1/05/2007

Friday and I got a day off

It is almost a good feeling to not have the phone ring and send me to places unknown. I have a chance to catch up on this site and to do a little house cleaning. Heck, I may even go give Barb a chance to catch up on her lesson plans for next week this afternoon. She has been working pretty hard this week and had progress reports and her normal lesson plans to do. A little time from me this afternoon will save her some time over the weekend. She worked on the progress reports last night for several hours after working all day. It almost made me want to get up from my nap and help her. Almost.
This teaching stuff is a lot like work. I am seeing a lot of different ways to do things and I appreciate different ways the teachers approach the process. The focus is definitely on doing the things that are on the test. Not the material, the process. Reading, writing and arithmetic are the same, it is the way the kids are being taught that is fun to watch. There is a rocket math where the kids work on doing 39 problems in one minute. What do you bet that 39 is magic number to hit the grade level. They progress from subtraction to addition to the multiplication facts and eventually to the division facts. They get stickers and rewards for doing well. The kids that are slow are handed practice sheets to take home and to work with their parents. All the kids write in their journals and the teacher looks at their work daily. The mistakes one day become the daily edits for the next day. I am just blown away at some of the free and easy ideas that the teachers are responding to the new testing.
It was 60's here yesterday and only will be in the 40's today. Oh well, we aren't hip deep in snow. We have had a couple of nice rains and the ground is wet and decent weather is on hand.
Write if you get work. MUD

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