I thought it would be fun to show my little teacher nook in my classroom as it looks this year.
All in all my workspace is cheerful & colorful. I enjoy my little teacher nook and it's fun to have joy when going to work!
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
This school year has been pretty long. It began for us on August 24th with two full weeks of teacher in-service. Usually, we get 2 to 3 days of teacher in-service at the beginning of a school year. So to get two weeks of in-service really testifies to the degree of information we had to learn before beginning this covid-protocol year. Students returned to school on September 8th, so our school year was already starting out roughly a month late.
In our county, students were given the option of being a
traditional or a virtual student, and each school then got to choose how often
students could transition between the two. Each school also had the option of
assigning certain teachers to only be virtual teachers or traditional teachers,
or if the teachers would be required to shoulder the burden of being a
traditional and virtual teacher simultaneously.
In our school, students could choose to go virtual at any time, but
could only return to traditional learning at the beginning of a new 9 week
period. In our school, we were instructed to teach in the traditional classroom
setting and also to manage virtual students. Therefore, despite whether the student was
obtaining his or her biology education in the traditional building or via an
electronic platform, the teacher was the same.
Me. At first this was SO
overwhelming. Eventually, I hit a groove
and feel like I settled into a routine where I could survive. It wasn’t easy. In fact, when I think back about all we’ve
accomplished in this year, I’m surprised at the way in which we made it
through. It was a lot. Mentally.
Emotionally. Physically. Educationally.
We also had to wear masks all year long from the time we
stepped out of our cars in the morning until the time we got back into them at
the end of the day. I felt so bad for
school bus drivers and school bus riders because they had to wear masks during
our long summer & spring afternoons on our non-air-conditioned buses.
In looking forward at the upcoming fall, and now hearing
that we will not be required to teach virtually this next year, I am giddy with
the thought of how easy the year
might seem.
We’re also told that we won’t have to wear masks next year
(barring some ridiculous rise in cases). The thought that I could teach “mask
free” is an enlightening one.
I’ve often referred to this year as “eating our
vegetables.” I’m such a “save the best
for last” person. I savor all desserts
and enjoy looking forward to a reward. It makes the trudging through the pain
bearable because I’m heading towards a reprieve. However, the entire 2020-2021 school year was
written in the dialect of “you just had a 5 month break, so now you have to pay
for it.” In reality, though, that 5
months off was in no way a “break.” We
couldn’t go many places. We couldn’t
have a “normal” summer. Several
businesses weren’t open (like the library, etc.). The news around us was so scary that I didn’t
feel comfortable taking my children in
any stores anyway. My kids actually
didn’t go into any store until November.
This being said, our summer was spent in our own home and visiting my
parents and my in-laws. It wasn’t
“normal” and it wasn’t a “break.”
Therefore, the pain that continued into the 2020-2021 school year
was nearly devoid of breaks. What breaks
we had were partially used as “eLearning Days” which meant that all students in
the county were doing virtual learning on those days. So I still had work to do—I was just able to
be in my home while doing that work and monitoring my own sons’ work for their
classes, too. These days still counted
as school days and certainly put a damper on what a true “break” felt like. We
had these days in September, in November for Thanksgiving break, in December
for Christmas break, and in March for Spring Break. We had some holidays removed from us
(Columbus Day, President’s Day, Good Friday, etc.). It was a very rough year.
So since we were essentially told that we had a big long
“break” before school began, that was akin to us eating our dessert first and
needing to suffer through eating our vegetables throughout the remainder of the
school year. One that would last until
June 4th.
Along the way, we had a few increases in morale. At
Christmas, I had a couple teacher gifts that were nice and provided a little
boost to get me through the first semester.
In March for the second half of Spring Break, my family was able to
travel and not wear masks during that time.
In early May, we celebrated Teacher Appreciation week at school and were
provided lunch and some snacks (to include M&Ms, trail mix, etc.) on a
couple days.
I’m grateful for the experience; I truly am. It was eye-opening. I firmly believe it made me a better
teacher. I am grateful for my
opportunity to be the parent of school aged children during this time too
because I had the unique chance to see what the electronic database looked like
on the student side of things. I count
the experiences this year as character-shaping ones, and it makes me truly
relieved to be looking towards a future school year without all these
requirements in place. The pandemic year
was a long one (technically, it was more like a pandemic year and a half), and
if we can correctly say that it’s behind us now, then I will shed some tears of
joy in the hopes that we made it through and that we just might see “normal”
again.
