Etch 'n Sketch Reflections

The summer clock is winding down and school is getting ready to start. The temps were a bit cooler today and it is already feeling like fall--let's hope temps can stay a little warmer for a while longer. What a busy week! Monday began with a visit from UDL guru Allison Posey. Allison gave the staff some nice insight into the importance of UDL. We then headed into 4 different sessions dealing with different aspects of UDL. Some of our fantastic staff led the sessions, as well as one session led by Allison. We were also given a nice amount of work time in the afternoon to work with collaborative teams to problem solve topics of our choice. One topic my team worked on was soft-starts to the school day, which is a new adventure for us. For as long as I have been in Sheboygan Falls, the mornings before school consisted of the students being out on the playground until the bell rang. We are one of the largest elementary schools in the state, so this means there are A LOT of kids outs...

Well, today was the first day teachers in Falls HAD to be back to school, but it has been a busy week! --On Monday and Wednesday, the new staff reported to school for training. I am working with a team of teachers to be mentors for the new staff, so we were working on getting the new hires acclimated to Sheboygan Falls. We have a new teacher, Matt, in 3rd grade, and it will be interesting to have another guy on the team (I haven't had that in the last 11 years)! We spent most of Monday and Wednesday helping the new staff with online tools and resources in the district and going over beginning-of-the year procedures. It was really interesting to see all the stuff that you just naturally do when we were going through the mentoring checklist. I think Matt is going to be a great addition to our team! --Tuesday was like Christmas in August! Near the end of the last school year, I started a Donors Choose project to raise funds so that I could make some pretty major changes to my classr...

Well, I've been able to spend a little time in my classroom the last few days...but not as much as I would like--we have some construction going on around school, so there is limited access. I usually take this time before I actually HAVE to be back at school (because those inservice days prior to school starting are never enough time). to work on my to-do list and ease back into things. I'm not sure if the general community actually realizes how much time teachers spend at school the few weeks leading up to our contractual time, but I would be willing to bet that at least 75% of elementary teachers are back in their classrooms before inservice starts (I can't speculate on middle and high school). I think I will do a twitter poll to find out...I haven't done one yet, so this seems like a good first attempt. Please visit my twitter poll: https://twitter.com/tomoetjen/status/898270659049959424 Getting the classroom ready for the beginning of the year is a big undertaki...

I was chatting with someone this evening and the conversation turned to jobs. When I said that I was a teacher, I was given the traditional response, "Boy, it must be nice to have the summers off." This comment doesn't really bother me because, well, yeah, it is nice. But I did have to chuckle that I got to hear that comment today, of all days, because today I was at work 😀 Today was the first of two days of some summer training prior to school starting up. As I mentioned in my last post, we have some math and reading business to take care of. Well, today was math. Lots of new things on the horizon. Our math curriculum, Math Expressions, has a new version coming out, so we met with a few representatives of the publishing company. I won't bore you with all the details, but it was nice to see some of the changes. A good portion of our time today was spent learning about the updated technology features that go along with the curriculum. Another topic of discussion t...

...is how I teach my new students and parents to pronounce my name (everybody knows what an Etch 'n Sketch is, so it seemed perfect). Oetjen is just hard to read, and I've heard just about every pronunciation in the book, even Ofjen (I guess the t looked like an f...). Well, Etch 'n Sketch seems to work pretty well, although the school secretary did tell me once that a parent called asking for Mr. Etch 'n Sketch. My wife, Erin, has a different way to teach our name--"The O is just for smiley faces." If you didn't guess, that description matches her personality 😁 But for me, Etch 'n Sketch Reflections seemed like the way to go for my new blog. Before I go any further, I do want to identify the fact that I realize the name-to-fame is actually Etch A Sketch...but my name is Oetjen, not Oetja, so it sounds better. Right now, I am sitting in a grad class learning about using technology to effectively communicate with students, parents, and the communit...