February 4, 2011

Thank you, Snow Gods.

I love kids.  I love my students.

There, now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, let me tell you how much I LOVED being at school today WITHOUT the little darlings...let's recap first, shall we?  Wednesday was a snow day, and a much needed break.  Seriously, with the high-tension these days, I think the blizzard was a gift from GOD to all of us teachers who needed a day at home in jammies.  I was ultra productive Wednesday, getting several lessons planned that I had been working on in the back of my mind, and grading a tremendous pile of papers that had been mocking me for the past few weeks from the "To Grade" folder I had been carrying to and from school.  It felt fabulous to cross those two things off of my list.

Then, as you know, I got a huge surprise around 3pm--school was cancelled for Snow Day #2 Thursday!  At the time, I wasn't sure what this meant for our parent conferences that had been scheduled for Thursday afternoon and evening, but I later found out that they were cancelled as well.  The district decided not to schedule a conference make up day, and to instead instruct parents "interested in rescheduling their conferences" to contact their child's teacher.  Translation: we don't have to make up every single conference.  I can think of a handful of parents who will still want to come in/who I still want to meet with, but the amount of time and effort that will be involved in these make-ups does not hold a candle to the marathon afternoon/evening that is typical conferences.  Amazing.

FINALLY, because Thursday was scheduled for conferences, today was also a no-kids day, which they did not take away from us!  We are required to put in 1 1/2 hours the day after conference to balance out the late night.  I had two families make up their conferences this morning, and used the rest of the time to GET STUFF DONE.  I felt like Super Teacher checking things off my to-do list!  (Obv I stayed for 5+ hours instead of 1 1/2...I do not regret it and could have stayed longer.  Why did I leave?  I was starving, of course.)  I got lots of copies made (hooray for reading ISAT practice tests... :-P), plans ready for next week and outlined for the following week, materials prepared for Tuesday's science lesson, vocab words and objectives updated on the board for next week's literacy theme, chart paper started with different mini-lesson topics, etc.  It is a wonderful feeling to leave school with things actually in order and WITHOUT a gigantic bag of grading over your shoulder.

Of course, there is still a tiny bit to do this weekend...I've got my math and science manuals home with me to continue planning, but this is all advance prep at this point...I am good to go for next week!  Looking forward to a low-stress weekend and *hopefully* all of this prep work will pay off with a low(er)-stress next week or two.  Thank you snow gods.  I am eternally grateful.

2 comments:

  1. Amen to that!

    I did a little on Wednesday, not a darn school-related thing yesterday (even though I should have) but today spent 4 1/2 hours at school and got a lot of cleaning/rearranging done that I've NEVER had time to do. I still have some planning to do this weekend but I got soo much done that I wouldn't have been able to do without this day.

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  2. This weird week of minimal schooling has meant a million things for me - I was able to finish my report cards & IEP's before today's PD Day meant for working on them, which meant I didn't have to struggle with an over-crowded, slow reporting system online; planning took half the time because I got to borrow from this week where lessons weren't done due to snow, ball hockey tournaments, and so on ... and, I got to get some organizing done for next term, as well as rearrange the room. FANTASTIC day of leisure work. Tons more to do, but I'm ahead enough to take *GASP* a weekend off!! You're so right - this week has been a GIFT!

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