Daylight savings always creates a bit of a bump in the road when you teach young children. They are sensitive to changes in sleep and routine, and we see that sensitivity in school. It's not a big deal, but something to be aware of in the first few days of the daylight savings time change.
Further it seems that the seasonably cold weather is here, so we'll have to remind students to wear their jackets, hats, and mittens/gloves when they go out to play. In fact, it's a good idea to ask parents to fill one big bag, the kind you can buy at Target or Marshall's for about a $1.00 with a collection of outdoor gear for their children. This bag can hang on the hooks and serves as a good resource for happy days at recess during the cold days ahead.
In class, I'm happy that we have a number of days ahead that are mostly uninterrupted, days where we can move ahead towards the math, science, and reading goals set for the teaching and learning. To get there, I'll start Monday with a review of our typical daily routine, and then give students time to settle in. After that lesson by lesson we'll focus in on how to grow skill, concept, knowledge individually and with others.
There's a few family-student-teacher conferences to catch up on--conferences that were cancelled, and have to be reset. There's a number of small collegial decisions to review and make at our Tuesday grade-level meeting too. Our efforts to better scaffold and differentiate math instruction seems to be making good gains too which is positive. And there's a conference coming up that will give our teaching team a time to focus in on our work together, the shared teaching model, and how we want to further develop what we can do together to better our teaching/learning efforts.
With regard to the long, long view, I've got some personal goals to work towards--goals that I think will positively impact both work and home. I'm looking forward to those challenges. Onward.
