Counting down to my student teaching. Today I starting telling the students at my current school that my last day is this coming Friday. I am really going to miss many of the students. I hate leaving in the middle of the year, but I know that kids are resilient and the will be fine without me. I have been looking at lower level curriculum and I am getting excited about the different challenges I will be facing when I begin to work with the younger students.

One Week Left at ASMS

Normally I love snow days. An extra, unexpected day off, who could complain about that? Well this is not just any day for me. It is one of my last seven days at ASMS before I leave to do my student teaching at Riverbend Elementary School. I will miss the staff and students at ASMS, but I am very excited to get to work with the younger kids and I have been researching curriculum for the age group and level of students I will be working with. There are some very creative and intriguing ideas for teaching reading to young students. One place I found some good ideas was Webquest. I really like a lesson plan called 5 Day Read Aloud. I absolutely believe that all students can benefit from being read to. This is especially rue for beginning readers. It allows student access to materials they could or would not read themselves. I find that sharing a book makes the book more fun and interesting. I am hoping that I will be able to incorporate some types of read aloud lesson for my work sample.

So thank you snow day for allowing me the time to look into the materials for where I am going...even if it means one less day with the greatest staff and students ever......

Start the Count Down

Seventeen days until I start my student teaching. I as starting to get excited. I will be going to a K-3 resource room. That will be a big change sense I have spent the last 12 years in a middle school. The hardest part will be leaving the students at my current school. This has been a great year and I have gotten to work with a lot of great kids. I will also miss the team I work with, but to get to my goal, a masters degree and teaching license, I must make this move. And really every time I have stepped out of my comfort zone I have always been happy I did. I am already looking at resources that represent the level of the students I may be working with. I am trying to get an idea of what students in these grades may be learning. This will be a whole new experience and I can't wait to get started.

Just finished my first week of my second spring term. I can't believe that it has been a year. I have to admit I am tried, my house needs my attention and the job prospects are not good. With that said I am still glad that I took on this endeavor. The important things, like my family and my job have not suffered. In fact my children has made great gains of their own while I have pursued my life long dream of becoming a teacher.

When looking ahead, to what getting my masters in SPED would require, I was most concerned about getting my class work done and taking the required tests to get a teaching license. Although both of those requirements were (are) challenging, the aspect that is proving to be the hardest for me is leaving my current school to do my student teaching. I am looking forward to my placement in a k through 3 pull out setting. I think these kids will give me new challenges and stretch both my skills and my love. So it's not a new place that has me all emotional. My emotions are being driven by the love I have for the students I currently work with. Every year that I have been in the district I find myself completely committed to the students I am teaching. I don't apply for jobs mid-year because I don't want to leave students who are making progress. Leaving for my student teaching is no different. I know the students will survive and they will continue to grow, but I will still worry about them.

The other part about leaving for my student teaching is that I may not ever be back to the school and staff I have grown to love. The hope is to find a teaching job after graduation and my school will surely not have any openings. In a perfect world I would be able to return to this school to teach, but the reality is that the SPED teachers are all happy there and are under forty so they are going nowhere.

All of life's best and biggest accomplishment come with a few tears. This next step in my life is no different. I am sure that I will shed many tears as I pack up my belongings, my memories and my hopes to move to the next step in my life. If all goes well, I will find a place to teach that brings me as much joy as my current placement has.