My Favorite Things

So... Technically this post is late, so in order to make it up to you, I decided to do a sort of combo of last week's and this week's assignment, but seriously people, my life is crazy! First of all, I am a teacher, I play in two symphony orchestras, I have ridiculous food allergies so I have to cook most of what I eat from scratch, and I attempt to exercise when possible. Let me just show you what my week has been like (kinda like "a day in the life" from last week)... BUT, I will highlight my favorites (from this week) along the way :)

Monday: Day off - Woo! I can "catch up," right? Wake up, exercise, shower, shove food in my face while I grade, cook, do a TON of laundry, and try to clean up the kitchen after my cooking escapades. At 5:30 I head out so I can drive an hour to my symphony rehearsal which gets out early (yay!) at 9:30pm, drive an hour home, see hubby for like 5 minutes, get all my crap materials for the week gathered at the door, go to bed around 11:30pm

Favorite Thing: Car audio jack for my phone so I can listen to podcasts (some teacher-y stuff, radio lab, cooking shows...). Keeps me alert when I put hours in on the road. And I learn cool stuff :)

Tuesday: Teach all day (duh), help kids at lunch and after school, shoo said kids out around 4:30 so I can drive to the gym, exercise for an hour, go home, cook dinner (I made pressure cooker braised pork short ribs, cut up a pineapple to throw on at the end, and roasted some broccoli), go to target with my hubby since he is leaving tomorrow for a big conference and this might be the only time I see him this week, prep my lunch, clothes, trombone, etc. and get ready for bed (I think I made it in bed before midnight, but I'm not really sure...)

Favorite Thing: Instant Pot! I am not kidding you - this thing is AMAZING. My hubby got it for me for my birthday and I use it probably twice a week. If you are busy and trying to still eat at home, this is a life saver. If you have food issues like me and can't eat out, well... just go get one. Like now. My page will still be here for you to read once you do ;)

Wednesday:  Head to school for a minimum day (we have staff meetings on Wednesdays). This sounds like it should be easier since classes are shorter, but we have ALL our classes (8 periods) in a row (until 12:50) then go to lunch at the end of all that, so I am always exhausted. Then after lunch (1:45) we went to a staff meeting that didn't get out until 5 or 10 minutes to 4pm, so I rushed back to my room to grab my stuff and had to jump in my car to drive to symphony rehearsal again. This time, we didn't get out early, so I didn't make it home until 11pm. I then had to make my lunch for the next day (Greek salad with marinated roast beef), get ready for bed, etc... Didn't see my bed until after midnight this time :-/

Favorite Thing: iPads in the classroom. When I found out my new school site was going 1-to-1 iPads this year, I was actually pretty nervous. I've heard plenty of stories about the challenges that arise in these situations, so I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Now, I am so grateful. After having to jump in my car and leave school after that meeting, there was no way I would have copies for the following day, and the copy machine is ALWAYS busy in the morning. Now I can send and track assignments digitally, so no copies means a little more sleep. By the way, if you haven't checked out Desmos yet and you are teaching math, go now. The classroom activities are especially cool, and you can edit or create your own. SO COOL! Again... I'll wait :)

Thursday: By now, I am feeling fatigued. I love my sleep and I have had a LOT of days in a row where I'm running on a deficit. I didn't think I was in a bad mood or anything, but a number of my students asked me if I was okay/upset/having a bad day - I must've looked like hell. LOL! We had an all 8th-grade meeting in the morning to discuss rolling out iPads, then went back to have class during the rest of the day. I had kids working in my room during lunch, and a number asked to stay after school again, so I said that was fine. A couple of the girls who asked to work with me came in after school and I helped them with classwork and homework, but lost track of time and had to shoo them out at 4pm so I could race back to town to teach trombone lessons (4:15 - 6:30 pm). Then, I had a moment where I considered going to the gym, but decided that sounded too exhausting and went home to cook dinner and get things ready for tomorrow. I actually made it into bed just a little after 10pm. SUCCESS!!!

Favorite Thing: Working with students 1-on-1 or in small groups. I have tutored people in various subjects since I was in 4th grade, which is probably why I fell into teaching, but there is just something special about the interactions you have and connections you make with students when there isn't a whole room full off them. One of the reasons I lost track of time and had to scramble out was because, even though we were working on past-due work (a frustration for me) and a subject that wasn't the students' favorite (a frustration to them), we were actually having fun. We wound up having a semi-deep life lesson conversation at one point, and one of the girls came back and told me how she went home all excited and talked to her mom about it. Pretty sure that's never happened with ANYthing I have ever said during class!

Friday: Finally! Teach teach teach, help kids, pack up all my stuff to grade, try to clean off at least a corner of my desk so it isn't a total disaster, and head off to symphony rehearsal again. Back home by 11, cart in all my stuff from the car (it took me two trips), get ready for bed, and crash.

Favorite Thing: Objectives/Standards Based Grading. I FINALLY could switch my grading system this year (at a new site and after pitching my principal, he said go for it!). While I have had a few newbie-type issues (educating kids and parents about it in a way that makes sense to them, progress reports always look way worse than they would if I were grading assignments, the fact that I can't easily change grades from past grading periods when kids do learn the skills that were a part of that grading period, etc), overall this has made a huge impact on my ability to provide feedback to students. Since I don't grade every paper, I can spend that time on giving feedback instead. Of course there are some kids who don't like the fact that their grade is entirely dependent on their ability to perform or produce with quality, but I feel like I am able to track students' knowledge and needs much more easily :)

Saturday: Get up, go to the gym, head to Costco, back home, eat leftovers because Costco took longer than planned, jump in the shower, try to make myself look at least passably nice, drive back to symphony rehearsal, eat dinner, then back to play the concert. The piano soloist was amazing, by the way. There was a reception afterwards at the ONE place where I can actually eat the food for the reception, but I was so tired that I decided to just hit the road. Home around 11. I tried to just crash but I could NOT sleep. I hate when my husband is gone, especially this long. For some reason, even though I have the WHOLE bed to myself and I can be in whatever position I want and hog all the blankets, I have a really hard time sleeping. I'm pretty sure the last time I frustratedly tossed and turned and looked at what time it was, it was around 1:45am. Ugh...

Favorite Thing: MTBoS. I KNOW that, with the fact that I now have ONE day (tomorrow) to grade, plan, cook a ton of food, do laundry, blog, and FINALLY see my hubby, there is no way that I could actually make awesome engaging lessons for the whole week. I have an outlined idea of what I'm doing for the week as well as an activity for Monday, but the rest of the details will be filled in based on ideas that I shamelessly steal from the army of fantastic and generous teachers who digitally enrich my life. Thank you for sharing ideas, uploading resources, and making me think about, question, and improve what I do every day. :)

On that note... if YOU have any favorites that have to do with radical expressions, rational/irrational numbers, etc. please let me know in the comments so I can go steal those too since that is where we are heading next :)