ARRIVAL
When I drove on my own, I was usually at the school by 6:45am - I love the early morning quiet (and unhindered access to the copy machine!). Now that I carpool I get in a little later, but it's definitely worth it for the savings, the decrease in driving, and the increase in time to talk with my fabulous co-workers!
On every day but Wednesday classes are 49 minutes each, study hall and lunch are 30 minutes, and passing periods are 3 minutes (very small school!). On Wednesdays we have late starts, which cuts classes down to 44 minutes.
OFCS - Orientation to Family & Consumer Sciences
This one is a survey course - a sampler of all of the classes that I teach. I like that I get to switch topics every 4-6 weeks. I've had this curriculum nailed down for a few years, and this year decided I wanted to switch things up a bit and try rearranging the order of the topics and changing out a few of them. This would have been easier were it not my first class of the day - doing something new first hour kind of adds some anxiety. Didn't think about that.
FOODS
I LOVE the scheduling of my Foods class! Having it right after my plan period makes it easy to set up labs, and having Study Hall immediately afterward gives me time to recover put away food, etc.
STUDY HALL
I have the junior class study hall, all 19 of them. Yep, 19. Half of them go to the area vocational center during the morning though, so those kids don't wind up trickling in until the last ten minutes or so of study hall. And it is in my own classroom, so as long as they aren't being ridiculous I can get some of my own stuff done.
LUNCH
This is the only school I've worked at that doesn't count the passing periods as part of the 30 minute lunch period. It always really bugged me that other schools would - seeing as you're supposed to be in the hallways during passing periods (not to mention letting kids in and out of your classroom), that cuts your lunch down to an actual 22 minutes after taking out two 4-minute passing times.
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (one semester class)
This is our consumer ed course - the state of Illinois requires a consumer ed credit to graduate. I've taught this one at a few schools, but here I teach the only class that meets this requirement, which I am really happy about. One, it means that even though I am an elective teacher I get to meet every student who comes through the school; two, if they choose not to do the work they boomerang right back to me and have to do it the second time through; three, I don't have any second semester seniors who don't need the credit creating senioritis havoc amongst those who do.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT (one semester class)
My undergrad major was in Family & Individual development, so this one is special to me. One new thing I'm doing this is year is ending every class with "story time;" I read a children's book to them every day, modeling how to read/ask questions/make the most out of the learning opportunity when reading to small children. Even the ones who claim to hate it really like it.
CLOTHING
This is a great class to end the day with - they need extra clean-up time before the bell to put away supplies, sweep up threads, unplug machines, etc, which gives me time to do a quick straightening of the classroom as well.
DISMISSAL
School is dismissed at 3:20, and teachers are allowed to leave at 3:30pm. Most nights I don't hang around too long, due to the long drive home. And of course there's always the schoolwork that's accomplished after hours at home, anyway.
And then I start all over the next day!
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