Week 2

Readying myself for the second round. I'm down to 24 students - and we're hoping to keep it there. Unless I go lower, we won't have to draw anyone new. I have 15 boys and 9 girls, and a whole lot of new people. We're moving through GL1 extensions right now, but I can't wait to get to GL2 b/c my students are practically salivating over the materials on the botany and zoology shelves.

I got all of my students leveled - at least mostly - in the A-Z reading. I have a pink reader this year (!!) and one blue reader. Everyone else is green or beyond. I feel good about that. Tomorrow Kati is going to introduce the peacemaker of the month, who else but Dr. Montessori? I feel good about that. I have a model solar system that I'm going to put out. It's big, and I've borrowed it from my SIL's family. It's not at all to scale, but it's pretty cool. Then we're going to do our solar system walk.

We have started having our morning gathering right at 8:35. I like it. We gather for five minutes with songs or stories, and then we get right to business. That way we have our morning meeting and our cultural studies lesson all before 9AM (or shortly thereafter) and they get almost two uninterrupted hours of work time. Not enough, but better than last year.

So many students to mention, but I think I'm going to start making notes on a clipboard. By the time I get to the computer, it's all gone from my brain.

I'll check in during the week.