Elsie's maths skills are impressive.
Corey has been working on a coordinate picture with her in the afternoons, she's really got the hang of how to plot points. And her mental maths is pretty great. She can do sums with numbers less than about 7 in her head no problem at all, addition is particularly quick, and she's getting more and more comfortable with bigger numbers too.
Literacy is good too. She tells me she's learnt all her Golden words, and moved up a level to Red words. I do want her literacy to be good, It's just for some bizarre reason I've got a bit of a numeracy focus ;)
Plus I'm sure that I've read that pushing reading and writing too young can actually be detrimental, and I haven't read that about number skills, soooo.....
Short week at work with PD all of Monday, and Sports carnival all of Friday.
It was great, every lesson seemed to go smoothly, I got heaps of planning and marking done. And because it was week 7 of term I'm feeling very energetic and positive about the last 3 weeks of term. I think I'll start making lesson videos as well. So the kids can go relearn anything from the lesson in their own time, and parents can see what I'm teaching as well....
The PD about managing behaviour was great. Very positive. Link to resources that are well worth a look: http://www.herrochevents.com.au/dr-bill-rogers-handouts/
Sports Carnival was a lot of fun :)
Uploaded last uni assessment for Study Period 2, and started Study Period 3. Yay.
No rest for the wicked. Must keep chipping away at this degree. I sometimes wonder how people feel about me teaching without a degree. Most reactions (to my face) are just along the lines of "where do you find the time?!", but I'd really be interested in knowing what's said when I'm not there. I know of at least one staff member (who did not make it through probation) who complained to other teachers, and questioned why I would be given a position and she wouldn't. Which is honestly fair enough I think. But. We had always got along though, I did her some favours and was always nice, so I'm a little sad she whinged about me behind my back, when she had never said anything like that when I was around.
Started running again, Tuesday and Thursday while Elsie does Taekwondo.
Corey and I are both piling on the kilos and generally feeling less than healthy, so we decided to stop being lazy fax and get our fitness back. He's been loving Elsie's Taekwondo, he's started practicing his Karate again, and always has to stop for a chat about all things Martial Art with the trainer Derek after the classes. Anyways, so yep, running, and no alcohol on school nights this week. We had drinks Friday night, and just a few at dinner last night. But feeling pretty good. My body protested very strongly all week from the running, my muscles were very clear about how they feel. But I'm taking no shift from them. I'm determined to be fit again. I think I'll start doing some body weight exercises on the Mondays and Wednesdays too.
We did have pizza and coke Saturday night :-/ we really need to clean up our eating in a big way as well I think.
Went out and about.
Elsie had a sleep over at Granny and Poppy's Friday night. We went dancing. Was fun :)
Then Sunday we had dinner with the family at Dinah Beach, and sister introduced her new man friend to mum and dad. It was a lovely way to finish off the week.
INTERESTING THINGS:
Great TED talk about unconscious bias:
Very interesting link about Fractals, and the Mandelbrot set:
Awesome scary short story from Neil Gaiman, from his book Trigger Warning:
Watched the new shows Supergirl, and Agent Carter. Supergirl was average, and not as awesome as I'd hoped, but still quite good. Elsie was over the moon about it. Agent Carter was slightly better, but pushes the gender politics angle a bit obviously, the blunt force of it gets a little wearing.
Also caught up on GoT. Good stuff.
IN CONCLUSION:
"Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on."
