142 days….

Today is one of those days when I REALLY wish you were here so I could talk to you about something good.

Once again – the bad things in life don’t necessarily make the good things meaningless or unimportant….I had a great day at school.

Firstly, I got reassurance that my Yr 3 boys aren’t just a handful for me – all other supply teachers struggle with them as does their regular teacher – not that this is a good thing, but it makes me feel a lot more capable in my capacity as a teacher.

Secondly, I got to cook in literacy time with the year 3s this morning. I love doing this as it makes the kids read and comprehend a list of instructions without realising that they are decoding text.  Woohoo. Subliminal learning.  I love it.  They got to interpret instructions (read the recipe) AND use a lot of measuring skills in the pursuit of making morning tea.  Love it.

Then I had my Yr 5 red groups.  First group – the lowest ability group with my two Very Special NEeds children who require a lot of one-on – one assistance.  I walk into my spare classroom to find that another teacher is working quietly by herself in the corner.  It happens to be the school literacy coach.  The teacher’s teacher who analyses your teaching methods and give you feedback on ways to improve teaching.  A good concept, but NOT the lesson or class that I wanted her to observe.  SO I manage to convince the kids to stick to task for 30 minutes and work my butt off with substantive questioning and bringing the meaning home to their level, meanwhile keeping a bunch of easily distracted kids On Task.  Not my best lesson… but passable.  So you can imagine how happy I felt when the literacy coach sang my praises loudly.

This is where I need to make a good impression for ongoing work.  She’s the lady whose feedback can get me a lot more work.  Yeehar.

After I finished at 1pm, I visited Cath for a coffee.  So lovely to spend time with her.  Such an intelligent lady.

Home again and dinner eaten up by both kids.

Some days the little things in life are good and add ever so slightly to the pile of my “good things”.  They don’t fix the bad things but they definitely make life more bearable.  More meaningful.  Less worthless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today I remembered the trip we took to the Great Barrier Reef when we lived in FNQ.  I think the boat was the Quicksilver – some enormous operation full of rude pushy tourists.  and yet we had such a lovely day.  We snorkelled on the reef – saw turtles and squid and millions of fish and coral.  We cruised around in a glass-bottomed boat and visited green island.  It was a relaxing day.  An enjoyable day.  One I’m glad we had before we moved back south, away from the tourist hot spots.

I’d love 10000 more days like that with you.

I love you so much.

XA