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
It's hard to believe November is almost halfway over already! This month has been very busy so far. We began November three days after a major wind storm blew through our area from Hurricane Zeta. It knocked out power for several thousand people in our state. We only lost power briefly a few times during the storm around 1:00am (so I was awake and battling our house alarm system because the code box kept chirping since it didn't realize what time it was and it would reset every time the power went out!). We had some wind damage and some slight roof damage that caused some rain water to leak into our home. We'll call a roofer out soon to take a peek. However, our damage was so much less than what it could have been and we're very thankful that no trees fell on our house, etc.
My dishwasher's start button was fried during the storm, so I haven't had a dishwasher since October 29th. My new dishwasher's name is Reba and she's a hard worker. :) I'm super grateful to be married to an electrician who can figure things out and he has narrowed the problem to the circuit board and we'll be ordering a new part soon. Whether or not it will officially fix the problem, we are unsure but it was a better use of our money to try to repair it first before buying a new dishwasher right before the holidays.
At school we ended the first nine weeks on Monday November 9th, so I scrambled around during the first week of November to solidify grades and to complete the make-up assignments so many students needed since lots of students were without power for some of that first week of November. In the end, though, I got it done and am glad to be in the second nine weeks. This section of the school year moves quickly because of all of the holidays and breaks. This nine weeks technically won't end until January 29th, but once I'm in the spring semester, I feel like it's a downhill ride to summertime so that makes me happy.
The boys have done well in being virtual students this year. We had the option to send them back to school for the second nine weeks or we had to choose to keep them virtual until the second nine weeks is over. We opted to keep them virtual since flu season is starting to pick-up around here and I didn't want to expose them to flu and covid in the school setting.
They are both excelling academically and I think they truly enjoy the extra time they get to spend with their grandma during the day while Aaron and I are at work. Noah's teacher is pregnant and will be leaving in the spring semester, so we knew he'd have to transition to a new teacher at some point. The school decided to go ahead and switch his original teacher back to in-person teaching and bring in the kindergarten virtual teacher to teach both virtual kindergarten and virtual first grade. So his new teacher took over last week for the virtual first grade class and I think the transition went smoothly. Noah's original teacher worked alongside the new teacher to show her exactly how the students submitted assignments and what lessons they were currently working on, etc. I'm so very thankful that she took these extra steps because it made the transition seamless. Michael's teacher has been the virtual third grade and virtual fourth grade teacher since the beginning of the school year so she's already used to juggling two class loads at the same time. He's continued to do well and is even working on cursive writing!
At my school, every teacher is both a traditional (in-person) teacher and a virtual teacher. So whenever I have students transition to traditional learning, they come in my class as an in-person student and they don't have to undergo a teacher transition. At times it feels like extra work to load and create lesson plans online and tweak those plans for in-class learning, but it's really not so bad in the end.
We have one full week of school coming up, then we'll begin our Thanksgiving break by having Monday and Tuesday as county-wide "eLearning Days" which is code for "everyone will be virtual students on those days." It's nice for me because I get to be home on those days (just checking email every few minutes and answering any questions that students ask during the 7:45am-3:00pm time frame). It's also nice for my boys because they don't really know the difference between a regular day of school and an "eLearning Day" since all of their schoolwork is online anyway.
On Thanksgiving Day, my parents will host the meal in the late afternoon once my mom gets off of work. I'm super excited because my older brother and his family are coming into town and my younger brother is off of work so we all get to be together. My dad and I will handle the bulk of the cooking so that my mom doesn't have to do much of anything once she gets off. Aaron will fry a turkey breast and my dad will roast a whole turkey with stuffing. I plan to make a green bean casserole, a sweet potato casserole, bake rolls, and a couple of pies (cherry and crustless pumpkin). My sister-in-law or me or my dad will assemble mashed potatoes and a seven layer salad. Thanksgiving is certainly one of my favorite holidays mainly because of all of the family time.
The weekend following Thanksgiving, we'll have a meal at my mother-in-law's house when my brother-in-law comes into town with his family. I'm not sure what I'll be making for that but I imagine it'll be a green bean casserole and maybe a pie as well.
I had my follow-up at my doctor's office on Wednesday. Although my a1c went down, I'm still technically considered a Type 2 diabetic but able to be controlled by diet. I would say exercise as well, but I've slacked off on that regard so I won't say that my medical improvements are due to something if I'm not actually doing that something. I do plan to incorporate exercise again though. The doctor didn't write in my chart that I have Type 2 because she says with the labelling comes a change in life insurance options, and she won't prescribe a medicine because I've shown that I'm able to adjust my eating habits to accompany this new lifestyle demand. As a side note though: I will not change much on how I eat at Thanksgiving. I don't overstuff myself anyway, and I'm going to allow myself to participate in the day's eatings and not feel sanctioned off.
This was a big update and I'll write more soon about Michael's recent endocrinology appointment and Noah & Avery's well check-ups!
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
