Fall = Football

Mountain View High School Football

It goes without saying that the Fall is a busy time. With my job starting up, a new school year for both of us, and just trying to keep up with the details of life, things can be busy enough. Adding football to the mix just seems to put the Fall into high gear and send us lurching full speed ahead into a whirlwind of long hours during the week and Friday nights spent under the lights in the Georgia heat, hoping for a good turn out.

Below is the schedule for the season for anyone interested. I will do my best to post updates about the games and the life we try to squeeze in during our very limited free time : )

08/26/2011 *C. Gwinnett Black Knights Central Gwinnett H.S. 7:30 pm

09/02/2011 *Archer Tigers Archer H.S. 7:30 pm

09/09/2011 *Lanier Longhorns MVHS 7:30 pm

09/16/2011 Mill Creek Hawks MVHS 7:30 pm

09/23/2011 Peachtree Ridge Lions Peachtree Ridge H.S. 7:30 pm

10/07/2011 Duluth Wildcats MVHS 7:30 pm

10/14/2011 North Gwinnett Bulldogs North Gwinnett H.S. 7:30 pm

10/21/2011 Collins Hill Eagles Collins Hill H.S. 7:30 pm

10/28/2011 Meadowcreek Mustangs MVHS 7:30 pm

11/04/2011 Norcross Blue Devils MVHS 7:30 pm

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Friday's game at Central Gwinnett was one that was greatly anticipated. The coaches and team had an entire off season and Summer working their tails off to prepare for this much anticipated moment.

The final score was not a great representation of the game that was played, but seeing 54-14 on the scoreboard at the end of game that did not go in your favor is a blow to the gut nonetheless.

 

Central Gwinnett is a good team with a long history in the county, and I was hoping to see our team ( who is now only playing their 2nd Varsity year) look like competitors on the field, and as a spectator that's exactly what I got. In an attempt to be positive, we may not have won our first game, but if they can get back on the horse and leave this game behind them, I think these boys are finally looking like football players, and can give some teams a run for their money this year.

 

Below is a picture of Shane with his DBs

 

It was great to be able to see Shane fired up and doing something that he loves on the sidelines. Last year he spent all of his time during the games up in the box, and although being on the sideline with coaches yelling into your headset has been an adjustment, Shane is really enjoying being down on the field with his guys.

Go Shane! & Go BEARS!

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 Bay Creek Update

As for my school week, it is definitely flying by and I am stunned that this Monday I will be starting to teach week number 4 !!!! I have an amazing group of Language Arts teachers that are mentoring me and supporting me in every way I could have hoped. We collaborate and plan together and good communication alone makes life and teamwork so much easier!!! 

Right I am teaching the elements of short story and narrative, as well as daily setting the grammatical foundation for each of my students. I can't say they loved taking notes this past week on sentence types, but hopefully once we start writing they will see the pay off!

For Shane and I both, we have our good days and our days we come home from work wanting to collapse and give up on teaching all together. It has been key for us both to seek God's perspective on our jobs and on our students in order to simply take each day at a time, asking God for our daily bread and the grace to handle all the crazy stuff that being a teacher throws your way. 

I have no idea how Shane teaches and coaches, because teaching a bunch of high maintenance moody middle schoolers is enough to make me ready for bed by 6:00.

If you think of us in your prayers, pray that God would give us each peace in our days, and especially for Shane as he seeks to be excellent in all things while having his time split between two things he is trying to give his best to. It can be hard when you feel stretched thin to feel as though you are doing anything adequately, but our prayer is that at the end of the day we can do our best to the glory of God and have rest and peace in that.

It goes without saying that we miss our family and friends terribly, and think and pray for you all often, even if we are out of touch for the moment, while Football season takes our attention.

We look forward to seeing Brad (Shane's brother) soon, when he flies down for the weekend before flying down to Florida for school in a month.

I am also excited about my birthday trip (given to me for my birthday, not on my birthday) up to Chicago in early November to see my family and Racquel and Byron's new little one!!!

Can't wait for Thanksgiving in San Diego either! Finally get to visit Mom and Dad Woodward at their homestead as a married couple : ) and will finally get to hang out with Lo, Dan, and meet baby Ily : ) !!!

Lots of blessings and lots to look forward to. If anything I will try and post a blog or two on these high lights of our Fall!

-M.W.



