 Everyone, welcome back to another Apple's NTR's vlog. Today is Wednesday, October 18th. And I thought I would just do a little day in the life vlog for you guys. It is 7 o' seven, Cash and I just got to school and we're just doing our morning routine, which is Cash turns on the TV and gets everything turned on for me, logged in and work at the computer to get things done. Whether it's getting slides ready for the day or like today, I have a small, I have a small to do list of finishing up a little bit of grading and then grabbing a couple of forms. If you guys are not following me on Instagram, then you don't know already, but I am pregnant with my second child. We are almost 18 weeks pregnant. And so that is partly why I have not been vlogging. I just have not had the energy to A vlog and B sit and edit. So it's been kind of a whirlwind. Being pregnant with a five year old is a little bit different than being pregnant with no child at all. So it's been a little bit of an adjustment, but we're doing really good. I feel really good. I'll do a whole video on being pregnant as a teacher probably next. And I won't go into details, but like I'm okay. I'm feeling good and I'm chugging along. So today begins the first day of my energy unit, which is going to be our unit for science this quarter. And I have really mixed emotions and feelings about how I'm gonna deliver this because the last three years that I've taught, I have done, I've used mystery science to teach about energy. And this year, I really wanted to dig into my district science curriculum, which is inspire science. But the problem is because we live in Arizona. So anyway, the problem with Arizona is that Arizona likes to do their own thing. And I don't understand why because Arizona is like one of the like saddest in education, but yet we have all of our own like standards. So the curriculum that we use is supposed to be geared toward Arizona, but the fourth grade curriculum is missing a lot of stuff that is actually found in the third grade curriculum. These lessons take a really long time to deliver like three, four, five days at a time. And I just don't think it's gonna be feasible to use this with fidelity when I only have like four to five weeks to get the three energy physical science standards mastered. So what I might do is use this, a combination of this, my own thing and mystery science generation genius to create a unit of energy that will best fit my students' learning styles and meet their needs. So it's gonna be kind of a weird learning curve. I do have my formal observation next week, like a week from today. And right now I have no idea what I'm doing for that lesson. I would like to tell you that there's a lesson plan that will be produced quickly, but that would be fibbing. I honestly don't know. I wanna see how the rest of this week goes using Inspire Science, see if it even like sparks curiosity if it gets the kids going anywhere. And if it does, great, I'll use it for my observation, but if not, then I'm gonna abandon ship and I'm gonna do my own thing, maybe use a couple of elements from it, but then like completely revamp and do something of my own, either that or I was talking to my teammate. And she said, she was like, no, she's like, let them see what a lesson looks like in a classroom, using the curriculum, let it tank, and then on the next one, do your own thing and then show them what you can really do and it will show how different like a science lesson could be using the different deliveries. So I kind of like that idea. I'm gonna ask my principal, what he thinks about it, because I don't feel like the curriculum, the way I'm gonna use it is really gonna like fit the way that I deliver science. I don't know, we'll see. I'm gonna use it this week. And like I said, on Monday, when I start writing my lesson plan for that, I'll kind of decide by Monday how it's gonna go, because I'll have done like almost a whole lesson or maybe like half a lesson. So I'll be able to kind of tell. All right, so in our district, we do things called grow sheets and they look like this and we complete them. Let's see, three, five times. Ooh, that's not me at all. We do it five times. And it's just where we report like their test scores, which I've never been a huge fan of like testing, standardized testing. Like I just don't really think that it really measures what the kids are capable of or what they can do. So it's not really at my alley, but it is something that we do in our district. So of course I'm gonna follow along and do what I need to do. But I did need to fill these out for every single one of my homeroom students. And so I did that already. Report cards go home Friday, so I have to have them stuffed in these envelopes and ready to go by Thursday evening. And I still have a little bit of grading to do. My students just turned in their Native American projects, which are like the slideshow and the dioramas. I'll show you guys a couple of them in a second. But I'm still having some projects trickling in. So I am taking the time to grade them. I'm almost done. I think I have like maybe 10 that I haven't graded yet and they don't take very long to grade. So anyway, I'm gonna do this. I think my slides are ready for tomorrow or for today. Let's see, yes. So I'll show you. So my last video was all about my daily slides, but I did tweak them a little bit. I have a to-do list before the bell, after the bell, and then a place for announcements. So their morning to-do list is to check their email, update their planner if they need, and then they have a certain listen to work on. And then