Five for Friday.... or Saturday!

It's the end of our first week of school and I'm exhausted!  I heard other teachers talking about it too, so at least I'm not the only one!  I think having Back to School Night in the same week as the first full week of school is just a lot.

But - it's Saturday and that means I'm just a little late for Doodle Bug's 5 for Friday!

1.  Back to School Night

This was the first year that I didn't do a "presentation" at the start of every period.  I'm glad that I didn't because it's just too difficult with parents coming in and out the entire time.  I just had my power point presentation on auto as I worked my way through parents and answered questions.  Here's my instragram pic of my room.

2.  Donors Choose

On Friday my Donors Choose materials came!  I'm SO HAPPY that I got my project funded and my students can read The Hunger Games in a few weeks.  I'm super excited about the possibilities....  what other books are good for Middle School?  Percy Jackson?  I always try to find series so that I encourage my students to read the remaining books on their own.

3.  Baseball Fun

Some of our good friends invited us to the local baseball game Thursday night.  It was really good to get out and think of something else besides work!  And stay up past 9:30!!  My school report time is 7am, so I have to go to bed early if I want to be functional that early! 

4.  Grading

However, this weekend I get the joy of grading my students work for the first time.  I have about 3 assignments for 3 periods and it's a huge stack of work.  My math partner wants to send home progress reports for Monday, so that means I gotta get through ALL of it and put it into our online gradebook.  Ugh.  Fun, fun times.

5.  TpT Back to School Sale!

This week TpT finally announced their Back to School Sale!  I will most definitely be participating and I'm trying to make a few more items for the Sale!  The sale is Sunday and Monday - you can get up to 28% off your purchases by entering BTS13!!  Come and join the fun!  

This beautiful graphic is by Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Designs!  She's offering it as a free TpT download here!

2013-2014 Goals

I {heart} Recess is having a great 2013-2014 Back to School Goal Linky going on over at her blog!

It's focusing on your personal, professional goals for the upcoming school year.  Since I go back next Thursday, it's time to take a look!

Personal:  I've been trying to keep up a level of fitness... I've been better at working out, but over the summer, I've been trying to get back into the working out groove.  Hopefully, now that I'm going back and playing hockey once a week - it will help my fitness.  I am also trying to eat healthier!

Organization:  I want to try and stay on top of my grading and paperwork this year.  I'm decent at keeping up on my grading, but you know those days when you have a HUGE stack that takes 3 hours to complete.  No more!

Planning:  Our lesson plans are checked every Thursday afternoon for the past week.  (It would be smart if they checked the week ahead, but I'm not the boss.)  I'm going to admit that there were some days that I wrote the lesson plans during my prep on Thursday for that afternoon.  Now that I'm back in the LA/SS groove, I gotta be more on top of my planning to make sure my students are engaged and learning!

Professional:  Ignoring what I can't change is my number 1 goal this year.  I can't make people want to be better at my site.  No matter how much I give, it's not going to make the school-wide changes that I think should be started.  If I can't fix it, I can't worry about it!

Students:  Stay positive!!!  I know that I have some tough kids coming in, but if I start the year down - there's no where else to go!  I'm going to stay positive and love my students whether they like it or not!!  We can do it and we're just going to get there one way or another!!

Motto:  So - it all adds into my MOTTO: Be the Rockstar that I know I am!  My admin probably doesn't know I can teach and manage a classroom like a champ.  Somedays I wonder if they know what subject I'm teaching this year, but I just want to prove that I'm awesome and I can handle all the stuff they throw at me!!