Teacher of the Year and Dissections

I'm feeling very blessed to have won Building Teacher of the Year for our high school this year. I know I work really hard, but what an honor that my coworkers see it too!

The year has flown by, we only have 7 more days of school until summer! My summer will still be full of school work though, as I am teaching two new classes next year and need to develop the curriculum from scratch. If anyone teaches Forensics or Zoology and would be willing to share materials to get me started, that would be awesome :)

These last few weeks all of my classes have been studying animals and body systems. We've been doing a lot of dissections, with only the fetal pig left to go. Biology classes dissected grasshoppers and perch. AP Biology dissected squid, shark, snake, pigeon, cat, and pregnant rat.

Here are some photos to share, more can be found on my school website at http://demo15.schoolspan.com/myroom/abrams/3P6SXW7Q?catid=4NXH754A

 

 

 

Hope everyone finishes off the year with a bang!

Spring Break Update

It's spring break! You'd never know it from the weather outside. Monday we had 4.5 inches of snow. The schools not on spring break this week all got snow days! Lucky ducks :) Here is the view out my window yesterday morning.

Life has been so hectic lately, and work has been kind of stressful. Our district officially RIFed 13.5 teaching positions for next school year. At the high school, most of our elective classes were cut- no more industrial tech, family consumer science, and 1/2 Ag, 1/2 music, 1/2 art, etc. Because we are now short on electives, they are having us core teachers add elective courses to our schedule. I've always taught Biology and AP Biology, next year I will be teaching those PLUS Forensics and Zoology. They should be interesting courses, but we don't have books for them and obviously don't have money to buy any. I'm a bit stressed at teaching a new course, and no textbook adds even more stress to that. Yesterday I ordered some books and videos off of Amazon to help me plan this summer. I have a feeling I am going to keep buying stuff out of my own pocket so that I feel confident teaching the new classes. I'm also planning to post anything I create to TeachersPayTeachers to help me supplement all of the costs.

With April coming up I have also been preparing for Earth Day. It is the one day of the year where I give my students a break from the normal class structure, and we do crafts, play games, and have fun instead. I went a little overboard buying stuff out of pocket for that too, but I just couldn't resists. Yesterday I even designed and purchased a banner from http://www.shindigz.com/. It is a great website with really great quality banners at a decent price! I got one for 1 penny last year during a 24-hour sale! It was awesome! If you ever want to shop there, please comment with your email. I would love to refer you and get some extra points! Every little bit helps! Anyways, here is the banner I created, I can't wait to hang it up.

Tomorrow my 'fun' spring break continues and I am having surgery. Just a minor procedure, but still not a fun way to spend my spring break. Oh the things I do to prevent myself from having to miss work!

Anyways, I hope all of my fellow teachers have a great spring break and get the rest they need to make it through the last few months of the school year! Take care.

Genetics WebQuest

I have been busy doing school work all day today! I am teaching Genetics right now, one of my favorite units! This morning I created a WebQuest for my students to complete this week, and I uploaded it to TpT to share with all of you! I had a similar lesson I  used in the past, but I figured it was time I revise it and make it worth sharing. Here is it: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Genetics-WebQuest

Half way to summer

Wow, this blog has been the last thing on my mind lately. Work has been crazy.

Our school is currently in fiscal caution and looking to cut corners. Recently the school board asked teachers and support staff to take a 10% pay cut. When we refused, they told a handful of teachers 'not to show up for work on Monday'. Chaos went on all last week as we scrambled to save people's jobs. Our negotiators worked super hard and made a proposal to take a smaller pay cut and the board accepted. I'm nervous about what is going to happen in the next few months though, as plans are to RIF more teachers before next school year. I have been a big ball of stress about it. I love teaching, but going to work this year has just been a level of stress I never imagined.

