Lesson Planning and other things

Marco is asleep right now and I am working diligently on my lesson plans for Monday. (I obviously decided to take a quick break and post a blog entry.) It is earth day on Monday so we are going to celebrate by learning different songs about the earth in music class. I think it is going to be fun. I have various activities for each grade. 1st grade has the theme of sharing the planet this bimestre which means we will be working on presenting a song at the end and recording it. I think it will be good to do one that is a take on He's got the whole world in his hands. The lyrics were changed to those which pertain to the environment and recycling. I think it is a great short song that the kids can learn. They are bright kids and I think that as a whole it will go over well. We will practice it in each class and do other activities as well to continue on with regular music class and learning how to read notes. I am excited to be advancing and making some progress with myself and with my students.

I have also gotten help from various teachers and psychologists for each grade about classroom management. That is the biggest thing I have to work on. I have the materials and the songs to sing and practice but when it comes to keeping all the kids involved and on task, I struggle a bit. I am slowly picking up tricks but knowing all of their names is something I should really be on target with. I have over 200 students and I only see them once a week. I have taken photos which has helped but I should probably review them at least once a day until I am comfortable with everyone's name.

I find that time is continually slipping out of my hands. I have made the decision to limit watching TV and my time on facebook. I need to focus on getting things done that I want to get done. Too often I finish my day feeling like I didn't get to do everything that I was planning on doing. Managing three different jobs is also quite a trick. I am teaching music, English and violin. It leaves very little time for other things. I am also playing gigs on the weekend and I just joined a professional choir. The choir will be most of my gigging after August because I am still in the training phase. I am, however, going to be singing on the 18th of May with this choir and it will be my first paid gig as an active member. I am excited even though it is two days after I get back from Spain. It's all good. I will make sure to have all the mp3 recordings with me during the trip so I am ready to sing away!

Spain is just around the corner and I feel like I have a million and one things to do before I leave. We need to finish planning out our trip as well and I want to make sure I have all the basic important information before I leave, such as where money changing is best done, the price of taxis, the emergency/police number, a packing list, and all the confirmation/reservation numbers I have for flights and things. I have to make sure that all my English students are good to go and that my school knows that I can't find anyone for the 13th or 14th to cover my classes. The good thing is that they hired me knowing I wouldn't be able to make those dates. I just won't get paid for those classes. I will, however, leave a lesson plan for the homeroom teachers if they so choose to give it during music lesson time.