I'm completely exhausted and it's not even halfway over yet.
Today was our SF Zoo field trip. With 30 kids, 14 parents and the rain, I figured it would be a disaster. Well, a bit of positive thinking and organization ahead of time got me the best zoo trip I've had with students. I don't know what it was. My 10 core group of parents had 3 kids each, leaving me to manage the group. The rain put off most people so we were first in line. Several animals were taking shelter, so we didn't see the lions, elephants, rhinos, and tigers but we saw plenty of others and the kids were thrilled. Standing in the pouring rain watching the bears and gorillas......more fun than I anticipated. No one was lost, well, one did get lost but she was with her older sister and if they had just stayed with the group like they were supposed to.....no surprise there with that one.
After arriving back at school at 2:00, no rest - worked straight until 6:00pm getting ready for Open House tomorrow, cleaning, filing, hanging things, plus finishing assessments because after tomorrow I have to input all 30 students' assessments in the computer. That will be my Memorial Day weekend. Sigh.
Tonight at home I kept working, uploading all the zoo pictures and adding them to iPhoto with the rest of the year's photos (total of 492!) and created a slideshow to play tomorrow. Set to "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story, as it played it literally brought tears to my eyes, looking at those little ones from the first day of school to today, and seeing all that we did in between and how far they have come. I am in awe that I have (almost) survived this year. The next two weeks will be absolutely brutal but it's almost over.
Haven't taught BP since Sunday and I am really feeling the need to release some of this stress. I was going to make it to a spin class tonight but work got in the way, which it doesn't often do but it did tonight and it bothered me. Tomorrow is completely out so I hope to do something on Friday and then back to teaching this weekend.
At this point, all I can do is take it day by day but since I have to look ahead because of deadlines, it just creates more stress. I need to exercise to ward off the impending feeling of being completely overwhelmed.
Tomorrow: 9:00am observation by the Sobrato Foundation (who has been instrumental at our school in providing funding for enrichment, teacher training and collaboration, materials, and so much more) and the District head of English Language Development. They are going to observe a lesson in each Kinder classroom (yes on Open House day). Not only that, the RWC Superintendent herself will be walking around with our principal so who knows what time they'll pop in.
It really is a "good" thing that we have all these observations. Hoover is doing amazing things with different educational strategies for our English Learners that other schools in our district are not trained to do, so all the observations are to see what a great job we are doing. However, it creates a great deal of additional work and stress preparing for these observations in the midst of other responsibilities, like Open House, testing and other things. So while I mumble and grumble about all the people coming in, in the big scheme of things, it is a good thing.
Last week when the principal came in unannounced with a member of the RWC School board during my video taped lesson (talk about pressure) he turned to the principal (she told me at lunch) and told her he was blown away by my teaching and what the kids were producing. It honestly surprised me because I felt like crap with my double ear infections and sinus infection and I truly didn't feel like I did anything special. The next day, I received a personal email from him thanking me for doing a great job with the kids, how engaged they were, having fun and how well prepared they are for the next grade. Again, I was truly surprised because all year it has been such a struggle with the larger class size and I have often felt like I was drowning and spinning my wheels with these kids. As I test them, I see that most of them really HAVE been listening and taking it in, even though I have been unable, most of the time, to give them the kind of attention they needed and deserved. They actually have been learning. It really is a surprise to me because I didn't expect that. Oh, and the board member copied my principal AND the RWC Superintendent! Now I'm on the radar. So I fully expect her to walk in tomorrow to see me teach. Sigh. At least my room looks good :)
Off to bed. Need to get in early to load up on caffeine!
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