On with Break

Today is the first official day of Christmas Break (Winter Break to be more politically correct). We are getting HD installed this morning and I have a doctors appointment this afternoon. Not exactly how I pictured break starting but oh well. It is going to be nutso around the Carey household this break, especially early in the break. I hope we get to spend time with some close friends this Christmas. We always spend plenty of time with family but friends are another story. I had a great time yesterday after getting out of school early and spending some time with fellow teachers and retired teachers. I also got the chance to spend some time with some of my wife's coworkers. They are a blast! Those of you lucky enough to be on break, enjoy! Those of you not…we'll enjoy it for you! ;-)

Surprisingly Good

Sometimes kid surprise you. Today was the first day of semester exams at our school. I teach at the junior high and high school level. Exams are given to high school students but not junior high students. Exams last 70 minutes which means if you have JH students during that time they have to be in there for that time period. My seventh graders are a pretty high strung bunch and I was kind of worried how they would respond to this length of time in class. They really stepped it up today! Heck, I was even getting antsy at the end of the 70 minutes!

We had a carry-in today and it was great food with some light-hearted conversation. It was a great way to end the week.

The weekend should bring some good family time and some Christmas celebrating.

How did my day go?

I had a pretty good day today. Most of my classes went without a hitch today (as usual). I do have one class that really needs to reach a junior high maturity level. I know it will come but I am not for waiting. The students in this class must realize that grades and doing a good job on everything is very important. The sooner this is realized the better. I have not found much that motivates this particular class. They have not responded to punishment or rewards for doing well and behaving well. Free time, or time designed to get a particular task done, is a weakness for this class. They would much rather do something distracting than spend time getting the assigned task done. I really want to give them some class time to get started on the homework but this time turns out to be wasted time. I do it to be fair. All of my classes get at least a little time to get started on their homework. The rest of the classes use this time in the ideal way. Just venting but if anybody has any ideas to shoot at this veteran teacher, let me know!

Holiday Time...

For me the holidays have always been about food and fun although every year it seems that a little of the "fun" is lost in all of the hectic traveling and running about we do. The best part of the holidays is almost gone. My son has now known about Santa for a couple of years and I feel my daughter is on her last year of believing. It was a magical time and I have always felt that I have done a pretty good job of keeping, at least, the magic alive in me. Being 43 that has been a challenge at times. I long for the old days of snow, magic, food, and doing nothing but enjoying close family and a ball game on TV during the holidays. I am making cookies and chex mix tonight. That should put a holiday smile on my families faces! Have a great holiday season and keep the magic alive!