Second Day, Much Better than the First

I just got back from Munoz Marin and will report that today was much better. Less sitting around and listening and more talking in groups and planning our own lessons. We will begin teaching summer school students a week from today, which is a little daunting. I will be teaching with three others and can already tell that this group work will be my hardest challenge this summer. It will also make me very appreciative of being able to set my own rules, procedures, and classroom culture this fall in New York. We each teach different parts of the material each day, but we have to be together with our rules and such. We're meeting tonight to figure out a theme and get some other ideas ready and I can tell that it's not going to be easy. One girl in my group wants to do something with the game Assassins/Mafia, calling it something else of course, and I tried to explain to her that that was a little too complicated for 3rd graders, but she just didn't get it. The one guy in our group speaks Spanish and went to Harvard, while the other girl is the laid back, sensitive type and went to UC Boulder. What an interesting mix of people! Despite the difficulties that come with any group work, we shall succeed. In fact, at this point Institute is turning out to be a lot less scary than I thought it would be.
The first week of school I will be teaching the Read Aloud and Word Work portions of the balanced literacy model that we're using. I'm excited and really can't wait to meet the kids and get started.
My roommate and the two girls in the room next door are working at a different school, so I don't really see them much at all. All the people in my Collaborative teaching group, on the other hand, live in the dorm that's really far away and I will need to see them all the time. More walking for me!
I'm still having some problems with shoes and wore a new pair today that gave me superficial blisters all around my heals. One of my goals for the weekend is to find a great pair of black shoes that I can wear and not hurt my feet! I believe this can be done . . . We shall see.