Who doesn't love a good "Day in the Life" post?! Thank you, Kelly for the post idea today. :)
Teachers are crazy. Crazy busy. Everyone has their own kind of busy, but considering teaching has not been my only profession, I'd like to think I know. I have something else to compare this to, and I can safely say, I have never been so crazy busy like this before. I may get some backlash for this, but, it is much worse for elementary teachers. Much, much worse. At least secondary teachers get a padded planning time. When I subbed in secondary there were some days that teachers had 2 hours of planning. TWO. HOURS. That is unheard of in elementary. I am ecstatic for Fridays when my kids have Art and I get a full uninterrupted hour, instead of my normal hour broken up into two 30 minute specials where I have to go get the kids and take them to their next special (therefore, interrupting whatever train of thought, or project I have going on at the time).
Anyway. I'll stop. Everyone chooses their own field, and I love what I do. LOVE. I am exactly where I belong.
This is a really busy time of year for our building. We have Iowa Assessments and report cards to write and parent/teacher conferences to conduct. Life is busy. Here is how my Monday went, and typically most Mondays.
4:50 am - alarm goes off and I finally roll out of bed at 5am. Make coffee, brush my teeth, throw on work out clothes, grab my gym bag (with my workout clothes in them) and head to Body Pump. My friend Alana and I go to BP every Monday morning. Monday because we just need to get it done.
5:30-6:30 - Body Pump
6:30 - get ready for work at the gym. I do not shower at the gym, I haven't gone that far yet. To be honest, I'm a little afraid of it. I shower the night before and then take a hobo shower in the locker room. I mean, it's BP, it's not like I'm dripping sweat (don't judge me).
7:00 am - leave the gym for work. Stop somewhere for breakfast. Lately it has been for McDonald's oatmeal. If I was more organized, I would have it already made at home because I don't think it's that hard. Maybe someday. For now, I'll spend the $2.11 once a week to eat breakfast out.
7:20-7:30ish - get to work and lug in all the stuff I brought home with me over the weekend. This particularly weekend it was my overstuffed work bag and a box full of math journals that I graded. It took two trips.
7:30 - 8:55 - Get some word work packets ready for my co-teacher, work on a report card (I have a conference later), get supplies ready for a math lesson on the metric system. Make an anchor chart about converting units in the metric system. Preview a Scholastic Study Jam video (and love it), then get it ready to throw into my lesson for the day. Check email, pass back graded papers, review report cards again. Look over my lessons for the week and make sure I have everything ready to go.
8:55 - first bell rings. Kids begin streaming in. The whirlwind begins.
9:05 -second and final bell rings. Kids should be in their seats. We say the pledge. Kids get started on their math assignment. I turn in attendance, check in homework, send lunch count.
9:15 - 10:15 - teach math. The lesson on the metric system goes very well. Kids are still confused about the decimal jumping when we go from meters, to decimeters to centimeters to millimeters. Good thing we're working on it again tomorrow.
10:15 - Kids have Spanish. Spanish teachers uses my classroom, which means I have to find somewhere else to work. I choose the back of the classroom, where I am working on prep for our first Mystery Powders lab experiment. Kids are so excited when they see I am getting powders ready for experiments. I give them the Look which tells them to be respectful to their Espanol maestra. They listen (they rock).
10:45 - Kids have PE. I walk them to PE and give them a reward for walking through the hall without talking, which is a tally. Tallies are good. Tallies earn the kids classroom parties.
11:15 - Kids come back from PE and work on more math until lunch time at 11:40.
11:40 - We leave for lunch. I get them through the lunch line.
11:45 - I have lunch (school lunch because I forgot the lunch I packed in the refrigerator at home. Luckily school lunch was chicken patty on a bun. It wasn't bad). I eat in the teacher's lounge to make a short appearance.
12pm - Head back to my room. Freshen up. Brush teeth. Head to the special ed room to coordinate a meeting with the two special ed teachers.
12:20 - kids come back from recess. We spend a few minutes reading and chilling out from recess. I take attendance.
12:30 - Usually we have writing at this time, but this week we have Iowa Assessments (formerly ITBS for all you locals) so we are doing test prep. We do two practice tests.
1-3pm - Usually this is my literacy block, but due to Iowa Assessments, we are testing. I get my kids started on their first of three tests today. Today they are tested on Vocabulary, Computation and Reading. While they are testing, I am recording what time they finish and also grading math journals. Every few minutes I get up to walk around and make sure that everyone is bubbling their answers in the correct space (they are).
3pm - Finally. We have our Mystery Powders lab. I put the fear of God in them and remind all kids that if they taste or snort the powders up their nose (one of the questions asks them to smell the powders) they will not participate in any more labs and will instead watch all labs. Luckily, this class is so good, they look at me in horror at the thought of something going up their nose.
3:30 - We clean up our lab materials, set aside all substances to use tomorrow for a similar lab experiment. We fill out our planners and work on our homework. Most students get their homework done (math homework, measuring to the nearest 1/2 centimeter and converting it to meters).
