9of.us

I’ve been leaning into the work of preparing for next year. Going back over lessons that didn’t go well with the kids during the year, practicing lessons that never were given during the year, and trying to wrap my mind around lesson planning. Practice happens in the environment, lesson planning is in my room with my laptop and all of my albums spread out around me.

Tonight I figured out that there are 17 subjects that probably every child should have some contact with me about during every week. That might mean a group lesson on geometry, or just checking in about how multiplication’s going. Here’s the list: Shared Reading; Guided Reading; Spelling; handwriting; writing process; grammar; math process; math memorization; supplemental math (money, fractions, algebra, etc); geometry; biology; history; geography; physical science; music; art, and PE. Our art teacher’s not coming back, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be responsible for P.E.
So I should expect to give a minimum of 4 lessons a day (because there are 3 grades, and many configurations of learners). Each lesson is under 20 minutes, but I’ve got to practice the lessons ahead of time, and have all the necessary materials prepared. AAHHHHH!!!!!

I’m very excited to see all the fruit of so busy a classroom, but having some trepidation about actually pulling it off.

Church in Fairfield, CT was pretty good, but travel time is prohibitive: I left my room at 7:30 AM and made it back at 3. Too long. Fairfield is pretty well-to-do, and everyone at church was pretty put-together. I wished the pastor wasn’t quite so polished, and “burdens” weren’t quite so abstract. Doing the meditations (and hearing from the missionaries) has made me hungry for poverty and humiliations. Both were absent from that church.

I’m going to try a church in NYC this Sunday. I went last year and was put off my the cosmopolitan feel, but I’ll try it again. After that I might take to “pulling Protestants” every week, and just singing hymns and praying in my room.