1.  Since this is mine and my co-teachers 3rd year at our amazing school, the new has worn off and we have things figured out.  It is is amazing to be able to refer to our own work from the last two years and have the chance to refine rather than create from scratch.  We know how things work.  We know who to ask.  We know how we prefer to divide tasks and we know what we can do better.  If you have been at your school less than 3 years, just know that it will get better…. Even if you are doing fine, it’s soooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier year 3!  I promise!  This is my 3rd school and it’s when you finally get to year 3 that you finally start to breath.  I LOVE year 3!
  2. I don’t think that having a student teacher is right for everyone, but I’ve never had one before and I really enjoy it.  I like talking about how things are going and taking the time to figure out how to make things better.  Having someone to guide through the process of being a student teacher has already made me much more reflective in my practice and that is always a good thing, and another set of hands to get tasks done is awesome too!  Honestly, having an honest look at why I do things a particular way is rather refreshing.
  3. I don’t know how long I can keep it up, but truly I am more organized than ever this year.  Because of grad school I have less time than normal and since I have no real sense of what is REALLY needed in terms of grade school study time, I’m trying to  er on side of caution.  As a result, I have had to give up on procrastination entirely and haven’t permitted myself even one messy classroom day.  I even spent my Saturday cooking ALL afternoon.  I literally have ALL of my food prepared for the entire week…. I feel like super woman!  🙂
  4. Ok – 4 good things! I absolutely love reaping the benefit of 2 previous years with my students.  Having the chance to reconnect and renew existing relationships with my students is such a blessing.   Last week was so much fun!

Here is a video that my school faculty made for our students for the first week.  We were able to shoot the entire video in about 2 hours and then one of our staff members and her husband who is a professional videographer filmed and edited everything for us.  We showed it to our students on Friday and and laughed a lot!  It was a great way to end the week!