2 days...

Oh my goodness is time just soaring by me!  I now only have 2 days left until the big move.  And really it feels like tomorrow because we are renting the U-haul tomorrow and loading up everything.  It will be nice for my parents to have a clean garage (since my stuff has been taking up the majority of it for some time now!).  But it is getting a little weird to think I will be living half way across the US all alone.  :)  I am sure things will be fine and after school starts it will be easier to make friends and all but still... :)

I have been buying things like crazy (it seems like between a house and a brand new classroom it never ends!) but most of the stuff is the basics that cost a lot because they are all start up costs.  The nice thing about that is that I won't have to buy all of it again next year because it is stuff that can be reused over the years.  I am also excited to see my classroom and spend a day sorting through things to see what is really there for me to use.  That way if I choose to make a trip into Billings (yes, the closest town with shopping is 4.5 hours away) I can hit up the teacher store for some of the remaining things and the rest of the stores there for any last minute things.  

Plus, now I am trying to start wrapping my head around planning (not just decorating unfortunately!).  Since there are science and math curricula set up for me I am mostly focusing on reading workshop at this point.  The main focus at the beginning of the year is to make sure that I find a way to assess where the students are at (in terms of reading level and ability) so I know where to focus my instruction.  The district doesn't provide any assessments used throughout the school and when students are in 5th grade they have access to AR so until then, we come up with it on our own.  Yikes!  Good thing I have all of those books from my literacy methods classes at WWU.