will say that being back at work has been g...

8:29 am At this time in 2 weeks I will be sitting at my desk, waiting for students to arrive. Some may even already be in my classroom. They won't be talking. They will be nervous that someone new is seated at the front of the room. When the bell rings and students flood in I will have my first look at my new day. These will be the teenagers I get to spend my time with while I am away from my favorite 2 little men. Over the past year I have made a note on my phone called "Teaching". From time to time I have jotted down ideas and thoughts on education and things I want to do in my classroom. The very top point is my favorite, "More than anything, care about every student." I remember the article I read that made me write that. In elementary school Calder and Boone will spend more time during the week with their teachers than they will with us. Above all, I want my kids to feel love. Love from us, love from their friends, and love from their teachers. As much ...

The post you need to read is not mine. It is Glennon's over at Momastery.com. Check it out HERE . Such an amazing idea. And so simple. . . I have started thinking more about work. My date to return is March 17. It is getting so close and I am having a whirlwind of emotions surrounding it. Mostly sad emotions, but I'm working on that. I do love my job, so at least if I'm not with my kids, I am doing something I love. I can't imagine how hard it must be for moms coming off maternity leave heading back to jobs they hate. This week I went in to my school. Twice. Once to meet a staff member who was teaching a math class for the first time and was looking for some help and the second time to drop off resources for that teacher and two others who are teaching my classes until I get back. I like to hand over anything I have ever created, hard copy or digital file, if there is someone wants it. I am honoured if co-workers find it usable, whether it be in the form I gave them...

I can't count the number of times a student comes to me in the morning exasperated because they couldn't figure out a math question from their homework the previous night. Once we sit down and look at it it becomes clear that the student understands the content, but they have made a simple math error (like adding 2 + 3 = 6). This leads me straight to my "Math gets harder when we are tired" speech. It isn't just for them - if I am tired at work, I feel cloudy and it becomes hard for me to find their "simple math errors" too. On to Chapter 2 in Nurture Shock by PO Bronson & Ashley Merryman! I am really getting into this book :-)  Chapter 2 is titled, "The Lost Hour" and the content revolves around the sleep our children are getting. The two big things I pulled from it revolve around learning and obesity. Dr. Avi Sadeh did an experiment with 4th and 6th graders. He asked one of the random groups to go to bed one hour earlier and one gro...

Friday, December 21 was stressful for me - and not just because I had nothing to wear to my sister's wedding. The last day of work before Christmas is exhausting. Kids go crazy and there are many loose ends to tie up before heading out the door at 3:30. I had two groups writing an exam and a set of exams to mark from the Thursday. I had wanted to get as much marking done as possible to eliminate the amount of work I had to do over the break. On top of that, I was cleaning my classroom. Not the spring cleaning type - I was clearing everything out, because Friday was my last day of work. So yes, finding an outfit was a MAJOR deal, but so was being done work. I struggled with the decision after speaking to my OBGYN, so I did a bit of writing about it. I'm glad I took the time to sort through my feelings. It made me feel good 2 weeks ago and again today when I re-read it. Thursday, Dec. 13 I am struggling with being done work at the end of December. When I went to ...

Our Christmas break began with a bang. And although on Friday I had a student ask me if the bang was from a shotgun, it wasn't! It was a wedding, though, just not the shotgun variety. My sister, Jessica, got hitched. "She was engaged?" you ask.  On Thursday, December 20, Jes and her boyfriend, Nate, stopped by our house to celebrate their last day of work and to visit my parents who had come in to give me a hand with a few things that Friday (Well, my mom was giving me a hand - Dad was heading to Princess Auto). It was while I had my head in my baking cupboard looking for the Christmas sprinkles that they announced their engagement! I missed the moment, but wasn't surprised! Jes and Nate are a fabulous couple and Hugh and I both knew it was only time before they got married. That time turned out to be less than 24 hours after they announced their engagement to us and when they officially signed the papers (The ceremony was December 21 at 4:30 pm). "Were y...

