animation time

After only posting text for the previous blog posts, I figured it's about time for a little bit of a change of pace. I've just finished my weekly/unit plan for my upcoming first week of total control and I need something to occupy me until I head to bed for the night. As overwhelming as all the planning is sometimes, it's amazing how calming it is to just see everything fit together in a basic, loose schedule for the time to come. I find it a little bit shocking too how so many small miscellaneous tasks seem to fill up so much time that I would otherwise be planning activities for. I can almost feel the next couple weeks whizzing past me already. All planning aside, here's a little multimedia taste of some of the things I've been withholding for the past couple of weeks...

I have a bunch of pictures from MOTAT, the Museum of Transportation and Technology from about three weeks ago. It was really a fun time for chaprones and students alike. I don't think the students truly realize that they're learning while they're there, it's more a chance for them to just get out of school and into some sort of adventure. I'll have to check into some things at school before I can post some of my pictures up here. Despite how large of a group we had with all the different students from both classes, it seemed that everyone was on their best behavior.

Last week and the week before we had been doing a bit of a bike safety unit for the Totara team with an ex-police officer who came in to teach the program. I'll have to upload pictures from that potentially later as I've just realized they're saved at school and not on my laptop. It was really just a lot of fun to see the students enjoying themselves on bikes and trying hopelessly to avoid "breaking" any road laws. I found it extremely helpful too as it helped me figure out some of the technicalities of driving on the other side of the road as they tend to do down here in the land of Kiwis.

Another tidbit definitely worth sharing from last week is the little "Jump Jam" session we had last Friday in honor of World Teachers' Day. Janet & Barbara choreographed and organized the whole ordeal, along with the help of wonderful Tracy who's always running around taking care of the tech happenings at Swanson. I'm crossing my fingers that this link works so that you can share the wonders of Swanson School's amazing dance stars.

Hands Up for Learning

I have to apologize for not getting any pictures up here sooner, but hopefully with a spare moment or two this weekend I'll get a chance to update a little bit more on what exactly has been going on around here over these past jam packed weeks so far. More to come at a later date....this will have to suffice in the meantime.