Just a Check In

Wow! How has it been 2 weeks since I last posted?! I guess life gets busy. Looking at my parent contact log, I've called/emailed/texted over 75 times to parents of my students. That's in just over a month. Yeah, that will definitely take up time. In fact, I've noticed that I spend 30 - 90 minutes each school night making sure I've done all of my parent contacts for disruptive students or students who are not following directions/school rules. It eats my time but it's required by the district. Luckily some of the parents have told me that they prefer text messages or emails so that saves time and allows me to send those messages later than I would call someone.

I've also been working on my flipped classroom. In a nutshell, I record the lesson for the day on a video and put it on a website called EdPuzzle. The students then watch the video, write the notes, and answer questions about it during class. I love it because it means students can always rewatch a video if they don't understand a concept and they can pause and ask questions without feeling like they are stopping the whole class. If they miss a day they aren't just copying a friend's notes; they are getting the same lesson that everyone else got. It's pretty sweet. It also frees me up to help students individually more often.

Outside of school I feel like my social life has blown up! Recently I spent a Friday night hanging out with some of my math department friends. We got a little bit of work done and spent a lot of time chatting and having a few drinks. It was really nice. I've also spent more time with friends just playing card games or board games. I actually planned my time really well this past weekend and got to go to a friend's kid's birthday party on Saturday afternoon, play cards with friends on Saturday night, and then spend Sunday at Wizard World  (it's a convention) in Austin. I went to bed just before midnight on Sunday so I think that was pretty good timing!

I really need to finish up some schoolwork before bed so I'm going to cut this short. Let's end with a photo, shall we? Here's my big purchase from yesterday's Wizard World:

It's a wand! It's purple and sparkly and it's so perfect. :D I now know exactly what I'll dress up as for Halloween. I hope you all are having a magical week!

-Clare G. S.

P.S. - I forgot something important! Today was the first Anime Club meeting with me (and my husband) as the advisor. The previous teacher is having some health issues and cannot teach right now. Her students told her that I like anime and here I am! I'm excited to get to know these kiddos. <3

Let's Talk Cake!

It was another rough day. Well, really the day was going alright until my last class period. There are about four students in there who do not know how to stop talking/singing/dancing/banging on their desks/etc. I've done all of my documentation for that and I've called a few parents. Hopefully they will decide to change their behavior before it causes them to fail my class and fail the state test. I will no longer be supplying glue sticks to that class because someone threw their glue stick onto the ceiling and someone glued another student's paper to his desk. Yup. These are 15 year olds. I "self-medicated" with a Five Guys burger and fries and a large piece of homemade carrot cake. Let me tell you about that cake.

As I mentioned in the last post, I baked my husband's birthday cake. He loves carrot cake so that's what he got. It is a bit odd to put fondant on carrot cake but I did it. The carrot cake sponge was a new recipe and it is awesome! The buttercream frosting was also new and just as great! I didn't make my own fondant but rather ordered some Wilton pre-made fondant. As far as fondant goes, it was pretty good. I didn't like it paired with the carrot cake but I think it would be pretty good with a different sponge. Do you want to see a photo? Of course you do!

I even made a little Erlenmeyer flask since Matthew teaches Chemistry

I'm so happy with how it came out! I WAAAAAAAAY overestimated how much fondant I would need but that's better than underestimating. I have carefully wrapped-up the unused fondant so it should be good for another cake. I'm going to be a bit obnoxious and show you a video of the cake. Again, I'm really proud of that fondant. There is one sizable place where I have wrinkles but I think that's pretty fantastic for my first time!

(Please excuse the background conversation; I was obsessing over my cake while my husband was talking to his sister and her husband.)

The BCCC party on Sunday was really fun but I didn't think to take any photos. I do have a photo of the caricature that we had made during the party.

I think Matthew is pretty darn good. I feel like mine looks a bit like my sister, Phyllis, when she was a teenager. Monday we got to play cards with our friends, Jo and Liz. That was a great way to start the day. We then spent the rest of the day working on school stuff. :(

As my mom would say, life keeps chugging along. If I remember to really stick to my discipline routine I think I can greatly help my classes. It will also be nice to go back to a flipped classroom but I need to wait until next week when all of the students should have their Chromebook. I'm sure many of you don't know what a flipped classroom is so I'll try to remember to write about it sometime soon. Tonight, I need to take a breather. My goal for the school year was to take care of myself and I think that means a long shower and a tasty drink for now. :D

-Clare G. S.