A Well Deserved Week Off

I took a week off from updating the BLOG. I've been running my self ragged lately between teaching, planning, meetings, and my kids sporting events. So I spent a day on the lake fishing....in the wind. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, but it was relaxing nevertheless.

I guess that's the theme for the week...it wasn't exactly as I had hoped for, but there is good in everything if you just look.

Last week we introduced Read to Self. The expectation is for the kids to "read" the words, pictures, or retell the story in their book box books while staying in one spot, being quiet, making sure they aren't just paging through the books, and doing it the whole time. Which is eventually supposed to get to 10 minutes. That's a tall order for Kindergartener's....let's be real that's a tall order for anyone. So the 1st day went as planned. They made it for about one minute thirty seconds before someone broke our "stamina"...meaning they weren't doing at least one of those expectations. Then the next day they did better, and the third day they rocked it out of the park reading for 7 1/2 minutes! Then the unexpected...back down to 2 minutes. Ugh....but we are working through it and learning ways to get ourselves "ready" to focus on reading that long and have been listening to many stories that are helping us understand the importance of practice to make progress. So we will continue to work toward our goal.

We were able to have the Albertville Fire Department visit on Friday and the children all got to see the fire trucks outside, but unfortunately it was...dare I say...snowing? We braved the weather anyway and the children all enjoyed seeing the inside of the trucks.

We went to the outdoor classroom in the gale force winds Friday afternoon, and though there was some complaining about the wind and the cold, the chidlren had a blast seeing the trail in the woods for the first time and stomping acorns to see what they have hidden inside.

I sat at the computer typing this post Friday after school, but didn't finish. My plan was to finish it Saturday morning at my son's football game, but again not exactly what I hoped for. It was waaay too cold to be typing Saturday morning, was busy all day with a birthday party, and was feeling less than 100% on Sunday. Regardless, I am finishing...not exactly what I had planned, but I'm getting it done.

So, as you prepare yourself and your family for the coming week, keep this in mine...things aren't going to go as expected (more than they actually do)...so instead of getting frustrated with it, just look for the good in the situation.