Principals are Good Things

Saturday Relay is tough - but, I figured out how to make it better! I woke up super early (ouch, but worth it) and went on a great 6-miler. Then, for the rest of the day, I was in a good mood, and entitled to snack all day! There were further bread machine joys, and I managed to accomplish the impossible - I finished my thank you notes!

I've earned myself 3 days off from running. It's nice.

I have a lot of work this week. Well, I have the usual amount of work, but only 3 days to do it. I've been coming in early and leaving late, but I think I might make it through the week and get all my work done! I have until 3PM tomorrow until they close the building for Thanksgiving (OMG where has the time gone?).

Today's lesson was rough. I didn't have enough opportunities for the students to get guided practice for a skill (creating a scale on a graph), so I rushed on to Independent Practice. When this happens, students get frustrated, all hands shoot up at once, and then they get distracted and chatty. I can either spend the time putting out small fires, or admit my mistake and reteach the skill. It took me until the last class, but I finally admitted my mistake, accepted that we wouldn't have time for an exit ticket and still have enough time to practice, and redesigned the lesson. It helped that our principal fellow (like my IL last year, a sort of North Star expert principal-in-training) was there (can you believe that I actually enjoy having principal-folk in my classroom? My, how things have changed...). This class, which is my tough one, did very well, and we didn't finish Independent Practice, or the Exit Ticket, but they learned the skill, which is really what is important.

Back in detention. It's running smoothly - and there's only 30 minutes left. I have no run tonight (woot! but also lame!), so instead, I'm going out for Thai food with some friends. It don't get any better than this. 1 day until Thanksgiving break! This time tomorrow, I will be in the swimming pool. Or, home afterwards, drinking some of that delicious new port we bought.