Day 6 & 7

Day 6: Shopping.



I only really have my grandma left to shop for.  Well, technically, I haven't shopped for James, but that's only because every time I've shopped recently he's been there.  But anyway, I tried to finish the rest of the shopping last night by ordering from Jim Shore.  Unfortunately the item I wanted is backordered until January.  But my back up plan will hopefully come through for me.  :)  My mom thinks she can find it in her area since she has a few more places to shop than I do out here in small town Mississippi.





Day 7: Bright.

 I spent all of today in training for some reading curriculum this district uses.  So you get a picture of my bright yellow highlighter.  No big deal, except that every time I get observed by the literacy coach, she criticizes me for not using the curriculum that I hadn't received training on until today.  And it was no big deal that I didn't find out about the training until yesterday.  No big deal that until today everyone at my school thought this curriculum was being retired now that we're transitioning to Common Core.  But even with all that, it was totally a great day being told we're doing everything wrong (even though we just now were told how to do it "right") and that we should have all these materials borrowed from the district that no one's ever mentioned.  *not impressed*  It was totally fun to be criticized all day long and told that there was basically no way we could process all this information the first time because it was so overwhelming.  I love being called less than intelligent to my face.  And actually, the information wasn't all that overwhelming.  What's more overwhelming is figuring out how to pick up and implement it in the middle of the school year.  And how exactly to meld all this with Common Core, since when we asked she basically told us she didn't know.  Then she asked us what skill we were covering this week, and when we told her she acted like she was horrified because it didn't follow this curriculum.  But it follows the curriculum we have, and Common Core.  I mean, how would a student be expected to write an opinion piece (the CC requirement this term) if I don't teach them how to spell the word "my."  I think the district really is confused as to their priorities here, and shouldn't be criticizing their teachers until they figure that out.  If it's CC, let us do CC.  If it's Project Read, then fine we'll do that.  If you want both, then somebody needs to sit down and figure out how to adjust the pacing and sequence to make the two work together.  We don't have time in the day to teach two completely separate, opposing curriculum with pacing guides that don't match up.  We barley have time in the day for the CC standards that are being tested by the state.

Ok I'm off my soapbox now.  Bleh.  I am going to spend the night enjoying my husband, having a nice glass of wine, and maybe coloring the alphabet cards that I was informed need to be up in my room. (Cards I received months ago with no instructions/explanation and that the literacy coach hasn't noticed aren't up in my room in the last 10 times she's visited.  Again, priorities.)