I'll Get You My Pretty....

...and your little teaching license, too!

That's what it feels like, at least! Today we had training for administering the FCAT in 2 weeks. There are so many rules and regulations. And after each one is the basic gyst that if you do not follow the prescribed procedures, your student(s)' test(s) will be invalidated and you can/will lose your teaching license. No pressure, brain's not swimming or anything.... I have two 1/2 inch thick manuals on administering the FCAT. I would post pictures of them, so you could see for yourselves the massive volume of rules and requirements, but that'd probably put my license in jeopardy, too. ;) Thankfully, they gave me one of our computer lab teachers as the proctor in my classroom. The other third grade teachers have pre-interns for proctors. And while a proctor is helpful no matter what, I'm thankful they recognize my total inexperience with this and gave me someone who's been around it before.

My students did a practice FCAT reading test today. I gave them one hour, and only one didn't finish (and had only 1 passage left). That was better than I thought they would do. I haven't graded it yet, but at least time-wise they were on par.

I'm being observed tomorrow (1:00 by my mentoring teacher) and Friday (11:00 by my assistant principal) and would very much appreciate your prayers. :) I know I always make it worse in my head, but the thought of them makes me feel sick. I'll be REJOICING LIKE CRAZY when they're over on Friday, and I have a 3 day weekend WITH my parents right in front of me! Whew! The day after tomorrow!

As a student, I never thought about Valentine's Day from the teachers' perspective. A bunch of hyper, uber-excited kids, hopped up on sugar. Hmmm, it makes for an interesting day! And Valentine's Day is an extra crazy party to have because of the Valentine passing out issues. If only I had known a parent was coming to help, I would have pulled my Valentine's books and had my kids listen to stories while I passed out the snacks and had kids put Valentine's in bags a few at a time. Then everything would have been ready when they returned to their seats to enjoy the festivities within the realms of moderate noise and excitement. Instead, it was mass chaos. Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless. Now I know. It will be different next year, I can say that for sure!

Matt has voted for taco pie tonight, so I should get the meat defrosted. Thanks for the recipe, Mom. I think I actually made it for Matt the summer we were dating--maybe I left my recipe in Knoxville and that's how you came across it? Or maybe I just made a similar one. He sounds excited though. :)

We had a good Valentine's Day. :) We got Rafferty's carry out, he had a cd of ocean sounds (we've been commenting on how much we miss the sound of the ocean--we left one of our balcony doors open every night on our honeymoon and fell asleep to the sound of the waves [and awakened to the beep beep and engine rumble of the beach patrol--and then gladly rolled over back to sleep]) playing upon my arrival home, a beautiful rose arrangement on the dining room table, and we just got each other silly little things. The best part, was we both got each other gum as one of the silly little presents! :) Great minds think alike, I say! :)

Tonight we're going to watch Sweet Home Alabama, because we always watch it at Valentine's (well, the two Valentine's we've been together), but that was pushed back because of Gilmore Girls last night.

We hope you have a good night! We are so thankful for the gift of you and especially for the LOVE of God Who provided Jesus Christ! :)

Blessings,
Becca