I can't believe that a whole week has gone by since I last wrote - on Sunday night, I just completely forgot and then on Tuesday, I remembered after I was in bed - sheesh - I am so way tired. Anyway, I will fill you in on this past week like a Reader's Digest version. :-)
School has been keeping me busy - both with preparing things, searching for ideas and just keeping this kids in check (or rather, trying to). I actually like preparing and searching for things - I don't have many resources for kindergarten or even grade one since I only taught K for one year and grade one for 2 years. I also don't want to spend much money since I likely won't be doing this again. I have been planning out my literacy rotations: reading, writing, spelling, printing, and computers for the kids. I have five literacy groups and have found that I can get them to rotate through 3 areas on Mondays and Thursdays and the other two on Tuesdays and Fridays. Chantelle and I have worked on our activities for our Theme units (fairy tales), so I just have to get them all ready (gonna do lots of photocopying tomorrow). :-) So, now I just have to work out how I am going to do my math rotations and my phonics lessons. Hopefully, I will have it all worked out by this weekend.
I still am not enjoying teaching and neither is Chantelle - I told her that it's hard to enjoy teaching at this school as we are doing more disciplining than teaching. I feel sad that my passion for teaching is not there right now - who knows if I will ever get it back - I never thought I would be saying that. I truly do love teaching, but it's hard when I am not getting to do much teaching. I do have to say that two of the students who were challenging are coming around - I still have two who drive me nuts and I am just going to have to get more firm with them - one of them missed his two play times today and will be missing the first one tomorrow - I am also going to have to speak to his mom tomorrow. I think that I am going to refer him to our behavioural specialist and see what she can do with him. He just can't seem to sit still, be quiet, focus, or put any effort into what he does. The teacher I am taking over for started this star chart where if they do something 'wrong', they have to take a star off. If all three stars get taken off, they miss a playtime. I am going to get tougher with this - I have been trying to give the kids a bit of a chance since I am new to them, but that's it - I am just going to start taking the stars off much quicker and hopefully, behaviour will change. I still don't know what the future holds and whether I will be teaching next year or not, so we'll just have to see. I am still thinking of going to talk with someone at the christian college (K - 12) near us to see if they are looking for teachers - I will keep you posted.
Dad has been very busy doing lots of stuff: census stuff - the actual night is August 9th - but the collectors start handing out the forms at the end of the month; church stuff - he is working on a talk for Sunday about family history, a family history presentation at the mall, a family history day at our chapel, and a lesson for priesthood/relief society on Sunday which will be about how members in the ward can put a profile about themselves on the church website so that people can go to the website and learn about members and what they think and believe; house stuff - laundry, vacuuming, bathrooms; plus he still had his church meeting on Tuesday night, was at the FHC on Wednesday night, and did Meals on Wheels this morning and SES tonight. I don't think that he has time for a full-time job. :-)
Last Saturday, Dad had the opportunity to attend an SES training session in Bundaberg (about 90 minutes north of HB). The training was to learn how to be an air observer for airborne search and rescue. If SES was called to participate in an airborne search and rescue activation, Dad could possibly be called out (eg; looking for a missing aircraft, a lost hiker, a lost ship, someone overboard, etc.). The training consisted of six hours: learning about general aviation safety and observation techniques to be used so that you don't miss anything in your search area. They were supposed to go up in a plane to look for planted items, but the weather was not co-operative - it was raining all day and so they cancelled the flight and are going to reschedule as soon as they can.
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