after the bell, they're going to open up their curriculum. They're gonna open their science notebooks and we're gonna be filling those out. This is my homerooms slide. And then the other two classes see it this version because it's just this covers like my morning hype that I do with my home room every day. And then this one just includes like a morning, like a daily hype, which is where we share good things or we do like a would you rather. I actually need to pick one of these. I think I might do choose a side just to get the kids up and moving around today. So we'll probably just do that. So I'm gonna fix this. And then I also been using classroom screen a lot for my other blocks like my wind block, which is like our, it's like our intervention time. I have the high group, so we've been reading the book holes. And then also for my fluency block, which is like a 20 minute math fluency block. And so I've been using classroom screen for those because these slides don't really change every day, whereas these do. So anyway, I've been kind of like nixing these. Just cause I don't think I really need them. So anyway, life as a teacher kid. All right, I'm gonna show you guys some of these dioramas. These are buffalo. How cute is that? I love this one. They always turn out so cute. I just love it. So anyway, kids are gonna be coming in in about 15 minutes. I'm gonna get some work done and then I'll catch up with you guys in a minute. Okay, so I wanted to share something that I always do. And it really, really helps with parent involvement as far as communication goes. So our entire school uses class dojo, which I have used for years and absolutely love it. But our whole school is on board and it's great because every single parent knows what it is and knows how it works. So something I always do when I send a message out on class dojo is I always embed a secret word and I always ask the parents to tell me the secret word or send me a specific emoji and then their child gets an extra five points. And that's just a way for them to respond to my email so that I know they've seen it and then obviously it promotes like their children getting rewarded. And the kids know that they get these five points when I send out a message and their parents respond. So it helps them to keep their parents accountable for reading messages and communicating back with their teachers. So just a little hot tip for you. We did what's called the encounter the phenomena, which is really just like a space for making observations, thinking through ideas and asking questions. So if I can get to the first lesson of like the first day of the next lesson for my observation, I think I'll be okay because it's really just like making observations, asking questions, really just in an introduction lesson, I think that I'll be okay. And I think if I use the curriculum to use like these encounters and pre-module tests, then I can wiggle around using the curriculum, but also adding my own stuff. So I think I might try to do that. So what I'm gonna do is look through my planner, attempt to make like a plan and see if I can land on starting a new lesson on the day of my observation. I think I'll be okay. So lesson one starts tomorrow. It'll go through if I can get it done by Tuesday, then I can either do that. I don't know, it's gonna be tough because these lessons are long. So I think I'm gonna just wait till Monday, like I said earlier, see where I can get by Monday. And if not, then I'll just go with it and let him see what it really looks like. And then we can discuss maybe not using it because they've already given me permission, like use the curriculum as best you can, but you can also supplement with whatever you feel is best. So that's really good that they're giving me the opportunity to do that and not forcing me to use it because I think they know that it's not like the most wonderful of curriculums out there. It's just not very user-friendly. It doesn't cover everything, but at least I'm using it. So anyway, I'm gonna just continue with that. I do need to get my hands on some materials before Friday. I need cups, which I have. I need balloons. I think I have enough of those. I might have to get more and then pom poms. I think I'm gonna push out a quick sign-up genius to see if I can get a couple from families. I might just order it on Amazon myself this time and then push out for the next one for families because they do a pretty good job getting me the things that I need quickly. So, oh, this is really cheap. It's like $6, add to cart. And I think I have an Amazon gift card right here from PTA. So I'm just gonna use that, balloons. And then I've got everything for the first one and then I can push out a request for the next one. Okay, so it's much later in the afternoon and we're at soccer practice. The day was good. I got through all of the lessons with all three classes. I had one class not finish the pre-test because there were a lot of disruptions, so we'll have to do that for a warm-up tomorrow. But overall, I didn't hate the curriculum, but it was only the first day. So we'll see how it goes. I did get my supplies ordered for the first activity, which will be good. And we're gonna see, we're gonna see how it goes. So anyway, here's cash. He does not have a gear on. I do have a little bit of a headache. I don't think I drank enough water today. So I'm going to chug this and try to get through the rest of the day. So thank you guys so so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed today's vlog and don't forget to follow me on my socials and I'll see you in the next one. Bye guys.