On to Day 3!

I need to go to bed right now, but I wanted to write a quick post to say how wonderful my students are! I was just reading through all of their work and I came across something that I cannot keep to my self. Today my homeroom had a "do now" to write about "what makes a great teacher?" One of them (even though my students will always be anonymous I actually don't know who this one is, because I forgot to have them put their names on it...) finished early so she/he got to write about a favorite teacher that they've had. Here is what she/he wrote:

"My Favorite teacher"

My favorite teacher is Ms. (my last name, trying to be anonymous) she's always enthusiastic and she cares about us a lot. She doesn't fuss a lot and she always giving us positive thoughts. She believes in us.

What a compliment! That last sentence is exactly what I wanted students to say about me. I will take this with me forever.

Ok off to bed for my 5:30 wake up.

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

As the title says tomorrow is the big day! I am so excited to meet my students. I've planned planned planned but I don't think that anything can quite prepare me for tomorrow. Those of you who know me well, I am sure are rolling your eyes upon reading this. I feel like I've gone over just about everything, used my risk management skills to plan around any potential issues, but I still feel like I am missing things.

Tomorrow is mostly procedural and getting to know my students. They will get a tour of the school, fill out a facebook page, talk about the syllabus and our classroom systems. I can't wait to hear about my students. I am on the S.I.O.P. hall (more on what this means later) so I have all of the English Language Learners, and they are from so many nationalities. I am going to learn so much this year.

Can't wait to tell you all about tomorrow. Check back soon.

Somehow a whole week has gone by, and one of my favorite days of the week has returned. I am so enjoying my early morning Saturdays. Todays visit to the farmers market was fruitful as always, but I will spare you pictures this time around. I did buy some hot german dill pickles that are delicious! Not quite like Dad's but these could be a competitor.

This week was my first week of teacher workdays at school. My school is going through some extreme changes so the whole staff needs training until school starts to make sure that everyone is on board. We have a staff of about 90 people at our school, which is absolutely overwhelming to me considering that I graduated high school with less people than that. I will probably have about 90 students! Which is about 22-23 a class. We will see if that is the case.

Our days have been long but each day I feel inspired and relevant. I finally feel like I am going to be doing something that will make a difference in the world. For those of you who knew me in high school this was something that I was so passionate about and really focused on, but I think over my college years I kind of lost sight of this. On Thursday evening we had an open house and I got to meet about half of my students and their parents. I am on the team that is teaching the students with limited english proficiency so I have an extremely diverse mix of students! I did have a terrible moment though when I was trying to communicate with a parent and I couldn't because we did not speak the same language. She asked me through her son "how will I communicate with you during conferences." My only answer was "I will make it work, I promise." Luckily I found out that there are translators available in the school, and software on the computer that I can use to translate letters I send home to parents. I think I may also try to learn spanish on my commute to school via podcast.

My students were all so bright, nervous, and excited. I asked one boy to tell me how he learns best, and he looked at me and said "don't seat me near my friends." This was an 11-12 year old telling me this! What a smart boy I can't wait to have him in my class. The parents were so involved and eager to tell me about their kids as well, I think that they have just been waiting for someone to listen. From these conversations I have learned so much already.

I have a ton to do this weekend, as I finish up classroom decorating (I bought some hilarious animal posters from the dollar store), and I plan for my first few days, but meeting these students on Thursday really makes it all worth it. The staff at my school is incredible as well. I get chill bumps just thinking about how dedicated each person is, and how willing to teach and learn from each other we all are. My first day is Wednesday! I cannot wait to give you a full report. Look out for my classroom blog in the coming weeks as well, my students will be blogging about the life of a 6th grader.

Saturday

Today my friends and I went off to the farmers market for the second week in a row. We found lots of yummy unique veggies, and I bought this beautiful bouquet for only $7! Below is an image of the market to give you all a sense of what it looks like.

I finished up in my classroom yesterday for the most part. I will add stuff as my students create exemplary work!
This is our big goal, not sure I am going to keep that, because it doesn't look great there.

