Okay, so this is one of those times when things don’t work
out according to plan. I started the
school year with so many dreams and ambitions and then – the school year
started. The first month is always a
giant cluster of catching up (even as organized as I am), but then one things
started to settle down, I ran into a slight problem. What I thought was a couple of bug bites from
the mid-October visit to the pumpkin patch turned out to be a lot more than I
even imagined. I went to my doctor and
talked to her about it, just because what if it was a poisonous spider bite or
something crazy? (Yes, I need to stay
off of WebMD) It wasn’t a bug bite at
all – I had shingles. SHINGLES! I kind of always thought it only happened to
those who were much older, but it was happening to me. I was immediately taken out of work for a
week and a half and told to relax. It
was brought on by stress and I know exactly where that came from. This year has been incredibly stressful. Being an inner-city teacher isn’t a walk in
the park – I love my job, but it comes with a heavy stress load. So I relaxed, went back to work and life went
on.
Well, then November rolled around and I felt the cold that
was going around – it started around Halloween, but it’s just the time of
year. A few days later, a nagging cough
came in and it just wouldn’t quit. By
last weekend, I could barely breathe my lungs were so congested. I went to the doctor this Monday and she was
worried I had pneumonia, but at the very best, a very bad case of bronchitis. (Chest x-rays came in…no pneumonia!) However, she still had me off work for the
week. So here I am at home, on a
Thursday when I would normally be at work, and while I type this it sounds like
there is a packet of Pop Rocks in my lungs.
I am crossing all of my fingers that this is gone by Monday so that I
can return to work healthy.
While I was off with shingles, I did finally have a chance
to work on my first lapbook and I’m pretty excited about it. At the beginning of the school year I met
with the social studies department (as we do every year) and there was a push
to make sure each grade was instilling the Core Democratic Values in their
classroom. While I haven’t covered it in
depth in 2nd grade, it’s definitely something that we do cover. I took this time off to do a little work and
came up with a Core Democratic Values Lap Book.
I’m actually really happy with the way that it turned out
and have had success using lap books in my classroom before. While I planned to do it before the election,
the bronchitis had my out of the room, so it will have to be shifted for after
when I return. This may work out better
because I know my kids are going to have a lot of questions and I want them to
feel like they can talk about it. I knew
during our class mock election how they felt about their candidates and I want
to use this opportunity to stress the importance of education and using their
voice within their community – regardless of their age!
One thing I really like about the way this turned out is that
it’s not TOO much to handle for younger kids.
I’ve done lap books before that took us an entire day or two to
complete. This is very doable in the
classroom! I always try to create with
my class in mind – because my kids are active and can be very challenging, but
I also think about ways other teachers can use this to take it one step
further. Included are ways to
differentiate with the definition cards, talking points that can be used in
class and at home, and items that are quick to fill out and in terms that kids
can understand – a big perk in social studies!
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