1 Week Down

While Shane has night practice tonight I decided it would be a great time to get started on the large stack of things I have to do this weekend in order to plan and prepare for next week's lessons and grade the assignments from the past week. I also decided that posting a quick blog would be a great way to procrastinate and put off the never ending work week (an 8 hour work day for a teacher is a complete joke. . . . non existent).

 Here is a picture of my work computer that is constantly by my side.

These were waiting for me at home to congratulate me on surviving my first week (from my wonderful husband of course). : )

Overall the first week was completely exhausting for both of us!

Shane was up at the crack of dawn each day to fit a work out in, then didn't get home from school/practice til around 7:30 (= 14 hour days).

We both did our best to stay awake while eating our dinner, but after having 2 months of a more laid back schedule, jumping back into the swing of things and being "on" for 8 hours or more a day in front of a group of students can be utterly exhausting! Especially when you come home only to finish dinner before round 2 of honing lesson plans and responding to a days worth of emails from work.

All in all it was a great week for both of us and our hope and prayer is that God will continue to shape us all year long into better more engaging teachers as we try to reach all of our students and all their individualized learning needs.

Middle schoolers are definitely funny and make me laugh often. Below are a few funny high lights from the week.

* Most of my students think I look like some character on the Disney Channel-Victoria Justice? Heard of her? Yeah me neither-but they were practically star struck (maybe they'll respect me more with the whole "awe of celebrity thing" )

* The letters my students wrote me the first day of school are not only a great diagnostic piece for their writing capabilities, but also gave me some insight into how they viewed themselves. "I'm a 12 year old teenager" hmmmmm-greeeaaaat : )

* Today while talking about static characters in literature and stereotypes I asked the students for some stereotypes they have heard. One girl shot her hand up to inform me that a "Notherner" stereotype was that all Northerners love to hang out at Starbucks and use Wifi. Haha-I will admit I do love free Wifi! : )

My one worry of the school year is that life will fly by and that I will have limited time to keep in touch with the family and friends I love so dearly and think of on a daily basis! I hope to find balance, but if it seems like I have fallen off the face of the earth-it's because I have!!!

Love you all! -M.W.

Classroom Set Up, PrePlanning, Meetings Oh My !

In order to take a break for the sake of my sanity, I am on here real quick to give you a quick glance at what Shane and I have been up to prepping for the school year-setting up our classrooms,attending endless meetings, and getting curriculum in order for the school year. On top of this Shane is also coaching 2 a days-so to say life has been busy is quite the understatement! 

Here are some pictures of our rooms in progress and I will share some links at the end of the post for anyone that wants to check out the schools in more detail! 

 Outside of Shane's classroom at Mountain View (I don't have a name plate yet : ( ).

 Organizing desks . . . . (Shane is so pumped to finally have a room with WINDOWS!)

Starting to fill Shane's Bulletin Board (Shakespeare, Tolkein, and California Posters all on the way!)

Thank you Walmart for cheap supplies!

 Here is my room just after I plopped down my things for the first time!

 Shane and I both visited each other's classrooms on our day off to help with some set up.

Organizing the board. 

 Shane helping with the "Essential Question" of the day that will keep my lessons in focus! 

 I Love Vocab!!! : )

Today, while doing some preplanning at the school I had a teacher ask me how in the world I got my job. This may sound rude, but she meant it as a genuine question, knowing how hard so many other people are looking for a job and how many would kill to work at our middle school. The school opened only 2 years ago and is exceeding in most all areas of state testing. We have a school with 900 students and it was announced today that the principal just approved 100 applications for permissive transfers. Which means that over 100 parents of students who live outside our school zoning want their students at our school. Its a high achieving school with great leadership and high standards. Like I told that teacher, ultimately, although a former positive interview may have gotten me the recommendation I needed-it was a gift from God. So many teachers have told me that I struck Gold working at this school for my first year, and so far I can only agree. God is good, teaching job or not, and he does know how to give good gifts to his children. (meanwhile I'm still freaking out and scared out of my mind so prayers are welcome!) 

Here are some links to both of our schools and a school ranking website the state dept. of education put together. 

Bay Creek Middle School 

Bay Creek's State Ed Dept. Ranking

Mountain View High School  


Mountain View's State Dept. Rating

Mountain View Bears Football 

Here's to a great Year!

Probably won't make it on here often, but I will try to make note of highlights along the way!

-M.W.