It's Almost Here!
Well, the second week of inservice has come and gone, and there are only a few more days before the school will be bustling with energy again! Can I say that I am totally ready for students to be in the classroom come Tuesday morning? Yeah, I'm not quite there yet...the change to 5th grade brings a new set of concepts to think about. So, there are still a few more things to check off of the old "to-do" list, and I'm going to make every attempt I can to take care of that tomorrow while hanging out in (what I'm assuming will be) a pretty quiet school.
Inservice this week brought a variety of activities. Tuesday brought the entire staff back together for a nice breakfast and back-to-school welcome messages. We then went into some breakout sessions dealing with school safety, CPR training, and an especially nice mindfulness session (that was a nice way to finish the breakout sessions). Then we had the rest of the day to take care of business back in our classrooms. The day came to a close with a visit from all of the students dropping off their supplies, checking out their classrooms, and testing out their lockers (with moderate success...we'll see how the first day goes 😬). It was really nice to see the incoming 5th graders! You could see the mixture of excitement and nerves in all their faces.
Wednesday morning began with training on a new assessment program that the students will be using this year. It looks to be a pretty good resource, with some similarities to ones we have used in the past, but definitely more user-friendly and engaging (it has built-in brain breaks for the students!). After the training, we had some additional breakout sessions according to our subject matter, and I was introduced to the set of virtual reality goggles that the school district has! These appear to have some awesome applications for the classroom (virtual field trips), and I can't wait to use them! Wednesday afternoon brought about more training for another new resource that the district will be using. The students and staff will have access to an app-based program that works as a "one-time sign-in" for a variety of resources that we use in school. It will be a great timesaver when it comes to the students using their Chromebooks, and it will be an easy way for me to share out online tools and websites with the students.
Today began with the 5th-grade team working meeting with the elementary staff for some training for reading. It was a "refresher" training for the process of data collection for guided reading. It brought back memories of past inservices from my time in 3rd grade, but I think it was a bit of information overload for the rest of my team since it was all new to them. Our reading classes are structured a little differently than those at the elementary school, so we are going to need to have a discussion on how we can apply the process at our level. Following the training, the ES/MS staffs were treated to lunch from a local hotdog food truck. It was a nice quick stop on my walk back to the middle school! After lunch, the MS staff had one final meeting to go over some final beginning-of-the-year reminders and student support pieces. Then it was back to the 5th-grade neighborhood to meet with my team and finalize our group plans for the first day.
Here's to hoping for a productive Friday and then a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend!
Inservice this week brought a variety of activities. Tuesday brought the entire staff back together for a nice breakfast and back-to-school welcome messages. We then went into some breakout sessions dealing with school safety, CPR training, and an especially nice mindfulness session (that was a nice way to finish the breakout sessions). Then we had the rest of the day to take care of business back in our classrooms. The day came to a close with a visit from all of the students dropping off their supplies, checking out their classrooms, and testing out their lockers (with moderate success...we'll see how the first day goes 😬). It was really nice to see the incoming 5th graders! You could see the mixture of excitement and nerves in all their faces.
Wednesday morning began with training on a new assessment program that the students will be using this year. It looks to be a pretty good resource, with some similarities to ones we have used in the past, but definitely more user-friendly and engaging (it has built-in brain breaks for the students!). After the training, we had some additional breakout sessions according to our subject matter, and I was introduced to the set of virtual reality goggles that the school district has! These appear to have some awesome applications for the classroom (virtual field trips), and I can't wait to use them! Wednesday afternoon brought about more training for another new resource that the district will be using. The students and staff will have access to an app-based program that works as a "one-time sign-in" for a variety of resources that we use in school. It will be a great timesaver when it comes to the students using their Chromebooks, and it will be an easy way for me to share out online tools and websites with the students.
Today began with the 5th-grade team working meeting with the elementary staff for some training for reading. It was a "refresher" training for the process of data collection for guided reading. It brought back memories of past inservices from my time in 3rd grade, but I think it was a bit of information overload for the rest of my team since it was all new to them. Our reading classes are structured a little differently than those at the elementary school, so we are going to need to have a discussion on how we can apply the process at our level. Following the training, the ES/MS staffs were treated to lunch from a local hotdog food truck. It was a nice quick stop on my walk back to the middle school! After lunch, the MS staff had one final meeting to go over some final beginning-of-the-year reminders and student support pieces. Then it was back to the 5th-grade neighborhood to meet with my team and finalize our group plans for the first day.
Here's to hoping for a productive Friday and then a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend!
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