Let the planning begin...

So... after I have been advised of my imminent move from 6th grade to 4th grade, I decided to tighten by belt and dive in whole heartedly.  Our school district is offering a summer math academy, and since I have not taught all subjects to just one class...EVER ... I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity.  Even though school just ended - yesterday - I am already planning to take PD classes for my upcoming adventure.  Thus on Wednesday and Thursday of this upcoming week, I will be in a room will other 3rd and 4th grade teachers in my district to get a leg up on the math curriculum I will be expected to teach.  At least I will get PD hours for this and it will also go towards my 301 hours which will help supplement my pay next summer... a small savings account.

On another note, I am filling up my Pinterest boards.  Feel free to mosey on over to my Pinterest board and steal away!!  I have boards for each content area, as well as reading suggestions so I know what books to purchase to create a classroom library.  I am a big advocate of reading, because of this I will always try to have a vast classroom library available to my students.  At least it gives me an excuse to do what I love to do... buy books!!

One of the hurdles I need to wrap my head around is the limited technology available to me in my new school.  In my 6th grade classroom, I had a laptop cart available to me every day - because it was housed in my room.  All Jr. High classes had a laptop cart.  I am a very technology-based teacher, so now I have to plan ahead so I can request the laptop cart when I need it.  I had my 6th graders with an email account through tocomail, which is a teacher-moderated email service.  Also, they built their own web page which included a blog page.  So, I am not sure how much technology I can integrate into my lessons, but rest assured I will do as much as possible.

I did receive awesome news, though.  One of my classmates from my Master's cohort is moving from 1st grade to 4th grade... so we have already discussed planning together and doing some collaboration to help one another gear up for this change.  She is an amazing teacher and I cannot wait to work with her to make this the best year yet.

Stay tuned to see how the 2016-2017 school year turns out.  It seems like fate is directing me to teach 4th grade so I am going to heed this calling and enjoy this challenge and welcome the adventure!!