Back to School (for kids and me)
Well, day 2 of 180 days is complete. That's right, here in Robeson County we started back to school on August 28, 2012. According to the state law, any school that is not a year round school cannot go back to school BEFORE August 25 nor AFTER June 10. I am truly excited about this year. We are using the new Common Core and that means we get to TEACH again. Instead of just Reading, we are teaching grammar-spelling-vocabulary. We also get to do more of a project based learning. That means that the students will be collaborating together to complete final products from the lessons. I will be using themed units for teaching. Today we had a faculty meeting after school and had the wonderful opportunity to train on "Interactive Notebooks". They are taking the nation by storm and the data collected so far shows nothing but an increase in learning. The students "own" their work and the responsibility falls on them. It creates a portf...