The great part of being home for the summer is when Mark gets random days off, Emma, Liam, and I get to spend it with him. Today was one of those days. We got a walk in, grocery shopped, went to Liam’s doctor appointment (just the 1-year well check), and swung by the new house.
On the Liam front…the doctor was amazed by how happy, healthy, and verbal he is. He babbled like a 15-month-old…so he’s ahead verbally. His head is still huge (60th percentile), he’s heavier than Emma ever was (at a mere 20th percentile), and he’s short (only 10th percentile). I have a feeling he’ll be taking after Mark who was the second shortest in his class at SLUH at the beginning of freshman year and grew nine inches by the end of senior year.
Since they were working on the house, we didn’t get to go in, but they were definitely doing siding and drywall. We’ll try to sneak in on Thursday night again. It’s so surreal that we’ll be there in a month!
Tonight, I spent a chunk of the night working. Friday I end my time as a consultant with William Woods. I’ve been helping them redo the American Literature class to make it better. I taught it for the first time at the beginning of the school year and I had a horrific experience. I never wanted to teach for William Woods again. I have really liked the professor I have been working with for the last four weeks and have enjoyed doing some curriculum development. So we’ll see…they pay well, so I may try it again.
I did a sample of one of the assignments that we want our students to do tonight, and I came to the realization we want them to do too much in just 300 words. To effectively respond to the literature with the questions we’re giving them, they really need to be writing 500 to 650 words. It’s making me think that I should take a look at my student’s work more often to see if I am grading it fairly. I think my assignments I create at the high school level are OK, but sometimes these college courses that are shells that I inherit have issues. It was a good exercise for me as a teacher.
It’s been a long day, but I am so thankful for the time I get to spend with my littles and that I get time to develop my passions and be Teresa and not just teacher Teresa.
