Friday, May 14, 2010

i'm done!

Today was my last day of work until August 12th! Whoo hoo! Of course, I'll soon be doing a new kind of "work" once Annie arrives, but I'm not shedding any tears over not spending the last few weeks with a bunch of ready-for-summer crazed middle schoolers. A couple months ago I got a new technology gadget for my classroom- a Hitachi Starboard. And it was a huge blessing for my swollen preggo feet, because I could sit and run my computer, powerpoints, lessons from the web, sound files, etc all from a slate in my lap (and the students view everything on the overhead screen). It was like having the chalkboard in my chair and I could access everything while resting my feet. Of course I still had to play the piano and conduct songs, but I really loved having this new technology!
Also, a few weeks ago my students were really excited because we made it on the local news channel. I won a grant that I applied for earlier this spring to purchase a set of 30 acoustic guitars for my classroom. And my district brought in the NBC 40/29 news team to surprise me with the news. It was really fun! (I tried to take some photos of the news clip but they didn't really turn out...)
My students sang a little song for the news camera crew.
Nellie Jones is a local newscaster who I guess is sort of "famous" as far as local news is concerned and it was a bit of a surprise when she walked into my classroom! The kids loved it and I just prayed they wouldn't say anything idiotic on tv (you never know with a class full of 12 year olds what is going to come out of their mouths!).
I am really going to miss seeing my teacher friends at school everyday, but my students are in greats hands with my long term sub... even if they might miss my corny jokes of the week. :)