New School Year, New Goals

Well, I finished week 1 and 2 fairly successfully with my new batch of students. We have bigger class sizes. The biggest class I have is 9 and the smallest class I have is 6. I know that all of the public school teachers are laughing their heads off saying "only 9??? only 6???" I know. I know. Having taught in both worlds, I can see where I look like I'm complaining. But all of these are profoundly deaf students. In an ideal world, they should have one on one education. But that's another debate for another budget meeting.

I have had a few health setbacks. I threw my back out Tuesday morning. Not by cliff jumping or wrestling. No, by setting a small pile of mail on my kitchen table. Just that one twisting motion, and I couldn't move. So for two days, I was in bed and on muscle relaxants. (The muscle relaxants were the best part). After this weekend, I think (knock on wood), that I'm back to working condition. But I've had a lot of time to think of my health. Which brings me to the new additions to the blog.

Addition number 1: the weight tracker. No I will not post my weight on the blog. At least not yet. But I do have a weight tracker to track the first 50 pounds that I need to loose. This is about as public as I'll get with this. So, every week, I'll put an update. Hopefully, I will get closer to my goal. You will see me do a few 50 pound weight trackers, but for now we'll start at this first one.

Addition number 2: Spark People button. Jessica (my sister) showed me this site when I went to visit her in June. I've started to become more excited about it over the past few weeks. Jessica and I had several heart to heart talks while I was with her, many concerning my health. I really love her for lovingly pointing things out to me that I've tried to hide for many years. Anyway, she showed me this site, and it's a good start up diet site for me. I'm not saying it's great for everyone, but just to let all of you know what I'm up to.

Anyway, that's it for now. More to come, and less of me to report next week. (Hopefully).

School Starts in 72 hours.

Back to school I go. I've actually been back to school this week getting ready for the 7th and 8th graders that will greet me on Monday. It's been fun getting ready this year. Not only am I still pumped from my Biosphere conference, I realized I have many things prepared already. I guess after 7 years of preparation, I think I may know what I'm doing. I just hope I don't jinx myself by writing that. :)

Biosphere Experience

Well these last two weeks have been quite the whirlwind. To make a long story short, on July 9, I got a call to replace a teacher who didn't show up to a summer training at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, AZ. So, after phone calls, rearranging my summer schedule, and last minute shopping at Wal-Mart, I started my adventure the next day.

I am one of 35 teachers from across the state that attended this conference. My first class was learning how to make a working model of the Biosphere using 2 liter bottles. I have a living plant, fish, worms inside 2 bottles and don't have to water it. Yes everything is still alive. I have a small area where I drop food for the fish, but that's it.

That started a whirlwind of activities, field trips, hikes (3 days in a row = sore muscles), and lots of teacher stuff. We went to Catalina State Part for bird watching, insect data collecting, and water testing. We went to Kurtchner Caverns near Benson. We have touched almost all areas of science to the point that I have units for my full curriculum.

I'll be adding a slide show of pictures that I've taken so far. But one thing that this has really done has got me excited about science and teaching again. Watch out PDSD students. Here I come. :)