Bare Walls and More District Orientation

Kelly is a wonderful friend and yesterday she helped me move in a large part of the things I have collected for my classroom from student teaching. (I still have a lot of novels for my room and some bookcases at my parents' house, but they're going to have to be moved in later. I was kind of disappointed at this, but I figure the kids might enjoy a little change in the future anyway. Changing the scenery was always fun for me when I was a student.) I am pretty bummed at the lack of posters I have for my walls, so I have been parusing. I checked out American Library Association, and I have made some purchases at art.com and allposters.com. I'll have to take some pictures and show the ever-changing walls of Ms. Sutton.

It was neat to be in the school with students actually in the building. The 9th graders had orientation on Tuesday, 10th on Wednesday, and yesterday was the 11th graders. There was a lot of energy, especially on the freshman day!
Yesterday was also contract-signing day. I went to the Department of Education all the way in Roseville to pick up my license (which I have now--woo hoo!) and drove it back to the district office, only to find out that they can print licenses from the district office. It's OK though because I had some seriously overdue library books and DVDs that I had *finally* found while unpacking that were due back at the Roseville library. I also turned in my health insurance information and my dental insurance information, so that is all taken care of. I decided against going with the "Triple Gold" plan, which had the HMO deal and a slightly lower co-pay and deductable. I went with the "Double Gold" mostly because I live an hour away from where I teach, and I know what a pain it was having to travel for my doctor when I lived in the Twin Cities and was under my parents' insurance in Green Bay. I'm planning to call for a dental appointment soon as well as a doctor's appointment and an eye appointment. Get it all done with, especially as I am a few months overdue from regular check ups. It's kind of exciting to have my own insurance and be able to take care of things locally.

The last day of district orientation was helpful in terms of what is expected of us during our first year of observations. I don't think any of it was surprising, but it was good to see it down on paper. There were all kinds of silly orientation games like partners tag and such. This is one of the few times I'm glad my ankle isn't doing so well.

I am off to start working on my expectations/syllabus. My first day handout, if you will. I have some nebulous plans floating around for the first few days, and I'm finally tacking them down. Oh, here is a good webpage for first day advice and icebreakers:

Back to School

Good luck to all the teachers, administrators and staff who are facing a new school year! Oh, and good luck to the students too, I suppose... it is going to be an interesting FIRST year!