Playing Catch-Up

It was brought to my attention that I hadn't posted in awhile, and holy cow! It has been awhile!!!
The whole first two months of internship have just been a whirlwind.

We did our 2 week intensive at the beginning of the year, with a focus on classroom management and procedures and a basic introduction to the school. I really enjoyed this opportunity to get to know the school, my classroom, my mentor teacher, and the students before we dropped down to half days.

While half days are definitely easier on my schedule (and my health!), the full days really helped to me be entirely involved in the classroom community. Once we dropped down to half days, there was a feeling of disconnect. I was missing key events in the classroom, and most of the academic areas were happening in the mornings (I was there in the afternoons).

Our afternoons consist mostly of pull-outs, with science, health, and social studies thrown into the mix.
This gave Christin and I a lot of common planning time, which was helpful, but I did feel like I was missing out on most of the classroom happenings, because my student contact time was limited.

Now that we are so far into the first semester, I find myself struggling to catch-up with some things. Homework has overwhelmed me entirely (hence, the lack of blog posts). I've been sick 3 times so far, which I have lovingly labeled "first year teacher syndrome."

Each new cold seems to hit me before the last is finished and I feel like I've been stuck in a cloud the entire semester to date.