Twelve Minutes Left in the Second Half

First off, let me say that I have been advised by colleagues and mentors that I need to learn to draw the line to answering e-mails and phone calls after school hours that pertain to school. I have to admit that this is good advice, and it's teaching me to be a little bit more balanced in my life. This is making me much more effective as a teacher, I do believe. It's only taken me eleven years to learn this lesson, by the way, so it hasn't been easy coming.

That having been said, it may explain why many of you may be wondering where your response is to an e-mail that you may have sent me any time after 9:30am on Friday. I will get back with you sometime tomorrow! You see, I was sent home by the good Nurse Barb on Friday because of flu symptoms. I came home and went to sleep and woke up only to take Nyquil. I was able to get to sleep pretty easily because I knew when I left that my class was in the hands of Mrs. Weghorst, former Woodbrook teacher and current substitute teacher that I'd been waiting to guest teach in my classroom. The kids were in good hands, and I doubt they will want me back tomorrow now that they've had her.

One thing that I forgot to mention last week is that the father of Mrs. Barb Cullen sadly passed away. Mrs. Cullen has been an Instructional Assistant at Woodbrook for many years now--longer than I've been around, and she has one of the gentlest souls you will ever meet. There is no kid at WB who doesn't have a soft spot for her, and they were understandably upset when they found out this news. The kids made her cards, and I have to say that some of them were really quite touching. Our prayers have been with her ever since.

Now onto some other, less important stuff:

• Tomorrow you will see two theme tests coming back. This is an illusion, though, because you're really only seeing one of them for the first time. The previous one is one that I sent back with the kids to make corrections on. The corrections had already been made by the grader, though, so I had the kids just take them home, make sure they knew what they had done wrong, and if they turned them back in, they got half credit back on them. I had some kids not turn them back in, though, so those kids didn't get the half credit back, unfortunately. They were told, though! In fact, it should have been in their assignment notebooks a couple weeks back. Anyway, the second one is from a week ago. I was happy with how they went. There will be another one this Friday! Look for the practice test to go home on Thursday night.
  
• We will also be having a Spelling Test on Friday (in addition to the aforementioned Theme Test 11).
  
• On Thursday, my Math class will have a test. I have given and will give the kids copious amounts of notes about rates, ratios, and percentages. They will be supplied with sample problems for all of those things, and yes, they will be allowed to use their notes on the test.
  

Hope everyone will join me in making this a great week!