Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Math. All day every day.

A few months ago, the teachers at my school received an email encouraging them to sign up for time slots for the state-mandated end-of-year tests. Well, the testing seemed pretty far away at the time, so I took my sweet time in scheduling.

Rookie mistake.

The most desirable (i.e. latest in the year) time slots were snatched up like hot cakes, and I was given the leftovers. Not the biggest deal ever, perhaps, but it means that my students will begin testing a couple weeks earlier in the year than some of the other classes.

Obviously, this is my first year teaching, but this is also the first year our district has used this particular math program, so as teachers we've had to go back and fill in the gaps between last year's third grade curriculum and this year's fourth grade curriculum. And since we aren't familiar with the program, pacing has been a bit of an issue.

All of this boils down to me having only two and a half weeks before testing to teach two full units of math.

Have I mentioned that it usually takes me a month to teach a unit?

Operation: Teach Math Twice or More a Day or Maybe Just Until My Students' Brains Explode  (TMToMaDoMJUMSBE -- pronounced Tum-tomato-ma-jum-sbe) goes into effect tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

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