And We're Off!

Labor Day Weekend is over.  "They" say it's the unofficial end of summer...I say it's just the unofficial beginning of another school year.  It was an enjoyable, relaxing weekend for me...  I spent Saturday evening at Mi Rancho (best Mexican place around!) and Sunday afternoon with my family (we celebrated my birthday).  Monday was spent doing chores and my first week's lesson plans.  I also said good-bye this weekend to a 200+ year old oak tree that I grew up playing around and watching critters play in.... 

Sunday morning, 7:20 a.m.  My phone rings, it's my Mom.  Wow - what a wake-up call - she was  really excited!  Come to find out, she had an even more exciting wake-up call - Mother Nature!  As she was preparing my birthday dinner, she noticed strange things going on...weird noises, things falling off the walls, leaves swirling, rumblings....  All of a sudden THUD!  As she and my Dad started investigating, they saw the damage had been the falling down of the beautiful oak tree that stood watch and kept our yard shaded for the last 30+ years.  This was the most beautiful, perfect tree - with a straight trunk and think, perfect branches.  Just picture a child's drawing of a tree and you've got it!  I am sad to see it go!  Although, to look on the bright side....my Mom won't have nearly as many leaves to rake in the fall anymore...  And their yard will have much more sunshine....  But I think we'd all rather have the tree!  Thankfully no one was hurt, and there wasn't much damage to the house.  The tree happened to land right between the house and garage/workshop.  There is damage to both, but relatively speaking, very minimal.

With Labor Day over, I think it's safe to say my school year has officially, officially begun!  Yesterday was our "Staff Field Day."  This was the Second Annual All Staff Day - Field Day for my agency (for policy reasons, I shall leave it nameless).  A couple of years ago I happened to mention on an end of the year survey that it would be nice to have a bonding day for all staff...  We spend so many hours working together, and in our separate centers, to achieve the same goals - yet we rarely have time to get to know each other.  Call me old-fashioned, but I believe to be successful, you need to really be a team - and that requires some bonding time.  Well...last year my suggestion (along with others' to have staff picnics) made the cut!  If you live in NE Ohio, particularly Portage County, then you know yesterday was WET.  And rainy.  And muggy.  And flat out miserable.  The kind of day that you spend inside, with the AC going...  Well, not us.  Nope.  We packed up our rain coats, our ponchos, our umbrellas, and whatever else we could think of to keep semi-dry....or at least attempt to keep partially dry.

The day began with the usual sign-in, pick up our packets, find our teams, etc.  I happened to be lucky enough to be on a super team of women!  We were all given bandannas to designate our teams, I was given turquoise.  After deliberating and pulling out all of our creativity, we became the
TURQUOISE TORNADOES!  We decided off the bat that we were going to "blow the others away."  After a quick trivia session we set off on the scavenger hunt!

Scavenger hunt - yay!  Except this is when the day went from humid to miserable, the rain started.  A mist.  Then a sprinkle.  Then a pouring down mess.  That didn't stop any of the teams, though - we are real troopers!  Needless to say - I happened to be a lucky one who managed to only  have sopping wet feet (gross!) and damp capri pants (but only around the bottom edges).  I can't wait to see our pictures from this year's event when we meet again next year!  At least we will all have something to laugh about together - hey, that's what helps bond teams anyways, right?!

The day continued with more games and team-building activities.  We ended with building a balloon tower and destroying it before our closing awards and reminders.  I'm not sure of the ranking in this event....but we built our balloon tower up to 97 inches, and were the first to have all of our balloons popped and cleaned up!  Our hard work for the day paid off, we were the first place team!  Woot!  Woot! :-)


Today was a training on CLASS.  It's the evaluating tool that is used during our Federal Reviews and to monitor the classrooms in the program.  It focuses on having positive learning environments.  Even though much of the information was "old news" to most of us teachers and teacher assistants, it was very informational and will be very useful for us to score high on our evaluations this year, and to prepare for our Federal Review next year.  We get reviewed every three years.  It will be nice to know exactly what to expect and how to be prepared!