The Happenings (No, not the movie...)

This week has flown by, with relatively nothing going on. Early in the week, I spent a day or two buying and putting up curtains for the bedroom and the family room. I got the bedroom finished and it looks absolutely wonderful! But the curtains for the family room were too short, so I had to return them and special order the long ones. They will really make the family room feel more homey, instead of a giant walk way to the porch.

Yesterday and today, Ian had his MAIB orientation at UF, so I have had the apartment to myself. I decided to tackle several small "projects." One included getting our vaccuum cleaner to stop stinking. It turned out to be as easy as changing the bag! Woohoo for a pleasant smelling vaccuum cleaner!

Then I decided to explore the new library system here. I did some online research, then braved the heat outside, and ventured to the nearest branch (less than 2 miles away,) and got my new card and checked out some education books.

I started reading the book, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide To Classical Education. It's actually a book for parents wanting to homeschool their children using the classical method (language driven with minimal "visual fluff.") But...seeing as I do not have any children, I am reading this with the mindset that this might be interesting to implement into my public school classroom. It's not really feasible, because it involves stretching information out over all 12 years, and needs alot of one on one time-which is perfect for a homeschooling parent, but not so much for a classroom of 20 kids. I have, however, been able to pull out some ideas for use, and it has been a nice refresher on teaching reading and phonics. I'm only 70 pages into this 690 page book :/ But it's a very good read. I recommend it.

My final project that I am working on involves getting things ready for my classroom. I had boxes and boxes of books that I had accumulated over my college career, but I didn't have any idea of what I had, or what I lacked. So I inventoried them. That's right. I unpacked all of the books, poured them out all over our beautiful office floor, sorted, stacked, then actually "inventoried," them into a Word document. Then, over the next couple of weeks, I can go through the list and find out what genres of books I am missing, make lesson plans for reading groups, and designing activities for the books.

This should be fun....

The Outpouring of the Books Begin

My Favorite books from Children's Lit! Except they are out of print and only could be found in these massive volumes!

Imagine my surprise when I found the whole series at a used book store! 1.50 a piece was well worth this fun series introducing children to the world of science fiction/fantasy. And I got four of Book One so we could do a reading group with it!

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The Happenings (No, not the movie...)