Back To School!

The time has come, and how the time has gone!  Summer always stretches endlessly in June.  The beginning of September seems forever away.  But then comes the last week in August, and we hear ourselves saying, "Is it time to go back already? Where has the summer gone?"

Yes, it's time to go back.  Emotionally, I'm ready.  It's been a very full summer, lots of activity, several mini-trips, great weekends away with my husband.  Mentally, it's still a little hard.  Teaching a new subject is still making me quake in my boots a little.  I don't know what to do the first day.  Need to ask Sharon!  Sharon was/is the best social studies teacher I have ever known.  She is the most organized and the most creative teacher.  She retired a year or two ago.  I miss you, Sharon!

Even though part of my emotions are saying "scary," the other part is saying, "Woo-hoo!"  I am so excited about being able to teach social studies and Language Arts this year.  I have wanted to do it for at least 8 years.  I added my social studies endorsement five years ago, but this is the first time at my face-to-face that I will actually be able to teach the "blocked" classes.  At Sandpoint Middle School this year, that means I will be teaching the same students both social studies and language arts.  So much will be new for me.  Well, they say that's one of the things that keeps us young: challenging the mind with new and different endeavors.

Help!  Anyway, I'm sending out a call for "Help!"  If you have some ideas of how I can incorporate social studies with language arts, please pass on your ideas to me!  The social studies content is early American history, to 1877.  I hope to have as many cross-curriculum activities as possible, to make the whole blocking thing successful.  Lend me your ideas, you wise teachers out there, wherever you are.  :)

One of the best courses I've ever taken has helped prepare me for teaching social studies is "We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution."   It was a seven-day workshop in Jackson Hole, WY, this summer; one of my weeks away from home.  It was so encouraging to get this information and be around history/social studies teachers for this week.  Of course it revealed how much I don't know as well, but it was mind opening!  If you ever have a chance to attend a We the People institute, do it!  I hope to attend more in the future. 

We had one afternoon off to go to the Teton National Park and we hiked around Jenny Lake.  The pictures are from that day.