The end of the year moves very quickly, but is arguably the best time of the year.  The weeks leading up to the HSA were stressful, as I was working to push my students to learn the last bit of biology before they took the test that we were preparing for all year.  I became…

Because of the snow days, I have had to cram the remainder of the curriculum into a few weeks.  Consequently, my genetics unit went from the original 5 weeks to 3 weeks.  This has resulted in a multitude of frustrations, all stemming from the fact that I haven’t had the usual time I take to…

When I was in high school, I remember having a few snow days every year.  They would be spread out and were always a pleasant surprise.  However, I never had a snow week until I moved to Baltimore.  In case you didn’t see it on the news, we got hit with 2 blizzards in the…

I’ve had a few firsts over the past couple weeks that have been pretty interesting: – I was asked to write a letter of recommendation for the first time.  This student is one of my best so it was very easy to write- she was applying to the National Honor Society and was accepted. -…

After weeks of counting down, Winter Break finally arrived and it was well worth the wait. I spent a lot of quality time with friends and family, and most importantly relaxed.  I came back to Baltimore the Saturday before school started so I had a full day to prepare for school, and I definitely needed…

Before thanksgiving, my students’ attitudes for the most part were off the charts.  Normally well-behaved kids refused to do work and I had more issues with behaviors than I normally do.  After speaking with other teachers, I learned that this is pretty typical of student behavior around thanksgiving.  The reason is that thanksgiving dinner is…

Sarcasm may not translate well on a blog, but here’s a breakdown of this past week. Monday- After school, we had a faculty meeting for an hour about Bloom’s Taxonomy- something that was drilled into our heads during institute.  That meeting made all of the TFA teachers at my school late to our all-corps night…

The first week of school, I had my students think of three excuses to why they’ve failed a class before or why we shouldn’t have the same test scores as students in the County.  Then, I had them write their best excuse on this special paper called flash paper.  This paper ignites into a flame…

Last weekend, the students had a 4 day weekend because Thursday and Friday were devoted to professional development days for teachers.  Those days for teachers consisted of sitting in our classrooms, grading and planning instead of in meetings.  I’m not really sure if other schools did anything but we definitely didn’t.  That weekend, I took…