St. Lucia : Parent Observation Week

Monday: I did not know what to expect today. It is the first day of parent observation week. What is that? Well it’s when parents are allowed to come into the classroom and watch what is happening. Every child’s parents has signed up for a half hour timeslot to sit and observe what happens in the classroom. Can you say stressful? Also I don’t have my copies yet. What to do with my students that will coincide with what we’ve been learning? Well I ended up teaching vertical subtraction to small groups of children. While it went okay, I need my copies! I am overusing the student white boards and I don’t want my students to get sick of using them. Today was the longest day of observation as it went the entire day. By the end of the day my students were unfocused and ready to go run off energy, so Teacher Robin and I did an outdoor dismissal, which made the students very happy.

Tuesday: Everything was good today. Today was the second day of parent observations, but due to extra-curricular activities during school, parents only came in this morning. I am happy to announce that so far the visits have gone smoothly! Another positive from today was that I FINALLY got my copies. I have gone the last 2 weeks without them so this put me in a very good mood. Now I actually have work for the children to do which will hopefully make the rest of parent observation week go smoothly as well. After school, Jen took us to the beach. I’m so glad that we’re starting this back up again, as it is a nice way to destress and relax. Floating in the water and sitting on the beach talking with the girls is the perfect way to end a school day. I wish I could do it every day, but I’ll take my Tuesdays and enjoy them! After getting back from the beach I made supper, did my yoga (10 days in), and showered. Hoping to relax a bit tonight and watch Bachelor.

Wednesday: Another day of parent observation is complete and thank goodness. I feel like this week is dragging on and on. After school I had to meet with Teacher Mindy to finish up our PowerPoint that we started to create last week for a workshop. Tomorrow everyone from the workshop has to stay and present them and I’m hoping that it doesn’t take long. This is an additional meeting that was not originally in the schedule. After meeting with Mindy, I ran home to quickly eat and change as Pastor Bram was picking us up for piano. I had just enough time to do all that before we got our ride. Piano lessons went great tonight. Jude is catching on very quickly and Casey is almost finished with his first book. After getting back, I was exhausted so after yoga and a shower, I headed to bed.

Thursday: Today was another long day. We had parent observation in the morning and by the afternoon my energy was drained. After school I had to go to the follow-up workshop where we presented our Powerpoint presentations. I feel like I’m back in school again. Anyways this meeting went way longer than I had hoped. I was hoping we’d be out of there by 4:15, but instead it was minutes to 5. Oh well! After the meeting Tanya and I ran to the supermarket to get a few necessities and then headed home where Abby had already started potatoes for us. After eating I did my yoga and took a shower. I got out with a massive headache and was shivering. Normally I wouldn’t think much of it, but because of some of my students leaving with fevers this week I decided to take my temperature. Yikes 102! I’m not sure where that came from. Well I had planned to do some lesson planning tonight, but instead I’m going to bed. I’m hoping this fever will drop by the morning, but I guess we’ll see. I’ll have to gauge school by how I feel in the morning. Taking some Nyquil and I’m out.

Friday: Well I guess I get my day of rest a day early. My fever has dropped a little, but still over 100 and I have a major headache. I got up around 6 to check my temperature and let school know I would not be in and then headed back to bed. My head is pounding and I can’t seem to get rid of this headache. Around 9, I got up to eat so that I could take some medicine. I started episode 2 of Once Upon a Time today and now I am at episode 8. I guess you could say I had a little time on my hands to do nothing. This afternoon I did walk over to school to drop off my lesson plan book, but that was the extent of my activity for the day. My roommates both got home looking drained and we locked ourselves in for the night around 4. Time for more Once Upon a Time and then probably off to bed early again tonight.

Saturday: I feel so lame. With the exception of a quick run to the supermarket to get food for the week, none of us did anything! Abby, Tanya, and I are all trying to beat sicknesses going around. It was quite the lazy day complete with more Once Upon a Time. I was able to practice piano and guitar. I play piano during communion tomorrow and I’m a bit nervous. Hoping it all goes fine! Tonight the girls and I started talking about where we might want to head for Easter break. We’re looking into heading to another island for a week or so. I guess we’ll see what comes up!

Sunday: It was a usual day today. Church was great as always. I played piano during Communion today and I was so nervous. It went perfectly fine though and I’m glad I played. I should probably do it a little more often and the maybe my nerves wouldn’t get the best of me. This afternoon was another lazy one. I’m hoping that with all this rest, my body will be ready for school tomorrow. I took a nap and made shepherd’s pie for dinner tomorrow night. It’ll be nice not having to deal with dinner tomorrow night. Tonight we went over to Pastor Tom’s house, but this time to watch the Superbowl 50. The food was great, some spicy (but good) chicken wings, bbq franks, brownies, crackers, pretzels, and cheese. It was almost as if I were back in the states watching the game, except for I was sitting outside in 79 degree weather. Abby and I only stayed until halftime, but we were glad we went over.