Update

I'm sitting here on a Sunday night on the couch watching TV with my wife as she is eating ramen noodles. I'm prepared for tomorrow besides running some copies in the morning before school. It feels good. I spent some time with my family this weekend, which was nice also. It's starting to feel like fall, which is my favorite part of the year. Mainly because of the cool weather, but also because of the colors. I don't like hot weather at all. I sweat a lot. I get miserable. I like sitting around a fire on a chilled night. 

Anyway, moving on to things educationally related. I feel that I am settling into my role this year and it's feeling nice. A lot of the people that know me ask how I like my job and the only thing that I can say is "Great!" and that I am really enjoying my students and working with the other 6th grade team teachers. I feel very comfortable with them and it feels like we have known each other for a long time. The best part is that they share these amazing projects/menus/resources with me just because they want to and they want our team to be successful. I use a lot of their stuff and tweak it a little to my liking. I try to share when I think I have something good to share, but their giving is a lot more than my giving right now. I hope that one day I can give back to others as much as they have helped me. 

In reading, we're finishing up Tuck Everlasting. I'm excited to see what my students have come up with to share about their understanding of characters, theme, and setting. They were given a menu to pick projects from. (Side note-another amazing thing I got from my team.) I have seen some of them so far and they are looking really great and are showing good evidence of understanding. I think we'll do a gallery walk of all the projects to showcase all the work. I need to make sure I bring my camera that day. We're then going to do some things on understanding context clues and some Scope Magazine activities to finish out the week as we take a break from novels.

In social studies, we just finished a little unit on culture. It's something that we'll refer back to constantly throughout the year. The students did well on their vocab test over the terms. We did a "Write It, Draw It, Define It" activity and vocabulary dominoes on the vocabulary words. We're going to be starting a unit on Mexico and Central America...the Mayas, the Incas, the Olmecs, etc. 

In ending this week, I had something told to me that has really lifted my spirits. One of the students in my class has a relative that lives next door to her that I see pretty occasionally because she works with my wife. I was asking her how the student in my class is liking/enjoying school. She says that she is really enjoying it and she says that she is learning a lot. The best thing that she said is that even though we are having a lot of fun, we are learning too. This makes me feel great!!! It's not the fact that she is enjoying school, but the fact that she knows that she is learning things, while at the same time having fun. She seems to enjoy all the projects and learning activities that we do, but I'm more impressed that she understands that she is learning through the activities that we are doing and that school and learning can be fun and not just boring. 

I'm leaving you (I'm acting like someone actually reads this, hehe) this week with a quote I found - 

‎"The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher." Elbert Hubbard - I feel that this is something that I strive to do. If a student can be taught how to learn on his own then the possibility of gaining knowledge is infinite. 

Have a good week!