Happy New Year! 2013-2014

Approaching a new school year in August is another fresh start.  

My daughter closed one chapter and is starting to write the beginning of another.  Starting a new chapter always means there was a previous chapter that you take with you.  It's not independent.  Here are some of my chapters that have been written and are being written.

 

The Bell Crew

Sorry, Camrin.  It's usually me that has "the look."  

I should give ownership to the One who started the idea of fresh, new beginnings.  God started the "new" thing...He gave us/we get a fresh, new start each day...when we are "born again", we get a fresh, new start...repentance affords us another fresh, new start, whether we come to be cleaned by our Father in the middle of the day or night.  Now He is letting us borrow that fresh, new start with the beginning of another school year.

When my days start anew, I usually have some plans to improve upon the previous day.  When I stumbled through all the loads of laundry this summer as it fell upon my plans to clean the kitchen cabinets, I decided the next day to focus solely on one or the other.  I chose a different job to accompany the laundry work.  When my outdoor power washing of the front porch and sidewalk made my cleanness so attractive to my filthy dogs, I fought them tooth and nail to...get off!  ("Good dog"...pat on the head.)  That did not go as planned.  It's hard to teach old dogs new tricks.  The next day, I gave up.  Years of letting them sleep on the front porch could not be retaught this summer.  Not by me, who was mostly buried under laundry!

As my new year begins at school, I love, love, love the way we get to start again.  Start fresh.  Start new.  I have many plans to improve upon what I did last year.  For starters, I get a new classroom!  Here are the before shots.  I hope my after shots reveal an organized, clean, ready-to-learn-in classroom!

Tilting your head slightly to the right will help now


Here's some of what's been going on with me this summer, as I make plans to start fresh:

Read Kathy Richardson's Developing Number Concepts, Books 1-3


Read teacher blogs for new ideas to approach old problems
Create data binder math self-assessments/checklists for the students
Create math assessment summary sheets for the teacher
Refresh myself on beginning of the year routines by reviewing last summer's notes
Rest
Sun
Lake

Read
Rest
Bathe the dog

Watch baby doves come into the world outside our dining room window and in our front porch fern.

Rest 

Play

Not in that order, kinda jumbled on top of each other.
He plans better than I do.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
Thankful.