What Worked and What Didn't-- Busy Halloween and NaNoWriMo

Part 1: Reflective Journal
Wow! That was a fast/busy week! With all the anticipated energy of Halloween and Trick-or-Treat nights and a few extra pep-assemblies thrown in for playoff season, it was BIZ-E! Then add in the beginning of NaNoWriMo and you have it! It's officially my favorite month of the year! Lovin' my job!

What DID work was taking a step back and realizing that some of the "heavier" tasks and topics I had planned for the week were simply not going to cut it. For example, in 8th grade we traded a week of in-depth work on foreshadowing for a day-by-day study of suspense filled Gothic poems. FUN!  "The Raven" by E.A. Poe, "The Bells" (also by Poe) and "The Cremation of Sam Mcgee" by Robert Service... helped make this holiday fun and educational for my students. 

What also worked was using time today (the day after Halloween) to finish bigger projects and use my established "WORD PLAY DAY" centers. We've only used them three times this year but the students really enjoy the time and play fairly.
The four "centers" I used each time (the students rotate through these every 10 minutes) are:

1. Computers or Nintendo DS Word Games
2. Blurt or Boggle (board games)
3. Slurp or Sentences (board games)
4. Dry Erase Pockets or Word Game magazines

What DIDN'T work was juggling too many "project-based" lessons in one week. The 8th grade literature students were working on Comic Strips, 8th grade Language Arts students were writing mysteries, 7th grade literature students were making puppets and performing scripts they created AND NaNoWriMo kicked-off!

Part 2: Teaching-wear (Week 6)
I didn't think it would happen so soon, but this week I actually had a "shoot...I'm getting tired of wearing skirts" moment. It passed. I still have a full closet's worth of skirts left to go!

<=Monday--I went full-out dress again. The day was oddly warm and the dress has cap sleeves. I definitely took the jacket off early!

My rating:  4  Comfortable and easy to move in, but NO pockets! 
:( 

<=Tuesday--This was one of the newer shirts I bought when I realized that I didn't have enough color or pattern to go with my drab colored skirts. I own this skirt in brown and a teal corduory. I think I wore it crooked all day! LOL!

My rating: 4 Versatile. 

<=Wednesday-- A Burberry skirt. Nope, not really, but the pattern is the same. I tend to stay away from straight patterns like this on skirts. Notice how wide it makes my hips look! (And they are wide...I just don't want to emphasize that!)
The top was a trick of mine to mix it up a bit. It has metal bits on it. (A preppy rocker look?)

My rating: 3 Although the skirt is comfortable and I like the style/cut, I don't like the way the pattern looks on me.

<=Thursday--HALLOWEEN! and "Hello-Kitty Thursday"! Image that! It was a two-for-one kind of day. The skirt is actually a plum (which helped the purple streaks in my hair show up!) I was incredibly comfortable in this skirt. I do wish it had pocket though. :( 

My rating:  4 I'll wear this one again for sure. It's light-weight yet warm.