Well, I (we) all survived day 1 …..
This morning, I was up bright and early (inhumanely early for a teacher) so I could get some time in on the bike [as it's now too nippy in the morning here, my bike has moved inside and is attached to a trainer ... pretty nice being able to have a little bike ride in the morning while watching tv]. After I finished my ride, I realized that maybe waking up that early wasn’t such a good idea .. but I pushed through and accepted that it was just the lack of coffee in my hand.
School was pretty quiet in the morning, with most of the staff in a zombie like trance for the first little bit before students started making their way inside. This year, I am teaching grade 5/6 again (full time) and have quite an energetic group of 11 tweens … I’m hoping I’ll be able to harness some of that energy so I can channel it into learning … thus far, they are testing the rules (little do they know).
The morning went really well with the kids. I managed to get most of them organized for the first term – duo-tangs are labeled (after we had along discussion about duo-tangs and their function), notebooks are labeled and I have collected in all extra materials… some of my students are still waiting for their supplies, so I’m not too sure what I’m going to do there as I have to start teaching my curriculum (hopefully someone in the school will have some extra duo-tangs and notebooks I can snag).
At lunch we all (staff) went over to the restaurant for a nice ‘welcome back to school lunch’ (tab picked up by the school)… and then it was the afternoon of meetings (yippie!). I had the privilege of kicking off the meeting with a presentation (er rambling?) about the available technology resources (hardware and software) that we have available to us here in Ross. I get pretty excited about this stuff, but I could tell that some weren’t quite as entertained … Afterwards, we all shifted to the staff room and got down to the nitty gritty elements of school life – scheduling, long range plans, school growth plans …. it wasn’t too soon after that we all began to realize (when we were looking at scheduling and PD days) that we have almost a whole week in September where we’re not in the classroom at all (great for the kids who would like to head into the bush for a little hunting trip … little odd for teachers trying to figure out what to cover in September). And as an added bonus, I get to travel into Whitehorse next week as well for DART training, so that’s three days I’ll be out of the classroom … and then travel back into Whitehorse the following week for our territorial conference … I think I might have to call Ford to add on an oil change when I get my tires changed on the 23rd.
After school / staff meeting I headed out for a nice run around town to enjoy some of the great weather that has arrived in Ross (of course sunny weather has to arrive when we all go back to school .. it’s a rule right?). About halfway through my run, I realized just how tired I was … must sleep in more tomorrow .. or at least every other day.
Spent most of the night planning for the rest of the week and abusing the photocopier at school (I didn’t want to fight for it in the AM … although, I’m going to have to anyway as I have a tons of photocopying to do for ICT (policy and permission forms).
Anyhoo … it’s off to the land of nodd for me now… with any luck I will actually sleep a solid 6 rather than an on and off again 6 … oh the joys of getting back onto a normal sleep pattern after summer vacation 
