New School Year/New Hobbies

It has definitely been a while since I have blogged. One school year ended and another has begun. The summer was nice and is long gone and forgotten. Now I have a new class full of excited first graders. This year I have a class of 14. I guess we can go with fourteen. I have fourteen in the mornings for reading and then one little boy leaves me and goes to second grade for the rest of the day. His situation is special. He was a repeater at the beginning of the year but he failed last year because of his hearing. At the end of last year they found out that he had completely lost his hearing in one ear and had about 75% hearing loss in the other ear. The boy has just recently gotten hearing aids and it is so amazing to see the difference in him. He is so proud of them and now he is so wide eyed because he can hear everything for the first time. This year we also have a new reading program. This year we adopted the Scott Foresman Reading Street series. This has been an adventure in itself. This is my sixth year teaching and for my first five years I have used the Voyager reading series. So this has definitely been an experience. All of the teachers and reading coaches are trying to learn this new program together. With all programs I see some good and bad things withe the program. Scott Foresman absolutely covers more than Voyager which I really like because I feel that it is better preparing my students for the grades to come. But Scott Foresman does have a lot to cover in each lesson and getting my time down has been the biggest struggle. We are now half way through the second nine weeks and the reading program is now getting a little easier. I am also up for PEPE since it is my sixth year. This is always fun. The principal has already done one observation and I have complete my structured interview. This year I have also picked up a new hobby. I have began making and selling jewelry. I have had my first booth at an arts and crafts show in Orrville, Alabama this year. My husband and I enjoyed the show and did pretty good. It was a great learning experience because I got to see some booths of some veterans and got new ideas for my next booth. I am also currently working on getting pictures of my jewelry together for a website. I hope to have the website up and running very soon. Overall this has been an interesting year so far so I can't wait to see how the rest of the year will go.