Project Life: Week 48

Hi everyone :)

I think I’ve got my photo problem sorted out now so I can go back to blogging ‘properly’ again!  This week there has been LOTS happening!  In fact, as I put my pages together I was a little overwhelmed by how much as happened!

Here’s an overview of my week:

We had more tent building this week and the kids have now worked out how to put the tent up correctly.  They also had a lesson on how to pack the tent away so that everything fitted inside the bag!

On Monday night Mikayla moved out… but it’s all good!  She’s moved onto a farm about half way between Taupo and Rotorua and she’s working as a nanny.  She’s really enjoying herself and loves the four year old twins she’s taking care of.  She’s been sending Toby texts and emails including a photo of her with Jazz.  Toby didn’t like the photo of Jazz one little bit but she has assured him that he’d love her in real life LOL

Here’s a closer look at the beginning of my week:

The kids and I have been doing some more work on fractions and they loved the challenge I gave them.  It makes a great wall display because there’s so many variations and the colours are bright and colourful.

I’ve had a writing group with eight kids involved for the past couple of weeks working on a report about keeping ourselves safe in the Great Outdoors.  The kids have worked really hard and we finally published the finished report this week.  By the time we’d added a few photos it looked really impressive!  They were even more happy with the Principal said he would publish it in the school newsletter!

On Wednesday afternoon I went over to Mum’s for dinner before heading to a Remembrance Service with the funeral home who helped with Richard’s funeral.  It was a beautiful evening involving a couple of bible readings, Christmas carols, and a candle lighting ceremony.  They had a big Christmas tree there covered with all different kinds of blue baubles and they played Elvis Presley’s ‘Blue Christmas’ during the candle lighting.  At the end of the service they gave everyone a bauble off the tree to take home.  Mum and I were pleased we’d gone and it was actually a really heartfelt event.

After the service I took Mum out for dessert at our favourite Mexican restaurant and we also had some ‘virgin margaritas’… actually they stuffed up our order just a bit and our first pitcher of margaritas was definitely NOT virgin at all.  Mum can now honestly say that she’d tried tequila!!

During the evening I was also able to tell Mum that I’d been offered… and accepted… a teaching position in Gisborne for the 2014 school year.  There’s so many changes coming up and if I stop to think about it for too long it’s quite overwhelming but I’m sure when it sinks in fully I’ll be extremely happy!

Here’s a close up of the second part of my week:

On Thursday our Kapahaka group did a second performance in the Rotorua Festival so Carey, Chris, Deidre and I all went along.  The kids gave a really polished performance and we were all so proud of them.  Afterwards Carey and I went out for dinner to celebrate my new job and had a lovely meal.

On Friday there was a Pyjama Day at school which was organised by a couple of the girls in my class.  They asked for a gold coin donation to raise money for the Child Cancer society and they were thrilled when they raised just over $170 dollars!  I was pretty thrilled to see Matua Mike (a teacher aide in my room) get dressed up and couldn’t resist taking a photo!  Sorry Mike… I should probably have mentioned that I was going to put it on my blog LOL

On Saturday morning I went down to the local market and bought myself some flowers for my vase.  I also spotted strawberries on sale and had to get some.  It was a lovely morning and a great way to start the weekend.

The rest of my weekend has been spent finishing reports.  I know when parents get the reports they always wonder why there isn’t a lot in them but from a teachers’ point of view it’s a little different.

I have 25 kids in my class and I have to write comments for Reading, Writing and Mathematics as well as a Social Comment.  Plus I have to put in the ‘next learning steps’ and ‘how you can help at home’ comments for each curriculum area.  I tend to use all the characters I’m allowed per child which equates to:

• Reading – 605 characters
• Writing – 605 characters
• Mathematics – 605 characters
• Social comments – 405 characters

That’s a massive 2220 characters per child… multiply that by 25 children and you’ve got 55500 characters in total!  Actually I’m glad I didn’t know that while I was writing them!

After writing all our reports we have to proof read them and then get a colleague to check them before we make the final adjustments and hand them into management.  So that’s what I’ve been doing all weekend.  But they’re done now.  Hopefully management won’t require me to make too many changes before they go home to parents!

So there you have it… just another week in my life :)

I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend… I’m off to open my box of new art supplies xx