5 days down 175 to go

The first week of school was pleasant.  A few thoughts:

–I’m loving my 4th grade Math class.  Even though they are woefully unprepared for the rigors of my class they more than make up for it with enthusiasm.

–1st graders have an incredibly short attention span.  I’ve never worked with this age before, so it was certainly a shock when I experienced this first hand.  After one day with them, I had to totally change my time management strategies.

–After spending nearly 2 hours a day with 10 energetic 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders, I’ve come to appreciate the comfortable comatose state of my upper grade students.

–I know it’s just the start of the year, but one of my students who was a real problem last year has experienced a dramatic change in behavior.  He just seems a lot more positive and more comfortable with himself.

–Waking up at 5:30 am to exercise isn’t all that bad.

We’ll see if any of these (especially the last one) can stand the test of time.

How I spent my summer vacation

On Monday, I go report back to school and get ready for the school year. Other than going to Hawaii, enjoying Hawaii, and regretting not being in Hawaii, here are some things I’ve done this summer:

1) Painted the garage: Before leaving for Hawaii, we put the house up for sale. This meant we had to spiff-ify it considerably, especially our garage. In addition to its blue hue clashing terribly with our white house, its horribly peeling paint gave off a rather diseased vibe. It took a pressure washer, a paint sprayer, about 8 gallons of paint, and many hours of labor, but we did manage to make it look less embarrassing.

2) Read books: I have never been the maelstrom of reading activity that is my wife, but I can occasionally get into a good book. Thanks to LoKo Lorin, I managed to get lost in some Jasper Fforde novels. The first two have been completed, and I’m halfway done with the third. Somewhere in between, I read the latest Harry Potter as well. HP was satisfying yet bittersweet. I also read the play M. Butterfly, which Sara may be teaching next semester. Finally, two books on classroom management. After last year, I felt like I could use a few pointers.

3) Attempted health improvements: Ever since I heard that some companies offer gym memberships as a perk, I wished my employer would do the same. Because as much as I want a place to exercise (especially in the winter), I just can’t stomach the exorbitant fees. Well, this summer my conference started an incentive program. It isn’t quite a gym membership, but it basically pays us to adopt healthier practices. In reality, it is more of a way to offset our increased health care premiums, but I give them credit for making it available. The program has given me the motivation I needed to exercise three times a week and floss consistently. They also gave us a pedometer to count our steps, and I’ve been walking more as a result. This week I’ve gotten nearly 50,000 steps.

4) Created a list of media resources for my Science, Social Studies, and Bible classes: This year, our school will be changing things up a bit. Instead of one teacher teaching grades 1-4 and one teacher teaching 5-8, we’ll be switching between classes. This means I’ll now have the little ones for the above classes, while no longer teaching language arts. In the past, I’ve been pretty disorganized with the resources. There were days when I would go to the library and realize that they had an excellent video on a topic I had just studied. Other times, I would find a great website two months after it had become relevant. Now I have a list of websites, library videos, online videos, and even podcasts to enhance my classroom study. I’ll still probably check out library books a week before, but this should help a lot.

Honorable mentions:

–Finished season 3 of the West Wing: We should finish season 4 sometime next week. This is all made possible by In-laws Inc., who watch them and send them off to us.  This beats Blockbuster and even Netflix.

–Watched old high school dunk videos that my friends and I used to make: I really wonder what my kids will think of these when they see them someday. Sara can only take a few minutes.

–Made risotto: I’ve been really lazy as a cook this summer, but this turned out pretty well. Thank you Rachael Ray.

–Slept: Too much.

–Taken 1989 Camry in for repairs: Way too much.  Driver’s side door wouldn’t open, tires started rattling, brakes started rattling, today it wouldn’t start in the parking lot.  All I ask is one more year of life.

–Wasted lots of time blogging and reading about sports: This is why I need to get back on a regular schedule.

The Aloha State: The Last Days

Day 20

The third and final Sabbath of our trip turned out to be a rainy one, as the remnants of the tropical storm lingered.

You all ready for this?  Click on this here link for the overly detailed conclusion.