Last night, we went to Santini's for our anniversary. We were the first people for dinner - they don't open until 5:30pm - but, by the time we were done, the place was one third full. We started off with a delicious garden salad with a light oil/balsamic dressing. The waitress then brought us our main meals: Dad had beef tortellini with a bolognese sauce and I had curly green fettucine with chicken pesto sauce and we shared an order of garlic bread. They had two sizes of the main meal: entree (smaller) and main (regular size) - Dad and I decided to go with the entree size and it was quite enough. Both Dad's and my meal were totally delicious! We enjoyed all parts of our meal and ate slowly so we really relished the food. :-)
When we were done, we went to see if The Cheesecake Shop was still open (it was) and we bought a small pavlova for dessert. I couldn't wait for us to get home so I could eat a slice. It was soooooooooooo yummy - with strawberries, peaches, pears and kiwis on top - and the cream.......mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Dad and I only ate one third of it last night, so we can enjoy another slice tonight and one tomorrow night. What a lovely treat! :-)
The past two days have been quite good, both at school for me and for Dad. I have been mostly working with the 'low' children at school - Chantelle has a handle on the class and hasn't needed me to handle either Ryley or Travis (although I have spoken with both of them a few times over the past two days, but mostly in passing and it seemed to be enough to settle them down). It's been nice to be able to work with the children who need me the most, although both Taleighya and Hayley have needed speaking to - Taleighya about doing her best work and Hayley about acting her age. I made the mistake of telling Taleighya yesterday that she would stay in for recess if she didn't get her work done - she didn't care as she doesn't particularly like going out for recess since she doesn't have any friends. I told her today to go back to the classroom since she wasn't working and sent her work with her. After a while, I guess she figured that she wasn't going to get my help and so she got to work and completed the task I had given her. When she came out to show me, I praised her for getting the work done and talked with her about the importance of always doing her best. The next task assigned to her, she got right down to work.
I stopped by Bronwyn's house yesterday after school to set up a time to meet with her and tell her what's been going on at school. While I was there, she gave me a beautiful glass necklace she bought in Venice. It's very colourful and it will go with many of my tops. I thought that was very thoughtful of her. She also told me that Leanne, our VP, told her that she was very pleased with the way I have taken over the teacher role in the classroom - she told Bronwyn that everything had been very seamless going from Bronwyn to me. Bronwyn also told me how pleased she had been that I had been able to take over the class - it was so stress-free for her knowing that I knew the kids and that I knew what was going on in the classroom. I was really happy to hear that Leanne was pleased with my teaching - hopefully, that will lead to more jobs in the future. I am going in to speak with her tomorrow about how the hiring process works in Hervey Bay.
Bronwyn came into the school today to see how things were going and to get a report of where we were up to in our teaching. We sat with her for about two hours and caught her up on what's been happening in the classroom while she has been gallivanting around Europe. She seemed pleased with what she saw happening in the classroom and with what we told her. I told her that Chantelle has been doing the majority of the teaching and so she, Bronwyn, could do some one-on-one assessment when she came back - she seemed really pleased about that.
I feel a little sad that it's all coming to an end - although it's been challenging at times, I really do love being a teacher and helping children learn. I love watching them take in what I am teaching them and then them showing me what they have learned in different ways. I love integrating my lessons over various subject areas - I haven't done as much as I would have done in my own class, but it's still been a really good experience for me. Bronwyn told me that there is a grade one teacher who is planning on taking long service leave next year and that I should go and talk with her and let her know that I would be available to cover her if she would like. She might have someone in mind already, but I figure it won't hurt to go and speak with her, so I will do that tomorrow. I will be spending some time next week going into Bronwyn's class to finish up some work with some of the students so that Bronwyn doesn't have to worry about it. And Tracey, another grade two teacher, has asked me to come in and cover for her for the afternoon on Tuesday. But, sometime this week, I plan on having one completely lazy day including a really good sleep-in. :-)
1 comment:
Maybe you should offer to volunteer in that grade one class with the teacher before she goes on leave, like you did with Bronwyn. The "seamlessness" is likely an effect of you already being so familiar to the kids by the time you had to teach them on your own.
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