Sunday, November 24, 2013

Hello? Remember Me?? :)


Hello once again!  I cannot believe it has been 4 months since my last posting.  I have been coaching high school girls swimming and believe it or not, I was a bit busy.  Now that the season is over I am going to list my top five for this last week!

1.  I am going to list all the preps (as in lessons I prep) I do each week.  I am feeling a bit rushed and that there is even less time in a day than usual and cannot figure out why.  I know I have three small children, coach swimming, and my husband is now coaching hockey an hour away, but I have been busy for a while so I decided to list all the activities I prep for each week.  I need your help and feedback!!!  How do you do it all and am I doing too much?  Keep in mind this is only the number of preps and does not include the copying, cutting, or organizing supplies.  I have not added up the minutes I spend prepping activities.  To be honest, I am a bit afraid to see the total number of hours.

-Morning meeting activity (5 preps/week
Math (5 preps/week)
Guided Reading ( 15 preps/ week ; 3 groups each day)
Daily 5 word work (2 preps/week)
Daily 5 Work on Writing (2 preps/week)
Daily 5 Listening response sheet (1 prep/week)
Writing (5 preps/week)
Shared Reading (5 preps/week)
Words Their Way (5 preps/week)
Handwriting (5 preps/week??  Not a lot of prep, but.....)
Social Studies/Science (5 preps/week)
Target Time (intervention block) (4 preps plus 2 preps on Mondays for math intervention during that time)
Interactive Read aloud ( I wish I had time to formally prep every day, but usually I have to try to combine with Shared Reading time.

I total 59 preps/week.  How many preps do you have to get ready for your week?  I am in the school building at least an hour before I need to as well as come in for at least three hours on the weekend.  I am not even going to include the time spent creating activities that I feel my students need........

2.  My oldest daughter started swim team this week.  I have to admit, I am so proud of her and so excited she is loving swimming.  My husband has now given up on her playing hockey and has moved on to Easton. 


3.  My swim team girls qualified for the Wisconsin State Swimming Meet (WIAA) last weekend.  This season was my first season returning to coach girls after coaching boys for the past 9 years.  These girls have never been to state or even believed they were good enough to get there.  Well, they got there and they shocked so many people in our conference and sectional!  I feel like a proud mama!!

4.  Check out what my husband bought.  It is hard to see, but it is in the back part of the yard.

He asked me if I would mind if he set up a batting cage in the back yard.  I agreed, only to find out that the cage is 16' x 72' feet!!!  It is huge and the pitching machine that came with it weighs almost 500 lbs and holds hundreds of baseballs and softballs.   I now know to ask specific details before saying yes to anything :)  He better hope at least one of our three children will play baseball or softball!!

5.  I finally finished two new products for TpT!!  I have a few struggling students in my first grade classroom so I created an Early Emergent phonics-based packet and also an Early Emergent sight word mini book packet.  I used both of these products with my students and both products have progress monitoring tools included.  Click on the link under each title page to see a preview.
 

 
Early Emergent # 1
Early Emergent Program # 1
 
 


Early Emergent # 2 Sight Word Mini Books