Hopefully I can get things figured out for myself then start posting on here again, I feel like I have a lot of great teaching and lesson ideas I can share... as soon as I find time! :) Take care, everyone. And best wishes in second semester1

Stressful year

It is turning out to be a stressful school year. Our school levy failed and now they are wanting to RIF a handful of teachers and enforce a 10% pay reduction for all staff, effective in January. It breaks my heart that the levy failed and now the district seems to be falling apart. I am working harder this year than ever. On top of my usual duties as biology teacher, department chair, and building tech coordinator, I have volunteered to be part of our OLWEUS bully prevention team. It is our first year implementing this program and it has been a lot more work than I expected. I put in about 3 hours per week in extra meetings for it, and additional time planning and typing documents. I think it will be great for our school and the students, it is just a lot of extra stress. Anyways, that is my explanation for why I have not been updating my blog here. Hopefully after the holidays when we have a better picture of the future of our jobs, I will have more time and motivation to update here. I've been trying a lot of new ideas in my classroom and they are working out great. My students scored extremely well on last year's end of course exams (my biology students helped me get the highest teacher ranking in our whole school!) and I hope my students this year will follow suit. I feel really great about what I do, I just wish I had more time and support for it all, and time to share it with you all. I have posted a few lessons in my TeachersPayTeachers store, and hopefully we will get a few snow days so I have time to post some more :)

Hope everyone is having a great year! Take care.

2012 is off to a quick start

Wow, the school year has been so hectic and is flying by! I can't believe it has been 7 weeks already and we have Parent-Teacher conferences this week!

So far my year is off to a good start, I have 4 sections of regular bio, 1 section of AP Bio, and 1 study hall. I'm still serving as department chair and HS technology coordinator. I also am part of the committee starting the OLWEUS bully prevention program this school year- it has been a way bigger commitment than I anticipated and is eating up a lot of my afterschool time each week.

The most stressful part of school has been our upcoming levy. Our school is in financial trouble and is looking to cut many jobs. It is a scary time! Here is info on our upcoming levy and what will happen if it fails, http://demo15.schoolspan.com/5J598N34

I hope once the election is over and our OLWEUS program is in full swing I will have more time to post lessons on TpT. I feel like there is so much more I want to share with everyone! Plus it is nice getting a little extra cash, especially since I buy so much supplies out of my own pocket for my classroom and students.

Well, til then I leave you with a snapshot of my chalkboard. I draw a new design each day, last week was spirit day for homecoming so I made the board school spirit themed (the Falcon is our mascot).

Take care!

End of Summer Update

Wow, I can't believe summer is just about over. I say it every year, but summer just flies by! I am going to Toledo and Detroit this weekend to fit in my last bit of summer fun. I'm going to visit the Detroit Zoo with a friend, should be a good time. I have a goal to visit a zoo in every state, so now I will be able to check Michigan off my list. I've already visited zoos in Ohio, Pennsylvania, DC, Maryland, Georgia, West Virginia, and Indiana.

Today I have a meeting at school about our new OLWEUS bullying prevention program. I am on the core team with 3 other teachers, the principal, and guidance counselor; it has been much more of a time commitment than I expected! Hopefully it will work once we implement it though so it is worth it. I don't think bullying is a huge problem in our school, but it still exists and needs to be stopped.

I'm hoping to get there a little bit before the meeting so I can run off copies. That is definitely one of the most tedious jobs as a teacher, I waste so much time standing by the copier! We used to be allowed to have students do it for us which was great, but my principal won't let us any more. So annoying!

In other news, I sold my first 2 lessons on TeachersPayTeachers, yay! I think their back to school sale really helped me out. I only made 66 cents on each purchase after TpT fees, sale discounts, etc. but hey, it is a start :)

Tonight I have to run to Lakeshore Learning Teacher store to buy a grade book and plan book, my school used to provide them but no longer does because of budget cuts, meaning more money out of my pocket. I've already spent $150 on back to school supplies... being a teacher is not cheap!

Well, hope you all have a great back to school week. We have meetings Monday/Tuesday and kids start Wednesday. I will try to update on how it all goes next week sometime. Good luck!!