School Shopping

Below is an entry that was supposed to have been published last year, but it has been in my draft's folder.  The new changes to Blogger causes draft entries to be listed with current entries.  And, looking and rereading the entry caused Blogger to automatically reset the post date.  Since I already typed -- and I haven't posted very many blog entries, I'm going to post (or repost) this entry.

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Thursday, August 27th

Well, she did it again. Ms. Across the Hall asked if I was interested in going shopping at the local teacher's store in Brooklyn. I thought it would be nice to meet a colleague outside of school. Having a not too successful attempt last summer to meet up to see a movie, I wasn't putting too much thought into meeting.

Meeting to see a movie

Ms. Across the Hall (ATH) is very nice, but can sometimes be forgetful. This time, I tried to keep the "meeting" informal. I emailed that the meeting shouldn't anything more than "if you're there, call and say hi". Well, I checked my email last night and this morning, and no messages. I went to the teacher's store anyway. Since I already had it in my mind that she probably wouldn't show, it didn't mess up my schedule.

So, I went, to the teacher's store in Brooklyn. I got there about 3PM, and I stayed until about 6PM. I had a shopping cart full of books, materials, resources, etc...
I had to take my shopping cart to a corner of the store and go through everything to see what I could put back. I ended up putting back about 15 resource books.

And after I finished...

Anyone want to guess what I spent?

...

My bill came to about $490.

School hasn't even started yet, and I've already spent about $1,000 on teaching materials and school supplies for my students. This year, my shopping focuse is on being able to differentiate my instruction and target specific skills for those students who need more practice. While I was shopping, an idea came to me to try "front loading" my classroom curriculum -- meaning to try spent the first three or four months really focusing on skills and drills, and the second half (or remainder months) applying the skills and/or practicing through enrichment activities. Only time will tell what comes up.

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