Procedures, Procedures, Procedures

OK, I may be slow... but I think I've finally gotten down the key to making things run smoothly (eventually) in my multi-grade classroom.

The key, as Harry K. Wong, would remind us all: procedures.

I spent an entire first week of school practicing procedures with my students. Who sharpens the pencils, who straightens the books, how we line up, how & when we pack up at the end of the day, how we are quiet when others are talking, etc. Over and over and over. To this day (week 8), some kids STILL sit down as soon as we say the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag, even though we have said the pledge to the cross and the student bill of rights for our classroom EVERY.SINGLE.DAY of school right after the Pledge to the American flag. Is it really that hard to remember? Seriously?

So now that I've been reading (and finally watch the rest of the Harry Wong videos about Effective Teachers), I decided to put it into action. The premise is that every day all of us follow procedures -- how/when to answer a phone, how to go through security at the airport, how to wait in line at the grocery store, etc. Classrooms are no different. I loved Dr. Wong's comment that you can start the year with 5 rules and end up with 100s of rules by the end of the year because rules are tedious and must be enforced -- who has time to police students all day? Procedures are the WAY we do things. No right or wrong, no discipline just simply the WAY we do things.

When I'm interrupted for the 2nd time by students having their own conversation, I look at them and say, "I'm sorry but the procedure is for ONE person to talk at a time. I am talking now. Follow the procedure and stop talking." Likewise, even though our student bill of rights states that they each have a right to hear and be heard, they talk non-stop while others are talking. When I remind them of the classroom rights, they ignore it. When I tell them about the procedure, they pay attention. It's a slow process but other teachers are noticing a subtle change in my group.

I admit that it's more annoying when I must do the same thing with middle schoolers... but I do it. It gets results. This will probably end up at home with my toddler as well. I may not say "procedure" but I will say "We do not do this... we do it this way..." We'll see. :)

Welcome to Hope Lutheran!

Yes, I should've done this post MONTHS ago! So sorry... but I think it's time to take you on a short, "virtual" tour of our home-away-from home... This is the vinyl sticker sign on the wall outside my office door. Isn't it great? I got it on clearance at Kohl's! I've had a lot of people comment on how neat that is...

Here is my office... yes, it's not clean and organized but that's because I spent a couple hours last night moving my computer and reorganizing things... It'll get there! And, yes, the joke about it being "Kathleen's office" is more and more true everyday! (You can't see the toys in the corner...) Here she is in her usual pose -- with a pen/pencil and 'writing'...

This is our lovely 1980 gym/lunchroom. Enough said. This is the 3rd grade classroom that I teach in from 12:30-3 in the afternoons. Yes, every.single.thing is yellow in there. Here is the door to my office with my schedule. Yes, there is a money dropbox so parents and students can bribe me! Ha - just kidding. This room used to be the OFFICE and they can't switch out the doors. So every Monday the secretary or bookkeeper has to come in and check to see if anyone has left checks there. And I put any cash that parents hand me for hot lunch payments, etc in there so that it's secure. I bought the blue "HOPE" sign for $1 at Michael's and put little $.25 wooden things like a pencil, "Welcome", Schoolhouse, etc on it. Cute, right?

This is another view of our playground/soccer fields. The brown buildings are the 'modulars' -- the one closest to the gym door is for PS/PreK (middle photo). The right photo is actually the end of the PreK modular, looking out towards the Kindergarten modular. So much for "temporary", they've been here for years. Beyond the K modular, they've just finished paving that road (yea! Except it cost us $60K!) so we can dream of putting a more permanent building and getting rid of the modulars...

This is the classroom building. It sits between the gym (middle photo) and the church (see photos below). The red doors were just replace (to the tune of $10,500!... which was a memorial for someone) -- I suggested that they be painted RED so that parents/kids know to use those doors to enter the building. The gym doors (around the corner, by the modulars) will also be painted that color.... And, are you feeling sleepy? This is a lavendar bush, we have several around our building!

