Checking in

About a month ago I wrote about all the things I still had left to do before school finished and some of the things I hope to do over the holidays. You can read that here. Since the first four weeks of "summer break" are almost over I thought it would be a good time to write an update on how I'm going with that list.

I'm happy to report that the first eight items on the list happened without any problems. The students enjoyed the Science Fair, and we all enjoyed the trip to Kids City (where we spent time on the playground, the Science Floor, and Clip and Climb). Most stationery requests came in on time, and I got all the teacher resources back. The review of stationery requests took a while, but my students happily watched a movie while I did that. I got the Math Summary Sheets done in time, but the Reading and Writing Continuums took me another week, along with finishing cleaning and tidying up the classroom. They're done now and in a safe place ready to hand over to the appropriate person.

So, what about the holiday "To Do List". Well, I'm slowly making progress with the things on that list. I've finally finished the Stationery Supplies (as far as I can). Here's the evidence of what I've spent a heap of time preparing for and doing.

The big picture (although you can't quite see everything).

Books, books, and more books.

Khmer teacher supplies

Classroom teacher supplies and more books!

Here's a few numbers to help you understand what a huge job this has been:

3417 exercise books in 7 different sizes/styles
1149 folders
285 highlighters (in five different colours)
192 erasers
92 boxes of writing pencils
95 packets of coloured pencils

All of which had to be shared among 50 teachers and teaching assistants.

Other things I have managed to do so far include reading a few books, catching up with friends, watching a movie or two, and setting up my plan book for next year. So here are the things I still have left to do. I'm sure a few of them might not get done, but that's OK too.

• Dental check-up
• Create pictorial Math Manipulatives Catalogue
• Check student workbooks for next year & request some extra photocopies.
• Buy fabric and make chair bags for my classroom
• Lots of piano practice
• Start studying towards my Graduate Certificate in Education (Inclusive Education) which I hope will eventually lead to my Masters of Education
• Prep my classroom for next year including setting up for The Daily 5
• Review Science & Social Studies Units and think about how I can improve on them for next year
• Write Unit plans for Language Arts Units
• Read some more books
• Catch up with friends - Two appointments made for this next week!
• Watch a movie or two - I've seen 22 Jump Street and I'm off to see The Fault in Our Stars tomorrow.

I'm also participating in an on-line book club during July, which is a book I've started reading several times and not finished. I'm really enjoying the readings and the reflection/writing part of it is good.

Finally I've been helping out with keeping the school pool maintained over the break. That's been great because I usually swim first and then sweep the bottom of the pool. The swim and sweeping usually take about an hour, sometimes a little more, but it's refreshing and rewarding.

So, I'm pretty happy with what I've achieved so far, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the break. I looked at my calendar today and there's just 3 weeks before new teachers start! I'm sure I'm going to wonder where the break went if I'm not careful! Looking forward to Bangkok too.