The bulletin boards! I am quite proud of these. We will put vocab words that we master on the word wall.

And here is the calendar reinvented, and looking much better.

Last night 7 friends and I had one of our first potlucks! We all made delicious food and ate together before heading over to the all corps social. It was a really nice event and we hope to make it a weekly get together.

This weekend I am working on a project. I picked up an antique nightstand for about $25 and some paint and sandpaper and I am now in the process of painting it! I will post picture of the end result.

My Classroom

I think this is the moment you've all been waiting for...pictures of my classroom! So these are pictures I took to help me brainstorm ideas and I thought I would share them with all of you to see if you have any advice. I have to say that decorating my classroom really stresses me out. I really do not like tacky teacher paraphernalia so this does not help with my decorating skills. My vision is that my students will sit in a horse shoe shape so that I can walk around in front of them (I like to wander when I teach). I am worried that everything is looking a little claustrophobic right now though, and it's only going to get worse because I am getting ten computers soon and I have no idea where those are going. So take a look at these pictures and send me your advice! Tomorrow I begin new teacher training hooray!

Can I fit 120 binders for all the students in this space?

This is what I will see while I am teaching.

The sea of desks. That big bulletin board is now covered in blue chart paper and will have a border on it next time you see it. On the right I will put the behavior trackers I think.

That was my attempt at making a calendar out of painters tape (resourceful I know!). It looks awful no need to tell me...Friday it will become bigger squares, only school days, and four weeks long.

And this is what you see when you enter. That's my desk in the back. So send me ideas, thoughts, whatever!

Falling in love with Charlotte

To start, some images from my dinner this evening, inspired by my farmers market finds this weekend. Roasted squash and eggplant (from the farmers market), israeli couscous, and heirloom tomato mozzarella salad with a pesto vinaigrette (tomatos and basil for pesto from farmers market). Turned out to be delicious!

As I am getting more and more settled into my new city I keep finding wonderful and special things that Charlotte has to offer. This week's find was the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market. Here are some photos of my finds:

Squash, peppers, eggplant, and a white cucumber!
Beautiful and delicious yellow heirloom tomatoes.
And a little more.
I am so excited to be able to share little pieces of my life here with all of you. This week is an easier week, because I only have new teacher training on Thursday. Otherwise I am just planning on my own time for August 25th the first day of school! I am going to decorate my classroom this week, so stay tuned for pictures of whatever that turns out to look like.

I titled this post "falling in love with Charlotte" because I am really starting to feel at home here. This city just has so much to offer. On Thursday I went to a great art house movie theater that is right near my apt, and Saturday I explored some of the night life in uptown (Charlotte calls its downtown "uptown" because it is on a hill). I can't wait to share more of my finds, and start to share my classroom stories!

Week 2!

I have been waiting to post until I had some image of togetherness with my apartment, so here it is, my bathroom. That beautiful shower curtain came today, and I am going with a white and navy/indigo theme.

Enough on the apartment though, it's time for me to fill you all in on my life: Since Wednesday I have been in TFA round zero. This is our professional development that helps us set big goals for our classroom, plan our units, familiarize ourselves with content, and get a sense of what the year will look like. I am excited to share my big goal for my class this year with all of you.

My big goal is that students will be qualified to apply for the National Junior Honor Society by the end of the year by acquiring a 3.75 GPA, passing our ELA (English Language Arts) EOG (End of Grade assessment), and completing our writing project.

I know what you are all thinking... this is insane and way too ambitious. The point of setting these big goals is that by the end of the year my students will be able to compete with their high income peers. I believe that if I do not push my students towards this goal everyday I am not providing my students with the opportunities that I had, nor am I providing them with the opportunities that they deserve. Studies show that students who are put in high tracks K-12 have a higher chance of success in the future. So this is my goal, getting my kids on these high tracks so that one day they will write to me about their college experiences.

I hope that as I embark on this exciting journey you all will feel invested in this goal as well. If you have any ideas related to my goal please share them with me. Also keep emailing, calling, and texting because I will definitely need your support when the going gets tough.