Room 225

Well we officially survived our first day of school!  In truth, it was a bit of a whirlwind (three assemblies in the morning, 30+ minutes with our advisees*...that I had planned nothing for...and then only 20 minutes with each block to assign seats and try to remember names).  In the end, I felt fairly prepared for this week, but also terrified for today.  I think it went well overall (I mean I'm mispronouncing some kids' names and probably speaking too quickly already), but I'll keep working on it. (*Each 9th grade teacher has 15 or so 'advisees' that we meet with once a week as a sort of mentor/go to person for admin, etc)

I thought it might be fun to share some pictures of my classroom (my first classroom!).

Check out my AWESOME map (although Greenland is the same size as Africa...) and grouped desks!

My desk :) (and a bulletin board I never quite got to finishing...)

There's Javier coming to hurry me along before the afternoon buses leave us at school.

Showing some UVA pride on my doorframe (thanks to Mom and Dad!)

And my awesome view.... (it never gets old)

I had some big help on my bulletin boards from my Dad and Javier.  I know my students are in 9th grade, but I still wanted a welcoming (and fun) classroom on day one. (And who didn't still love projects and coloring and all that fun stuff in high school?)

COMING SOON to a classroom near you.... (a little sneak peak to get them pumped for the year!)

Some cool quotes about history including these:
Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters.
History is the discipline closest to life; and life is rarely free of contradictions.
History is but the record of the public and official acts of human beings.  It is our object, therefore, to humanize our history and deal with people past and present; people who ate and possibly drank; people who were born, flourished and died; not grave tragedians, posing perpetually for their photographs.

This is my 'Character Counts' board (a program the school has in place to stress the importance of character building): Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Caring, Fairness, & Citizenship
I'm looking forward to applying these to some characters and events we meet in history this year!

I also created my first Prezi presentation to share my vision for the class with students and parents.  It's a bit cheesy (but I'm a bit cheesy) if you want to check it out! Here it is! (Also prezis are AMAZING and free.  If you've never made one....do it!) We were also tasked with making an educreation presentation (to be used in case of my emergency absence).  The educreation was supposed to include a 'timeless' lesson plan (meaning it could be used at any point during the year...which is somewhat difficult for socials studies...since our lessons tend to be linear and chronological).  I ended up creating a lesson about sports (always a win, right?) after talking to a fellow teacher at Colegio Menor who knows Tommie Smith (see my educreation for information on who Tommie Smith might be) and thought he might be able to come in and chat with our students some time.  If you're interested...check it out!

Also the 8 Juans I have in one block all want to go by something different (Juan Diego, Juan Fernando, JJ, JP, Juan, etc) so that's GREAT news :)

I'm sure I'll have more school updates soon :)  For now I'm going to keep trying to survive and get the kids excited about the Middle Ages! Also HAPPY BIRTHDAY to JAVIER :) (He brought M&M Rocklets brownies to share with our new teacher friends today.)