First Day of Beginning Teacher Training

Today was the first day of Beginning Teacher Training for my county.  It was exciting to be in a group of other beginning teachers.  The variety of teachers amazed me.  Most folks in this training were either experienced teachers from other districts or last year's "mid-year" hires.  Only a few of us are true beginning teachers, though both myself and a friend of mine both had been TAs in the county.  A LOT of information was thrown our way.  Luckily, much of it was familiar because of having already been in the county.  I can't imagine being new to the county and having so much information to digest.  Our New Teacher Handbook is at least 5 inches thick, no exaggeration!  It will be good, however, to have all of this relevant information at our fingertips as we need it. 

Probably the most beneficial information for me today was what will be required of us as beginning teachers, such as Professional Development needed, relationships with mentors, monthly "Teacher Talks" with other new teachers, etc. 

We also had a speaker who was a third year teacher who had been recognized for his strong classroom management plan.  While he didn't present anything "new," I found how he presented his expectations to his students to be very powerful.  He also shared a website http://teacher.net/ with us where his discipline plan had been feature in a Harry Wong article.  I can't wait to go explore this site further.

Welcome to my blog!

Well, this is it!  I'm finally taking the plung and beginning my own blog.  I love reading blogs and find a great deal of useful and sometimes just fun information on blogs.  I hope you find sharing my journey both fun and helpful as well!

I'm a 43 year old mother of two (Jason 9 "almost" and Adam 7 "and a half") starting my teaching career next week!  Its been a long and crazy road to this point and I'll be sure to share this with you at some point.  For now, though, I want to tell you what I hope to accomplish with this blog.

I have so many thoughts and ideas about this upcoming experience as a first year teacher that I hope to organize myself and share what I've found with others at the same time.  I will be posting things I've found on the web, heard from other teachers, or tried myself and let you know how these ideas play out in my classroom (good, bad, or ugly)! 

I'll also seek input from any and all folks reading this blog.  I love feedback and new ideas.

Last, but definitely not least, I'll be sharing how I deal with the balancing of family and classroom.  My boys will be going to an elementary school closer to my home (Wilton Elementary in Granville County, NC) while I will be driving on to another elementary school in the same county (C.G. Credle Elementary) about 20 minutes further. 

Anyway, I hope you'll join me on this journey into a First Grade classroom of my very own!