On my way home from work last Friday, in the midst of an ugly cry, I turned the radio off. I couldn’t listen to report after report of kids and teachers being shot. I have a son who will be starting kindergarten in a couple of years. I have a husband who works at an elementary school. I know what it’s like to lose a child. It was all too much for me. And after reading a few Facebook statuses when I got home, I realized it was all too much for many of us. Hugh and I couldn’t watch the news on the weekend and I could barely get through the paper on Sunday. Avoiding reports on the shootings has been impossible. Monday on my drive home from work, once again, the news brought thoughts of the shooting to the forefront of my mind. For the first time I let myself imagine what it would be like if the shooting had happened in Hugh’s school. For a brief moment, I considered talking to Hugh about what I wanted him to do if that ever did happen. You see, I would want him to lock his office do...

I read the first chapter in the book, Nurture Shock , by PO Bronson and Ashley Merryman, titled "The Inverse Power of Praise". It really has me thinking about the words I use with Calder. The book talks about an experiment that was done by Dr. Carol Dweck. Children were given a puzzle that they were capable of doing. After completing the puzzle, one group were praised for being smart and the other group were praised for working hard. The students were then given a choice for the next task, one being a harder puzzle and the second being a puzzle with a degree of difficulty similar to the first. Ninety percent of the students praised for effort chose the harder puzzle. Most of the kids praised for being smart choice the easy puzzle. I know which puzzle I would hope Calder to choose. . .  After the first two rounds of the experiment, the researchers conducted a third round. Here the test was made extremely difficult so that all the children in the experiment could experience...

Somewhere during 4th period this got put on my door. My first thought was, "Sweet. I love winning." My second thought, "That must be some sort of insult." Hahahahaha! I honestly have scoured my week trying to think of the event that may have caused a student to write this. Save taking a few cell phones (which is VERY typical for me), my week has been totally uneventful.  Darn.  My little message would be WAY funnier if I knew who left it for me!

On Wednesday I start my weekly treatments. It has played out great for me at work as they have hired the same person to cover all of my treatments. It is fantastic for the kids to have consistancy and for me to be able to connect with the same person every week. I really want my students to buy into having a Wednesday teacher. Students don't always work the same, or behave the same when there is a substitute teacher in and I don't want their work to suffer because I have to be gone once a week. Because of this, I made the decision to tell them I would be gone every Wednesday for the rest of the semester, which for them will mean they have a  "Wednesday" teacher - Not a "Wednesday" sub. Since my treatment timeline had been nailed down at the end of August, I had planned on telling my students the Reader's Digest version of what is going on. I had a son, Tripp, who passed away. He died of Neonatal Hemochomotosis (followed by a brief biology lesson on w...

FYI: Friday with my students we watched a video about Spencer West . He has an incredible story and will be speaking in Saskatoon on Tuesday, October 2 at Prairieland Park (Doors open at 6:00, entertainment starts at 6:30, and Spencer West is on at 7:00). There is NO cost to attend this event. If you plan on attending you just need to reserve a seat at Picatic . All those in attendance are asked to bring a non-perishable food donation for the Saskatoon Food Bank. The event is geared toward students in Grades 6 - 12, but I watched the video and there is no doubt in my mind that ANYONE would be inspired and empowered by West's story.

Yesterday was Snap Back Day at school. Have no clue what that means? Neither did I. Snap back is what the kids are calling ball hats that have the plastic snaps at the back. When I went to high school, those hats were just called hats. To accommodate those of us without snap backs, they said if you didn't have one you could wear any kind of hat. Not sure why they didn't just call it hat day. I guess snap back sounds cooler. Not to mention makes teachers feel old! 17 weeks

I can't wait for this week to be over. Let me be more specific. I can't wait until the volleyball tournament I have organized is over! All of us know that planning an event, whether it be a wedding, birthday party, or a dinner party, can be a daunting amount of work. And I know I am not the only one who has planned an event that I can't wait to end. It's not that I won't enjoy the tournament (or the birthday party or family gathering). In fact, more often than not, these events are a fabulous time. There is just something about being responsible for everything going off with out a hitch that can be very nerve wracking. I have a check list. I have checked things off. This is not my first rodeo volleyball tournament. But still, the anxiety about a smoothly run tournament is sitting at the back of my mind. I know that people are flexible and the likelyhood that anything "major" happening is extremely low, but I still can't stop thinking, Did I copy...