Last day of Term 1

Where did 10 weeks go. Seriously what the heck happens to time when you age. I remember as a kid a week seemed to last forever, heck bedtime seemed long. Now as an adult time flies by me at top speed.

Term 1 has been in no uncertain terms awesome. We had parent/teacher/student goal setting/interviews on Monday and Wednesday and the feedback i have received has been awesome. Parents say kids who last year were down are coming home talking about stuff going on at school. Better yet, both the girls and boys are going home and talking about the stuff they do with Carly in Language (and they don't hate it!).

I was worried about giving out writing assignments with due dates (i only handed out 3 in my defence)because that is not what Montessori was about but both the kids and the parents are loving it because a lot feel worried that their kids won't be ready for state high school so deadlines for them are helping their kids get ready.

Parents say the classroom culture/environment is way healthier this year. My teaching partner R. says he is loving the way we are getting to all the kids in both language and in math. As one teacher last year doing both he felt it was a lot and some stuff was getting missed.

We even had a talk about next year and he was surprised/eager to find out that i would be interested in teaching next year. we are at 33 kids (32 now, D. in Year 8 left for USA on Friday) but next year we'll be at about 38-39 kids. He said we should try and get stuff sorted before he leaves in June for his training. Fingers crossed and all that sort of stuff.

my only downside this term was trying to match up my Montessori literacy with the state curriculum for my Literacy Check in week 9. R. keeps telling me not to worry, i know i got some stuff spot on, but i know i'm going to get a slap on the wrist for some other stuff. The reading records i should have done in term 1 i have no excuse for, i'll do those in term 2 but some of the other stuff like spelling assessment just isn't done in Montessori. R. says "don't worry" but i just tell myself to plan for it next term, try and show some improvements from the comments i'll get and move on.

If there is a tearful post about the curriculum hates me later this month, that means i got a lot of comments on stuff i need to change...here's hoping it won't be that bad.