School doings

Another month has come and gone. September was a tough month, and October has brought some challenges as well. Thankfully I seem to have recovered fairly well from the dengue. It has taken time, and I still feel like I'm trying to catch up on two weeks of doing little more than I absolutely had to do. We've finally made it to the "holiday season". During October and November I have a total of eleven public holidays, which is something of a relief after just one in the last nine weeks (and that was only two weeks ago). Including the weekend I've got six days off now, followed by one school day then another weekend. The next week we get a holiday on the Friday, and the week after that we get one on the Thursday. I then get a full week, followed by another three day weekend and a four day week. One more full week, plus a Monday and then it's another six day break for Water Festival. After that it's only 3 weeks to our Winter Break (Christmas & New Year), the middle one of which has a holiday on the Thursday!

All those holidays were going to be my sanity preservation for getting my university studies completed, but with dengue on top of no assistant and the chaotic start to the school year I made a difficult decision to withdraw from my studies for this semester. So now, instead of madly trying to catch up on readings and write my second assignment I'm planning a two day mini-holiday, plus some days to catch up on stuff at school.

To help me stay focussed, and to give me the pleasure of crossing things off as I get them done I made a new "To Do" list this morning. Here's what it looks like. Some of these will be fairly quick to do, and others will take longer. Others won't be finished before the break is up, and that's OK too. It will be good to see just how much I can get done.

The list as it was at the start of today's working session.

I didn't take a photo of it when I finished today, so I've marked them off in the photo. 
The green lines represent jobs that are partially completed, or will be completed before I go to bed tonight. It may not seem like a lot of progress, but it is definitely progress.
You'll notice I've actually added more jobs to the list. That happens!

If  you look closely, you'll see that one of the jobs I have to do is to Review Conference Notes & Forward. We had Parent-Teacher Conferences from 2.30 pm to 5.00 pm on Wednesday and Thursday this week, which meant that this list was longer than it would have been on an ordinary week. Life's like that. It is good to meet the parents, and to share some things they can do to help their children make progress. 85% attendance was very satisfying, if tiring. I was grateful for Mr Vichheka's help with translation for those parents who don't speak English.

Tomorrow, after church and lunch, I'm heading a short distance from home to a hotel with a swimming pool where I'm going to stay for two nights. After all that has happened in the past 10 weeks, I feel in need of a real holiday, so I'm having a two day mini-break. Since I dislike travelling out of town on Cambodia's roads I've found a place very close to home that isn't costing a fortune, but which will be very comfortable, and give me the break I need. I'm taking a jigsaw puzzle and some cross-stitch as well as books to read so I won't be bored!

Back to School Tomorrow

I'm finding it hard to believe the eight weeks of "Summer Break" are over, and I'm wishing I had another week or two. Life's like that.

Tomorrow morning I'll welcome my new 4th grade class at East-West International School. It's a full class, and I'm looking forward to getting to know them. Some I already know a little bit, and others I don't. Either way, I've got name tags ready for them all so I can quickly put the correct names to the faces (hopefully). Their books are all sorted and labelled, bookmarks are ready for home and in-class reading. Book boxes for "The Daily 5" are ready to go. My CAFE board is also ready to go. Lessons are planned for tomorrow, including a fun craft activity to finish the day.

So did I achieve everything on my summer "To Do" list? Not really, but I'm not stressing over it. One of the things I did finish was a Book Club for a book called "Awakened".

The biggest thing I've taken away from reading this book and the daily reflections is a reminder to think about how I'm talking to myself, making sure that talk is positive, and to avoid negativity as far as possible. An example is how I approached my schedule for the year. There was something in it that I wasn't real sure about, and which I actually knew wouldn't work because of classroom allocations. Instead of getting upset about it, I thought about it for a while and came up with a solution that would work for everyone. I got my early morning 20 minutes with my students back, my students still get recess and their music lessons, we get 50 minute language arts lessons that day, and my Khmer assistant gets two 30 minute lessons with the whole class later in the week instead of one 40 minute lesson. I'm hoping I can keep a positive mindset as the week continues and that this year will be even better than all those that have gone before.

Some of the things I did achieve include:

• taking photos for the math manipulatives catalogue,
• getting set up for The Daily 5 and CAFE,
• getting those workbooks checked and copied,
• catching up with a friend and her daughter in Bangkok,
• seeing a movie,
• doing some swimming and helping keep the pool clean,
• losing some weight (I've still got a way to go, but I'm heading in the right direction),
• some piano practice (not as much as I'd like but some is better than none),
• getting started on my studies,
• reading some novels,

Well, I've still got a few things I want to do before I go to bed, so I'm signing off for now. My cold has almost gone, with just a residual cough, so I'm hoping to get back into the pool very soon.

Looking forward to a great first day of school tomorrow! :)

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.

Six days to go

Life at this end of the school year is hectic. I'll be honest and say I'm ready for the "summer" break, but it also won't be all just sitting around and relaxing. So what have I been up to, and what will I be doing in the next 8 days.

Things that are finished:

• Writing Report cards
• End of year concert

Things that still have to happen:

• Saturday 7th June - end of year staff lunch
• Tuesday 10th June - take class to see the Grade 6 Science Fair
• Wednesday 11th June - end of year field trip to Kids City
• Wednesday 11th June - stationery requests for next year due to me
• Wednesday 11th June - teacher resources from leaving teachers due to me
• Wednesday 11th June - teacher resource check-lists from returning teachers due to me
• Wednesday 11th June - remember to send home report cards
• Friday 13th June - review stationery requests and consult with principal over any unusual requests
• Friday 13th June - Reading and Writing Continuums and Math Summary sheets to be completed for every student, along with a writing sample and running records.
• Friday 13th June - last day of school

Once school is out, then I've got another "To Do" list including things like:

• Dental check-up
• Stationery Supply Purchasing
• Create pictorial Math Manipulatives Catalogue
• Check student workbooks for next year
• Check teacher resources from leaving teachers and organise any replacement items that are needed
• Buy fabric and make chair bags for my classroom
• Lots of piano practice
• Read lots of books
• 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
• Watch a movie or two
• Set up my plan book for the first half of next year
• Take a trip to Bangkok for some Rest and Relaxation
• and I'm sure I'll think of other things to do.

So that's what my life looks like for the next couple of months. I wonder how much I will actually achieve. Now you know why I need a long summer break. Believe me it won't all be "holidays"!