I know I am not the only one. November absolutely flew by. One minute we were writing report cards and the next I’m behind in my winter concert rehearsals. I don’t even really remember much of what happened in November. Here’s what I do remember though.
Report Cards
I remember this because it is so out of my character. I like having all of my assessing pretty much closed to finished two weeks before reports go live. That gives me a weeks worth of buffer to catch up with students who may have been away or missing assignments. Then the week after that, I spend actually writing my comments. Not going to lie, a lot of it is copy-paste. I start a Word document where I write out my numbers (we operate on a 1-4 number grading scale) and then I write sentences to match based on what we had been learning.
In my division, we also have requirements to fulfill. Each student should recieve a comment about one strength, one challenge, and a step for improvement. For example, a grade 2 student named Bob would recieve a 3. His STRENGTH: Bob is able to identify, decode and replicate rhythms using eighth notes and half notes. CHALLENGE: Bob sometimes switches the terminology of the rhythmic devices or does not notate them accurately. NEXT STEP: Bob should practice clapping different rhythms and saying the syllables out loud.
I would also mention that these observations were made in a specific center activity, ensemble play along, interview assessment, etc. I have a variety of comments for each number grade I assign.
So the crazy thing about this is that I started and finished all of my reports in one day. Seriously. I usually take a week to do them. This term, it only took me a day. On top of that, I had ZERO revisions to make! How in the world did I become so efficent? I’m shook.
Winter Concert Prep
I feel that a lot of my recent posts have been about concert prep. But it’s a big deal!! I introduced all the musicals to the classes on the first two days of November. We have been working SO HARD to learn all of the songs. I think the majority of my classes have just one song left. We review each song each class and focus more on the new pieces. I also manage to fit mini-lessons into these classes and then of course, add brain breaks in between. I have to. . . for the students . . .
Tonight was parent-teacher conferences. I had a total of two appointments, which means I had a whole lot of time to prep the scripts. I’ve assigned parts for all of my grade ones and twos. I just need to assign roles for grade threes and then send home script chunks. Our performances are the last week of December, it’s coming so fast!
November Birthdays
This is exciting to me. My TPT store turned 4 months old and this website turned 3 months old. I thought that this hustle would burn me out, but I actually feel quite motivated. A little overwhelmed too, however. I have so many ideas and I’m learning so much about tech, I get stuck trying to make it all work. But that’s a part of my adventure. Bring on December!