Wednesday, August 22, 2012

As summer winds down

I haven't had much time to post recently as I have been helping David get his classroom ready for the last week or so. This time of summer is always difficult to find time because David and I cling to our last few days of togetherness before he goes back to work.

We truly live for summers. As a teacher, my husband has an insane amount of work. I should mention that he is a perfectionist which really impacts the amount of work he actually has. Due to his job, once summer ends we get very few hours together a day. This is why, the last week before school starts, I'm pretty hard to get in contact with.

This school year brings changes upon changes. David has two new administrators and a whole new curriculum. He also is trying to help his students find the passion in reading, and we spent dozens of hours working on setting up his classroom library. The kids will be free-reading each day, and they must meet different genre requirements (for example: they must read 4 historical fiction books, 4 realistic fiction, 4 traditional lit., 4 poetry books, etc.).  The goal is that at the end of the year, the students will have read 40 books. The idea was taken from a teacher in Texas, Donalyn Miller, who does this with her students. She has written an amazing book about it, and we feel the research she includes proves that children need more time to read in class. So..a classroom library it is!! Many hours and hundreds of dollars later, we have over 300 award winning and popular books for the kids to enjoy! We're pretty proud of this library, and it will hopefully get the kids motivated!

David's library. The bins are all labeled by genre so the kids can easily sort them. 


So now that David is back to school, my blogging will probably pick up again. I'm getting ready to start the process for a frozen embryo transfer so that will keep me busy over the next few months. Also, I have CF clinic tomorrow, and I've been fighting bronchitis for awhile now so I'm pretty sure we'll be discussing antibiotics at this appointment. I'm just praying that my PFTs haven't dropped too much. 

5 comments:

  1. Great work on the library, but I am sorry your time with David will be limited. How many days till winter break? lol. I am excited for you to pick up more blogging. Love your blog and so the more updates the better!

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  2. Good luck with clinic!!! How old are the kids in David's classroom? Depending on their age, I'd love to donate some of the books I get for review...

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  3. I hope you are feeling better and good luck on your clinic appointment! I cannot wait to read more updates Megan!

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  4. Inhaling Hope, Honestly, we are already counting down to Christmas break! :) Thank you so much for your sweet words. It meant a great deal to me to read your comment. I'm so glad you enjoy reading - I enjoy posting so it works out well. I've been happy to catch up on your posts as well!

    Cindy, Thank you for the good luck wishes. David's kids are 6th grade so 11 going on 12 I believe. If you are willing to donate books that would be absolutely incredible. We spent about 400 out of pocket on books this year because we wanted a GOOD library for them. Today was the first day they could "check books out" and they were all SO excited! David said it was amazing to see.

    John, Thank you so much!! I need to catch up on your blog as well - I've been out of the loop!

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  5. Hey, that's the exact age for some of my books. :) How bout when I have extra books I'm getting rid of, I'll send you my review of them and you can tell me if you guys are interested?

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