This is the main entrance to church, it is connected to the other side of school. I don't know that anyone actually USES this entrance. There is a parking lot to the left and most people enter through the side/office doors. Behind the tree (middle photo) are some bricks. They have our church/school sign. Do you see it? Yeah, neither do passing motorists!! That is on my 'list' of things that I'd love for them to change!!!! Here is Kathleen running from the gym to the front of the church. Funny girl.

Welcome to the church... It's sorta a "theater in the round" look... Looking up at the church balcony, you can (almost) see that this area houses the school library! The last photo is the church narthex that no one uses because, well, the coffee/cookies are in front of the side entrance by the school, so I didn't even know we had mailboxes or a guest book until -- last week, I think!

Thanks for coming on this 'tour'... ;)

SNOW way!

Oh yes, that's right!

There has been SNOW here this weekend! It started as the heavy, wet stuff on Saturday afternoon when we left the office at school...it melted right away so it wasn't too bad. We woke up this morning and the ground was COVERED. ACK! It's OCTOBER!!! But the parking lots are wet and it is supposed to be in the mid-50s by Thurs, so this won't last. Still, it's a shock to the system to see it this early in the year. Then again, when you live 5000 ft above sea-level, what do you expect, right? Did I mention that Kathleen managed to find EVERY puddle in the parking lot? Espeecially since she doesn't have boots yet? But she looks pretty adorable with her new outfit from grandma Barb and her blonde hair in curly pigtails.

Photo Captions: Kathleen outside with the snow/puddles; the school playground/soccer fields; K hamming it up in the hallway/entry to the offices.

Looking Ahead

Wow! Things have been SOOOO busy around here!

We were in MN/WI the last weekend of September for Todd's grandma's 90th birthday party. It was so fun to see everyone from the McLeod/Johnson side of the family and spend a few days with them. Unfortunately, Kathleen had hand, foot and mouth disease (a virus) so she was pretty miserable and, of course, spread it to the other little 'cousins' there too! ARGH. It was a HORRIBLE flight back home for the last 45 minutes with BOTH of us in tears... but once we got in the CRV and drove back from Salt Lake City (about 3 hours away) she finally slept and life was a little better. She did miss most of daycare last week, which meant I had to juggle a lot of things at work. THANK THE LORD that we have a sub list and so many great people who are willing to sub!

I can barely believe that the end of the 1st quarter is on October 24th! We have parent-teacher conferences 10/30 and 31st so no school those days! I'm hoping that I can get some office work done those days.

Our church is in the midst of finding an Intentional Interim Pastor. Someone to help lead the church while we actually take a look at ourselves and our vision for the future and THEN find a pastor to match those things. In the past they've been in such a hurry to FIND SOMEONE that they've ended up with good pastors who just weren't the right fit for the congregation... so we're hoping to avoid that by taking 6-12 months and THEN looking for a new pastor. Yeah. Pray for us!

The weather is getting cooler. Can you believe that last week it was in the 80s all week long?! Just sunny and beautiful! Last year on Oct 1 they had snow here, this year it was 80! A cold front moved in over the weekend and although they promised some rain, we didn't get any. Oh well. They are saying it will snow and have a high of 47 on Friday. I'll believe it when I see it at this point...

...and did I mention that my winter coat and boots are somewhere in storage?! ACK. I will be ordering a new one from Lands End as soon as I get paid on the 15th! K's snow pants and jacket from last year still fit her, so she just needs new mittens and boots this year. That's easy enough.

I wrote an email to my school board to let them know that I would like to go home for Christmas. One person gave me the OK to borrow the money from our moving allowance so that we wouldn't have to come up with that money right now while we're trying to pay for 2 households and daycare, etc. Then the chairperson of board said that the church will donate the ticket to me since "it's not good for man - or woman - to be alone" and they realize the sacrifices that Todd & I have made to make it possible for me to be here. So right now I believe I'll have 15 days at home -- not sure how much will be in MN and how much in WI... but I'll let you know when we figure out those details.

That's all that is new around here. We're anxiously waiting for Todd's sister Sara to have her baby sometime in the next couple of weeks! I'm already thinking of all the cute pictures of K and Sophie that we'll be able to take over Christmas. (Hopefully K doesn't try to poke baby Sophie's eyes out... we'll have to practice with her dolls...)

Peace!

- Tanya