Patience, Please...

Wow!  That's all I can say right now.  This is going to be an interesting year!  I loved meeting all 150 of my new students last week, and they are being so lovely and patient about my lack of skills in memorizing names.  As I correct work and hand it back, it will come to me faster, but right now they're really putting up with my rude pointing as a form of identification, with good humor.

They are also being patient with me as I work to take a 90-minute curriculum and work it down to 45-minutes.  They are starting to get a picture of how difficult this is going to be and have been so nice about allowing me to change things quickly.  Right now I feel like I'm swimming through murky water, having a difficult time finding my way through, but I also know that once I figure things out, we'll be golden!  I love that they've done this curriculum before because their conversations and input have been fabulous!  They're so intellectual!  I'm having a great time working with them.

I'm trying not to over-burden them with homework, so here is what I see going forward.  I'd like to keep English homework at about 30-minutes a day, so I'm thinking that 20-30 minutes should be for reading their Independent Book, but they may have 10 minutes or so of written work that will need to happen to finish what we were doing during class.  They will have three weeks to read their independent book, with a fourth week to pull together a project, plus some class time for reading, so I'm hoping that they will have no problem getting everything done.

Speaking of homework, I sent home a parent letter to be signed, so I need those back on Monday.

So here's what's coming up this week:

• Monday through Thursday we'll be working on our "St. Lucy's" short story that we started last week.  They'll be doing their vocabulary on Google Classroom, so we'll set up their accounts in class on Monday.  They'll be doing close-readings, discussions, and short activities in class all week to really dig into the material.
• I will hand out the project packets for Independent Reading on Monday, as well.  We went to the library last week, so all students should have something to read. They should always have their books on them so that they can read, read, read.
• Tuesdays with Teachers will happen after school starting this week, so if your student needs extra help, this is a great time for them to get help.
• Advisory Hours will begin on Wednesday and Thursday.  All students have been placed with an advisor, our regular hours will be shortened, and students will report to their assigned classroom during Advisory Hour.  Wednesdays are for academic help; Thursdays are for team and character building.
• Friday we will have time to do two things:  finish the vocabulary assignment for the week if they have not already done so, and SSR (Sustained Silent Reading) so that they can work on their independent reading.

As you can see, we're very, very busy, so please make sure your student is rested and in attendance as much as possible.  We're also now to week two, which means that the colds and illnesses will begin.  Hopefully everyone, including you, is now washing hands like a maniac.  It's the only way to try to stay healthy once we've re-entered the germ incubator that every school is.

I hope everyone has a great week, enjoys the beautiful September weather, and gets a little time to relax!  Ciao!

Patience, Please... by Laura Stubbs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at www.laurastubbs.blogspot.com.