Tomorrow I lose my first name.

This past weekend was my first time to relax a bit this week. The Teach For America Corps in St. Louis already has a kickball league set up, and they are challenging us to a match when we get back. Obviously, we need to beat them so we spent a few hours brushing up on our kickball skills yesterday afternoon. I probably haven't played kickball in the last decade, but it was a lot of fun to get outside and exercise and be able to forget about lesson planning and calendaring and assessments for a little while.

Today is a beautiful day in Atlanta, perfect for another kickball game, yet I am preparing to be inside for most of it as I begin my transformation into Ms. Koos - 8th grade math teacher.

Tomorrow is my first day teaching students, and while I am very excited for it, I realize that I have a lot of work ahead of me. My objective that I am teaching tomorrow (simplifying square roots using the Greatest Perfect Square Factor) is a particularly challenging one for the students, as not a single person got it right on their diagnostic pre-test in the beginning of the summer. Additionally, the way the school schedule is set up my block for teaching is only 40 minutes, rather than 55 minutes like the rest of the teachers. Yet, I have to accomplish just as much during this time. I would like to rely on my ability to talk really fast - yet I don't think that will be the most effective considering I am teaching (they always told me to speak slow when public speaking) and I am in the South where people naturally speak a little slower. Drat. So I am spending my day trying to squeeze a minute here and there from 15 different places in my lesson. It is taking a lot of creativity and I plan on practicing it many times.

That is all for now - I am off to practice, practice, practice!

EK