Before School Starts

Morning Work

✔️ Breakfast provided and lots of catching up and mingling with our network schools.

✔️ PD day in the morning focused on competencies: critical thinking, communication and collaboration.

✔️ Strong community building through small group protocols where everyone's voice, experiences and perspectives are honored and valued.

✔️ Topic of discussion was a reflection of experiences that had a transformational impact on us and how this influences how we teach.

✔️ Heard from student alumni on their learning experiences and views on their time with us. Very heartwarming and inspiring 🩷

✔️ Lunch provided.

Afternoon Work

✔️ Return to primary campus and dive deeper into campus competencies that will guide our teaching and work across all PK-12 grades & subjects.

✔️ Reflect and discuss our strengths and write about what influenced these strengths through protocols.

After School

✔️ Get into my classroom for the first time.

✔️ Arrange the desks in my preferred layout.

✔️ Label my tables with color coded numbers. 

✔️ Create my desk layout template for my seating charts.

✔️ Create and print my schedule.

Morning Work

✔️ Welcomed back by the Fine Arts Dept with a "Here I Go Again" rendition on the piano, best session opener ever. 🤩

✔️ Elementary art and music teachers information session covering accomplishments, budget, and appraisal information.

✔️ Dig into our district purchased curriculum: The Art of Education Flex Curriculum and PRO Learning 

✔️ Break for lunch.

Afternoon Work

✔️ Review elementary art expectations, important dates, and memberships.

✔️ Meet with our cluster campuses and choose our artshow theme: Cultural Curiousities 🤩

After School

✔️ No school work, heading home.

Morning Work

✔️ Attended our district's Elementary Visual Arts PD. Spent the morning working on activities that could be used in the classroom:

• Alma Thomas collaborative mural

• Cave art drawing and hand painting

• Texture hands with a variety of materials

Afternoon Work

✔️ Supplies left from the school's warehouse and storage was given away to teachers for their classrooms.

✔️ Cutting activity related to art history.

✔️ Big discussions around promoting and advocating for our school's art programs. 

✔️ Overall, great two days connecting and learning from other elementary art teachers in our district.

After School

✔️ No school work, heading home to work on tomorrow's To-Do list:

• print out unit 1 booklets

• print and assemble grade level resource folder

• gather materials for unit 1

• assemble portfolios

• rearrange materials for student access

Morning Work

✔️ Spent the day at the primary campus I teach and was able to get done with:

• Printed Unit 1 student booklets.

• Assembled portfolios, nead about 20 more.

• Present schedules and rosters.

Afternoon Work

✔️ Campus meeting on effective teams.

After School

✔️ No school work, heading home.

Morning Work

✔️ Finally got a chance to get into my 4/5 art classroom at my second campus.

✔️ Checked out my classroom keys.

✔️ Gather up folders for each grade level.

✔️ Arrange desks and room layout.

✔️ Speak with budget coordinator about purchasing guidelines.

Afternoon Work

✔️ Set up portfolio area.

✔️ Prepped materials for first week.

✔️ Decided to puch back unit 1 start by a week so that all classes start during the same week.

✔️ Worked on lesson planning for the first week, will have students work on an Alma Thomas collaborative mural.

After School

✔️ Back to school night until 6pm. It was great seeing all our families! 

It's the weekend! And of course I have been working on my Artist Toolkit pages that will go in a class set resource folder that will be made for each grade level. My husband was really good with reminding me to get some sleep at a good time. I could have easily worked past midnight because I really enjoy making designs on my computer. But the sleep was worth it.

Pretty much a blur of meetings and meetings, some work time, and more meetings. 🤪

Since I wanted to try some new things in the classroom, there was a lot initial printing.

I also didn't spend much time with room decoration as the focus was prepping for the first unit.

The first week is done, and we are off to a great start. It's going to be nice to sleep in on Saturday!  Students are enaging with the new curriculum materials and I am feeling hopeful and so excited to see how it continues. ♥️

As a reflection for the start of the year, there seemed to be a lot more meetings and not too much time to work in the classroom.  While teachers do spend a lot of time outside school hours to work on their rooms, I was not able to as my kids had several activities I had to take them to. Most of my work time was spent on prepping materials and fine tuning lesson slides. My room for the most part was organized and ready to start at the end of last year. I plan to also end the year with portfolios created.