So much to do!

I have had a great week! I was able to meet with many of my parents and plan to meet with most of the others this week yet so that will be very good! At least conferences are over for now... we'll start this round up again in January but that's another day. This weekend I actually finished up the fire pit! Now, if it will just cool off enough to start a fire... at least we had rain. Ahh, Texas, two seasons- blistering hot and not. I still had to water the garden today, sigh. C'mon rainy season! I got my 3rd Bundle in order, just in case Mr. Gagne comes in and asks me about it. He does things like that sometimes. He keeps me on my teacher toes! Have I mentioned how much I love those bundles in this post yet??? You know, usually during parent conferences I say something about how these grades are probably the highest they will be since traditionally we review first grade the first 6 weeks but after I said it once, I realized that it wasn't true this year at all! The bundles got us all off to teaching grade level requirements right away! What a great realization! AND that my students did so well, was even more awesome! I'm happy about the things that we are doing in the classroom. If you ever look at the list of TEKS we are required to teach during the course of a year, you might feel a bit overwhelmed like I do every year but this year with the bundles, I feel like I can do it. It really is easy to wrap my mind around a three week unit of study and it's becoming easier for me to make connections between the subjects which makes it easier for students to understand as well! A win-win situation.

I spent all day on the computer because I realized that the Best Buy TEACH Award grant was due TODAY, not Wednesday as I had been thinking! Not to worry, I got it done--you know I really am lucky I get as many grants as I do since I usually wait until the last minute-- now let's all cross our fingers and hope we get it!! It'll be 5 digital cameras, a color printer and a camcorder for our classroom...!

Speaking of grants, THE BOOKS CAME IN!!! I'm so excited! I just know the kids will love these science sacks(ok, I really need to think of a cute name soon). Mrs. Woodall and Mrs. Wedge helped me to sort them out and they are as excited as I am!! Yes, we'll share with them, they're friends and we have more than enough to share! Hmmm, I spent a lot of this week on school, not very balanced... but it was just that kind of week, next week will be better.

Hey! I did go to COSTCO with my mom and spent a significant portion of Saturday on the phone working out the details for my mom's birthday coming up in two weeks. Hmmm Let's see anything else? Oh, if you're looking to try out your new portal for your child's grades, I put some in there for you! Until next week!

Curriculum Bundles

Pflugerville ISD has been hard at work analyzing and breaking down our TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) into 3 week "bundles", for lack of a better word. The TEKS are our state mandated curriculum that teachers agree to teach when they sign their contract each year. I'm a TEKS fanatic. Now, I'm not the kind who can spout "Math 2.13B" off and know which TEKS that is exactly, but you can be sure that if I'm teaching it, it's a TEKS. The beauty of this bundling that our district has spent a great deal of time, money and energy on, is that the bundling breaks the TEKS down into managable, related chunks. This makes it easy to plan and implement since the TEKS can be overwhelming for even veteran teachers. It also takes a great deal of stress off teachers when they wonder, "Did I cover 2.7D?". (Well, maybe all teachers don't really wonder that, but I'm sure you understand my point.) It standardizes the curriculum throughout the district. If you move during the school year to another PISD school, your child's education will continue on track. If you ever have time, go to the Texas Education Association website and look at the TEKS for your child's grade level. Remember, there are about 14 TEKS (with A, B, C, and D) for each subject that we teach so you will need to look at the English Language Arts section, then scroll to the Math section, then Social Studies, Health, P.E. Art, Music, Science, etc. (It's actually a little scary all that we are responsible for but hey, teachers LIKE to live on the edge of sanity. ;) ) At any rate, I'm digressing... the point I was trying to make is that we have these neat little "bundles" for this next year that have been tied together into managble chunks by lots of people throughout our district including me and my friend, Elaine (we worked on Science), my friends Molly and Sara (who worked on Language Arts), and Katrina and Wendy (who worked on Math)....
The bundles and what we will be learning can be found on the Resources page of this website. We learn a lot of things in second grade! Be sure to check out what your child will be learning.

New Math Adoption

Today I went to the new math textbook introduction. Every 7-10 years, states around the country choose new textbooks for a particular subject. The purchasing is staggered out so school districts don't go broke buying all new textbooks in one year for all subjects. This year it was the math textbook's turn to be reviewed. We've been using Math Investigations at Windermere Primary School for a few years now, so it was no surprise when we choose a new math text that correlates with Investigations. Our new textbook is called enVision Math. This week representatives from Pearson are on hand to train all grade levels in how to use the new textbook. Today was 2nd and 3rd grades' opportunity to be trained. So, of course, I went. I'm glad I did. This might be a math textbook that I actually use. There are certainly quite a few resources that I know will be invaluable for the classroom, but I am an "Investigations" teacher. I actually had the good fortune to try out Investigations when it was in it's first printing and loved how it is based on research with children in actual math classes. Yes, sometimes it's difficult to find things to grade since most of the activities are hands-on explorations that kids do in small groups or pairs, but I think the company is getting better at that. They are developing more tasks that can be graded so it's not so hard when it's time to tell parents about their child's progress in math. What I like best about Investigations is that kids really end up understanding math concepts instead of just memorizing formulas or facts. That's really important when you come to a problem that you've never solved before. You have to be able to think about what you know, then use what's appropriate to help solve the problem. We do it everyday as adults and don't think anything of it but kids haven't had the life experience we've had, yet.

What really got me about this new textbook is the technology and online components available to us -- yes, even to parents. Families with computers will be able to access math games and the textbook online or by CD to assist their kids at home. I'm thinking again about Dr. Daggett's lecture back in June and think that this math book with its components will fit in nicely with our technologically savvy students. I saw a bank's advertisement on a billboard in Minnesota that bragged that their bank was "as connected as your teenager". It seems that our children outpace us in integrating technology into their lives. They don't have the reluctance that adults seem to harbor about technology. Not that all adults are technology-phobes, that's not what I mean at all. I am just amazed at how kids so easily incorporate new learning into their lives while it takes more effort for adults to do so. My principal has a vision that technology will be seamlessly integrated into each school day. She sends us lesson ideas and provides us with the equipment that we need as she is able, within her budget. I love her vision and I am striving to make it happen. It's hard though because I really have to think about where to integrate technology. Soon I'll be getting a Promethean board (no, I haven't been told I'll get one of those that will be installed in October, I'm just using the power of positive affirmations) and I'll raise my technology usage to a new level and then I'll learn some more and raise it even higher. Maybe this new math curriculum has ideas that I can already embed into my lessons without having to think up the ideas myself! Wouldn't that be nice? I'm one of those people who just need a spark and I can catch on fire with ideas...