Halfway there

I know, I know, it has been a while since you have seen a cheery update from Big Sky country.  I made it.  I have completed one half of my first year teaching with my very own kiddos. Pretty amazing huh?! There have been plenty of tears and questions and what ifs but to top all of those, there have been successes.  One of the big successes has been the change in my classroom management plan that I implimented in November.  I have no idea why in the world I had let the disruptions go on for so long before I began this plan.  The fake money in the classroom works super!  I really enjoy when I get to charge students to "buy" things when they need another pen or a pencil top eraser or a big eraser.  It finally gets an inkling into their heads that things actually do cost money and you need money to pay for them. We are still working on attitudes in my class and a couple of my students have had to get attitude adjustments this week.  The fine for whining or complaining in my class is now 150 dollars.  That is a stiff fine given that the rewards are usually somewhere between five and fifteen dollars. 
As the second half of the school year begins I am quickly jumping into the not so fun part of teaching . Standardized testing.  Need I say more???  I have three tests that I am supposed to be giving my students to monitor their progrss and then four times per year (once per quarter) I have to "benchmark" my students to make sure they are making Adequate Yearly Progress. I have to test my students one a week with three different tests and on top of all that there are other tests that I have to do to test all of the different aspects of learning (supposidly).  Yay for standardized testing.....not.
On top of starting the second half of my first year I have started Graduate school again!!  It is so much fun to be a student again and I am thoroughly enjoying my class I am taking.  It is all about reading instruction and what makes it effective.  I am already applying some of the concepts in my classroom that I am learning about in my class. The only thing I am dreading is writing the paper that is due in three weeks.   I had better get going!!