I have "broke the seal" and have my first cold of the year! After celebrating my birthday on Tuesday I woke up Wednesday not feeling my best {not JUST to the tasty beverage I had the night before}. Then, after getting a start to the school day I had not 1, not 2, but FOUR students drop like flies with strep throat! YIKES! Now, I have some of those symptoms and am not excited about it.
The beginning of the year is always so busy. This year I just don't feel like I can catch up or get ahead. I also feel like this year we have been handed so many assessments to complete in such a short time frame that I am unable to do ANY real teaching! What happened to making instruction the most important part of school. Does anyone else feel like the emphasis is being placed too much on assessing?! I mean, here in my part of Florida, we have to give my sweet firsties Success Maker assessments (computer program) that is taking over an hour per child to get out of their initial placement assessment, FAIR testing, STAR (accelerated reader) assessments, and the many core curriculum assessment (sight words, numbers, letters, etc..). When exactly do they expect me to teach?! GGRRR....so frustrating!
Okay. I feel better now that I've let it all out! Whew! Hope you're off to a good start! :)
I feel exactly the same way! We had a week less to prepare our classrooms so my room wasn't really where I like it to be by the first day. I got food poisoning the night before school started so that was special. And trying to assess and input all the scores into Eduphoria before the set dates is totally stressing me out. I've been up late every night cutting things out for my classroom and like you I feel like I just can't catch up. I'm hoping it will get better!
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I'm with you on the assessing thing. I've spent the last 4 weeks doing FAIR and now I need to FLKR. Between testing and reviewing the rules and procedures I haven't been able to teach much.
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You are one of my Top 10 blogs. Go and grab your award!
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-misty