This will be a busy week as always.
We will start our week by heading to the Planetarium, but that will provide little rest for the wicked. This week, as a necessity, we have a spelling test, a Math test (my Math class only), and what I have decided will be a take-home test for Social Studies. The take-home test will be given out on Wednesday (unless it's requested earlier than that) and will be due on Friday.
We are going to have to bring Unit Four in Reading to a close this week, and next week we will be starting off on our research papers. Yes, I know we started those last week--false alarm. We will be starting them in earnest next week, and they will bear little resemblance to what we got started last week. It's our writing program, but it should be for the best in the end.
There is an organization called The Long Now, which is based around long-term thinking (in the longest terms you can imagine). I always see this stretch of weeks--between January and Spring Break--as The Long Now. We will make it through this. It's the period where we all know each other just fine, there is nothing really novel during this time, and we have yet to really see the end of the tunnel.
Of course, I say "the end of the tunnel" as though it's an anticipated and desired destination. I know it is for the kids. But for me, it's the opposite of that. I do not want to lose this class any more than I have wanted to lose any of the ones before them.
For me, this is the time I cherish. This is the (mostly) uninterrupted time where I can just plain teach the kids, where they know my style and can work with it, where the most learning is done. I know them and they know me; this is the meat of the school year, if ever it existed.
So I hope you are all willing to endure (and enjoy?) the Long Now this year. It's an interesting time, to be sure. But I hope to make it worthwhile.
We will start our week by heading to the Planetarium, but that will provide little rest for the wicked. This week, as a necessity, we have a spelling test, a Math test (my Math class only), and what I have decided will be a take-home test for Social Studies. The take-home test will be given out on Wednesday (unless it's requested earlier than that) and will be due on Friday.
We are going to have to bring Unit Four in Reading to a close this week, and next week we will be starting off on our research papers. Yes, I know we started those last week--false alarm. We will be starting them in earnest next week, and they will bear little resemblance to what we got started last week. It's our writing program, but it should be for the best in the end.
There is an organization called The Long Now, which is based around long-term thinking (in the longest terms you can imagine). I always see this stretch of weeks--between January and Spring Break--as The Long Now. We will make it through this. It's the period where we all know each other just fine, there is nothing really novel during this time, and we have yet to really see the end of the tunnel.
Of course, I say "the end of the tunnel" as though it's an anticipated and desired destination. I know it is for the kids. But for me, it's the opposite of that. I do not want to lose this class any more than I have wanted to lose any of the ones before them.
For me, this is the time I cherish. This is the (mostly) uninterrupted time where I can just plain teach the kids, where they know my style and can work with it, where the most learning is done. I know them and they know me; this is the meat of the school year, if ever it existed.
So I hope you are all willing to endure (and enjoy?) the Long Now this year. It's an interesting time, to be sure. But I hope to make it worthwhile.
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