Tales from the science classroom

It is scary how quickly time passes. We are just a couple of weeks out from fall break. Yikes!!!  How did that happen? But things have been going well, not perfect, but well. I have given up on Tuesdays and Thursdays and that has helped my stress levels a whole lot. Mondays and Wednesdays haven't been as productive as I'd hoped, but they are getting there. This past week I've been sick with a slight head cold, it's been just enough to mess with me and that is super annoying. But things are improving and falling into a flow. I like that. I have come to the conclusion that I need to avoid certain people at work. I happen to like my job. I like the school I'm at. I like the kids, and for the most part, I like my coworkers. But there are a couple that I have to avoid for my own sanity. They do nothing but complain. About everything. The school, the admin, the kids, the parents, the hours, everything. They complain about sports even though they are not involved in t...

After careful consideration of my life right now, I finally have a plan to deal with the stress of the added responsibilities I have taken on. Here are the realizations I've come to: Tuesdays and Thursdays are completely shot because we have conditioning until 4pm and in a couple of weeks we will be having games. So I need to just get used to the fact that Tuesdays and Thursdays are done until the end of October.  Monday and Wednesdays I am back here by 3:15pm and so could work some until 4ish. I should not do anything that takes a lot of mind work or thought because I am usually pretty tired by then, but I could do some mindless work and there is always mindless work.  Fridays are an absolute must in order to keep my head above water. I will have volleyball practice until 11 but I need to put some time in the classroom in the afternoons. No. Way. Around. It.  I have got to spend some time getting my files, both electronic and paper, in order. I just have to beca...

I have been completely stressed out as the new school year starts and I don't like it at all. I have fallen back into old patterns of not planning in advance and having to figure out what to do every morning. I spent much of the summer planning things and yet I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. On top of that, I volunteered to coach volleyball and that is taking up a whole lot of time that I didn't really count on. Plus, I am not using my weekends to my best advantage.  I spent 2 days this past weekend trying to figure out how to set up my planner. What??? Not a productive use of time. So as a result, I'm stressed out a bit. I have a to-do list a mile long and nothing is getting done on it. Of course, sitting during my prep writing this is probably not the most productive thing I could do, but I need to get it out. On top of everything, I still haven't figured out how to effectively organize my electronic stuff. This is really driving me crazy. I sti...

I vividly remember my interview for my teacher education program. One of the questions they asked is "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"  I responded, "in a classroom." At that time I had zero desire to be in admin and that has not changed. So here I am, starting my 10th year of teaching, and still in the classroom. This is also the hardest year to start. I am usually very excited about the new school year. I look forward to the new batch of students and I just enjoy new starts. This year? Not so much. Not sure exactly why, but it seems to be pretty prevalent across the board. Most teachers I speak to are just not excited about the new school year. Hmmm....  Oh well.....it is what it is. With that, my lesson planning is absolutely driving me crazy and I don't know what to do about it. I sat and made some detailed lesson plans for the beginning of the school year and they seem to change it day to day. Why? Why exactly do I do that? Why can I not stick ...

The month of July has pretty much been spent doing this. I've not accomplished a whole lot since my last post. I did get all my electronic files moved around and I'm sure I lost some in the translation, but that is life. The rest of the month was spent crafting. I made some very cool lab coats and a new messenger bag for carrying my stuff back and forth to school Here are my lab coats:  I took my old one and tie-dyed it, I love, love, love tie-dye and then I bought a new one and painted it. And my new messenger bag: Very excited about this. Very excited about it all. Hubby was gone for a week and returned yesterday. I did all this while he was gone. So needless to say, none of my prep got done. Since we have to return on Monday, I think I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the week/weekend. At least I have everything ready in my head. I know what I'm going to do for each class, so all I need to do is get everything ready. Ugh!!!  I guess I can d...

I know, 2 posts in one day. Well, since the last post I've been working on school stuff and I've gotten to point where I can't move forward until I figure some things out. So I thought I would take some time, write it out (which always helps me think) and figure out the best way to do this. I have tons of electronic storage. I have Google drive - personal and school. I have Dropbox - which I recently cleaned out with the idea of using it for school. Evernote - which I recently cleaned out with the idea of using it for school. OneNote - which I don't really use. As you can see, I have a plethora of places to store files. And I store files in all of those places. So when I want a file, I can spend hours searching for where I stored it. That is always so much fun. So I'm trying to come up with a way to store the files that I want that won't drive me completely batsh*t crazy. Now the super simple answer would be the school Google Drive. I have unlimited storag...

I must be getting close to returning to school because I had my first nightmare last night. It was really a nightmare, more like a dream where everything went wrong. It was the first day of school and I didn't have my schedule. Everyone else had theirs but I didn't have mine. I had nothing ready for my classes and I didn't know when I had classes so I didn't know when I could go make copies. Then a class came in and I didn't know them and they were disrespectful and gave me the wrong names and everything. It was annoying. I had a dream similar to this before I started teaching and it freaked me out. This one? Not so much. I've had enough experience now that these things don't frighten me, but it is a bummer to know I'm that close to returning. A frequent theme of this blog has been organization. It is something I struggle with everywhere, not just at school. It is also something I am determined to master if it kills me. So I realized the other day, ...