3:55 - Dismissal.
4:00 - I get a few things ready for my 4:30 conference, tidy up the classroom. Wash my hands (I always feel grimy at this time of day). Check the office for anything in my mailbox. Get my take home bag ready because I have to jet out of school right after my conference for a grad class.
4:30 - Parent conference.
4:45- Leave school and head to my school's district offices to a professional development class that earns me graduate credit (which moves me up on the pay scale. Woo hoo!)
5pm-7pm - Sit through a class about Microsoft Office 2013. It was actually pretty interesting! If I wasn't so tired, I think I would have paid more attention.
7:30pm - get home and Bill has cooked dinner (isn't he the best?).
8:00pm - begin typing this post (after reading Kelly's and therefore getting inspired!)
9:00pm - predicting I will be in bed reading.
That's it for me! Besides the standardized tests this week, that is pretty much my day. Go, go, go. All day. No time to really breathe because kids are always in front of you and you always have to be on. Between Iowa Assessments and Parent/Teacher conferences, November is insane and I am definitely not a fan. I cannot wait for Thanksgiving break. It has definitely been earned.
What is the busiest time of year for you at your job?
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10 comments:
Sheesh; that is a full day! When do you go to the bathroom!? Sorry, maybe that's a personal question, but I know that is one thing I have to figure out at work, as we always have to have at least two of us in the office in case the phone rings...so I have been drinking less coffee in the mornings, because otherwise I have to hold it from 6 - 8:30 sometimes!
A. 4:50?! Dang. I can't even drag myself out of bed at 6:50.
B. You get to school an hour and a half early?! Wow!!
C. I do get slightly more planning since I'm not a classroom teacher. :p
D. I don't know why it won't let me comment off my new account... http://www.simplyalwaysforever.blogspot.Com
But anyway, this post inspires me!
Oh. And you're already doing Iowa Assessment?!
That is a full and busy day!! I'm glad to hear you love it so much.
The fall is definitely my busiest time of year. Our campaign runs September - December and during these months all bets are off for hours worked. So far I've started work between 5 and 5:30 am three times this fall and also worked as late as 11pm. On Sunday I had to get up at 6:15 to go to a 2-hour breakfast event at 7am. It's fun though and it's lots of talking to people and building relationships and I enjoy that so I won't complain too much! I really do love my job. I don't think I could handle the pace we go at in the fall all year long though as I think that would burn me out...
I don't even know when my busiest time is. Most likelyt he first month of school but it's always busy. My kids got their day shortened this year so now I do have a paid 30 minutes in the morning before they come and a paid 30 minutes after. Otherwise I don't get planning time until Friday. I also have to eat my lunch with my students. It is not fun. However, I generally go in to work about an hour early to try to get stuff around. Since Isla I've been trying to leave on time or close to it. My kids are in the room from 830-330 and i work 8-4 technically.
Wow, that is a busy day! I am honestly a bit envious of the structure of your day as my job basically has no structure to it and I decide what I want to do at what time for how long basically every day, with the exception of when I have client calls and meetings. I like it most of the time but sometimes I wish there was a bit more structure. I don't really have a busy time of year, but the busiest time of the day is the morning as most days we write a daily publication that talks about what is going on in the markets and then we suggest a trade idea (which takes me forever to come up with and makes me feel stressed).
Holy. Cow. I'm tired just reading this post! Wow. You're a trooper.
My busiest time of year is usually the summer into end of September. This time of year is a bit slower as people regroup and budget for 2015 but that's not always the case. Depends on the contracts we are working with/on.
Love that your husband had dinner ready for you. That's awesome.
I think I'm going to do the week in a life thing as a post/series starting next week, maybe! It's a great idea.
HA to Kyria's bathroom comment. That was such a problem when I worked in a daycare. I remember when I got my first office job and I was like, "I CAN PEE WHENEVER I WANT! WAHOOOO!"
I did full-time teaching in an elementary school for about two months and hated it so much. More power to the teachers who love what they do! It's such a hard job.
November/December are typically the craziest times of the year for me because I work on a deadline schedule (all work must be completed by the end of the month) so in months like November, when I essentially only have 3.5 weeks to get everything done (rather than 4-5 weeks), it's a little stressful to get it all done. December will be even crazier with all the holidays! But, um, still not anywhere near as busy as your regular days! Haha. Thanksgiving Break is almost here and I hope you get to enjoy it to the fullest!
Girl! I don't know how you are getting up that early and working all day! I just can't do it!
I always love reading DIL posts. I always think it's so interesting reading what time people wake up and the little details of their day. I do think it's also a little amsuing that I can picture actually what the chicken sandwiches used to look like in the cafeteria especially since I haven't had one in 20 plus years.
I've always wanted to write a DIL post, and think right now before the baby comes will be pretty perfect. So you can likely expect to see one from me in the next week or so! At least assuming I manage to actually make it happen!
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