Welcome back to school. It seems like yesterday we dismissed for the summer. After a summer of vacations, summer camps and games, hangin’ at the pool, summer school, and chillin’, I know you are excited to get back to school (Yeah right!). I know for me, it seems like there wasn’t a summer as I’ve been very busy.

That being said, I’m very excited to get back to school. I’m back in the classroom teaching again. For those of you that didn’t know, I’ve been a Physical Education teacher here the past two years. Prior to that, I taught both fifth and sixth grade (all subjects) at Lincoln Elementary here in Norfolk. In the move to the Middle School, I wanted to teach Math, but when teacher assignments were handed out, I was assigned to teach Physical Education. After two good years doing that, my heart wanted to be in the classroom, and this Math position opened up, so I jumped at the chance in a heartbeat.

I hope you enjoy the webpage. I use it all the time, and the students will be utilizing it here at school as well. All of my lesson plans for the week and weeks’ past will be on here. Hopefully, you can follow along with what is happening in class. If you ever have any questions while you are working on homework, I have created a page solely to help you out with the varying subject matter we will be working through. Both sixth grade and seventh grade math subjects are represented on the page. I have also created a list of Math games to help students become successful in Math.

One thing I’ll require for class is a 2” three-ring binder and dividers. We will be keeping the binder for a couple of reasons. First, it helps keep everyone organized. I’ll be going through the organizational part the first couple days of school. Second, it helps separate assignments from notes, and we will be journaling a little bit (I want everyone to write down their thoughts on a particular chapter before we even dive into the subject matter, and then write down their thoughts once we’ve completed the chapter). I hope everyone will be able to see that Math isn’t too bad and can actually be fun to learn. Plus, it will be interesting to see how some people’s thoughts change over the course of a chapter. Finally, we will have what I call “Notebook Quizzes” at the end of chapters. These should be an easy 100% for everyone. I will hand out a checklist as to what I want to see from the chapter. For example, I might want to see notes on the four sections we covered, the six assignments we had (completed of course), the journal entries, and any quizzes or tests we had. If everything on the checklist is in there, students will get all their points. Not only will this keep you organized, but also you can get rid of any excess things that will accumulate in the binder.

I look forward to meeting everyone on the 18^th of August. My birthday is the 17^th, so if you want to bring me a present to start the school year, go ahead. I won’t turn anything down. In fact, you will be my favorite student for awhile if you follow through on the birthday presents. Some suggestions for presents that I’d really like: tickets to the World Series at Wrigley Field (the Cubs have to come through on that one for me), tickets to the Super Bowl, Kleenex (because there are a lot of “snot-nosed” kids and teachers that run around this school – get it, snot-nosed, I kill myself sometimes), pencils, and a good start to the school year.

Now, on to a little about myself…

FAVORITE BOOK: “Harris and Me” by Gary Paulsen….It’s a story of a boy who has to go and live with his Aunt and Uncle and Cousins on a farm. The adventures the boy and his cousin go on are classic. I didn’t live on a farm, but I am originally from a small town, so I could relate to some of their adventures.

FAVORITE MOVIE: I have many that I would consider my favorite, but one I find myself watching all the time recently is “The Sandlot.” I am a lover of baseball; some would even call me a “Baseball Freak.” This movie reminds me a lot of my childhood in the summer. My friends and I would wake up in the morning, call each other, and meet out behind the outfield fence on our fake field that we could hit home runs on. We would play baseball all morning long until lunch time, and then go swimming. After supper, if we didn’t have practice or a game, we’d all meet back at our fake field and play until it was dark. Kids don’t do that anymore. It was just us, our gloves, a ball, and a bat. There was never a crowd or anyone else to ruin our game. We never kept score, we just played. “The Sandlot” captures that form of baseball in its purest form.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: “Daughtry”….I do like American Idol, and he was my favorite contestant. I vowed to never watch the show again when he was eliminated (I never followed through on that though). His self-titled album is fantabulous. There isn’t a bad song on it. Personally, I dig “Breakdown” and “Crashed.” Those two songs haven’t even hit the radio, but they are two of his best. I had the pleasure of seeing him in concert last summer in Sioux Falls and the show rocked!!!!