Guest Speakers from France

I had a fun day at school yesterday with my two guest speakers, Antoine and Marion.  They are French interns learning about how firefighting works in America.  I brought them in to expose my students (and my fellow French teacher's students) to real-life French young people.  I was hoping that our students would try out their French speaking skills with these wonderfully friendly young people.

I think everyone had a great time, even the shy kids who weren't confident enough to ask questions. Marion and Antoine are planning on coming back soon and bringing two more French interns with them.  Next time, the students will be better prepared and will work in small groups so they won't feel as self-conscious when attempting to speak French.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Merci bien, Antoine et Marion!  À la prochaine!

Au feu, les pompiers!

--J

Back to School, End of Summer...

All good things must come to an end, as they say, and summer vacation is no exception (although this would not have been the case had I won the lottery this past weekend!).

I have already spent two days in pre-service training at school and I spent 4 1/2 hours yesterday (Saturday) at school trying to get my room in working order.  I switched rooms this year so I am starting from scratch again.  And I have my work cut out for me:

But I had this to help me out:

So now comes the hard part--putting in the time to make lesson plans and grade papers, getting up before sunrise and working for more than 9 hours per day.  And of course, another hard but rewarding part--meeting and building a rapport with over 100 students every day.  I have that many students in my classes, plus I encounter hundreds more when I do lunch duty.  Teaching is exhilarating and exhausting and that's why I took the whole summer off--off. (Think ludicrous Cadillac ad.)  I had to recuperate from last year's wearying pace, but now it's almost show time again.


So you'll see fewer of these:

And I'll see less of this: 

But that's OK because I need to teach and my students need to learn!  Bring it on!

And on the weekends, I will be adhering to this:

(from U Create)

Have a wonderful school year and enjoy the last precious moments of summer!  

J

Believe in Whoooo you are!

This is from the free Pair-A-Phrase stamp set and the Dreamin' paper packet.  I plan on giving these cards to Sean and Lizzie with a heartfelt message inside, encouraging them to be all that they can be in their academic endeavors.  We are all going back to school this week and we need encouragement since it's hard to say good-bye to summer.