math facts mastery

It has been almost 6 months since my last blog entry. I really had no idea how busy the end of year would be as a first year teacher. I took on a "video club" where we produced an end of year video for our school. While this was a blast, it really added just one more thing to my already over filled plate. I also had to support staff as they prepared for a new computer rollout by helping them make sure all of their files were saved in a networked folder etc. Though, perhaps the most overwhelming thing for me was not related to teaching.

So I've been teaching now for a little over five weeks, and I'm just now starting to feel like I'm getting into the groove.  I'm more at ease every day, and I feel more relaxed and confident about what I'm doing.  I'm still struggling a bit with behavior management, but I think a lot of that has to do with my contingency planning.  For example, today I planned a lesson in computer lab, and when the students were done, they were suppose to go to our district's math curriculum website and engage themselves.  The website was down and I couldn't believe it, so troubleshooting that ate up a bit of my time and the students acted up a bit.  Next time, I'll have an alternate option available.  That reminds me of something cool that happened today.