My Classroom World

I've already posted a couple photos of my new classroom in south London, but as I was doing some marking (a.k.a. grading) on Friday afternoon, I had a look around the room and thought of a few more fun things to share. Take a look!

I somehow forgot to bring a good map of the USA with all the states labeled, so I printed this one out, then outlined Washington. 

Then, the US Embassy gave each of us this map, which is much better! :)  And I have very bank walls to fill, so I was quite excited to get it. 

Here's a look down one side of my classroom. The school has lots of informational posters we are required to hang up. There is also a strong importance placed on displays of student work, so these are some of the symbols my students created on the first day of school. 

One of my favorite things about English schools is how clearly the learning targets are defined. We are struggling with this in the states, as we currently have district, state and now Common Core national standards to work with, and all of them can be quite a mess when you're trying to figure out how to prioritize. My school has very clear standards that each unit focus on. We know them, the students know them, and they are posted in every classroom. I love it! 

I am having the hardest time memorizing the bell schedule, so I'll probably have to have this up all year!

A look from the back of my classroom. I have a fabulous Smart Board, but I don't really know how to use it beyond the basics. One of my goals this year is to take a Smart Board class. 

My new commuting reality. Trainers (a.k.a. sneakers) and my Fulbright bag for the mile walk to and from school.  I thought the walk would be more of a challenge, especially at the end of a long day, but I'm actually really enjoying  it. The rain does make it a bit more unenjoyable, but I'm surviving! :)

My desk.  Yes, I'm still a sticky note queen.

The view out one of my classroom windows. Beautiful housing building like surround the area. 

This is my front table. I have it organized into piles for each class. Those lovely stacks of yellow and green books are exercise books. In England, students do all their work in exercise books. They even glue handouts into their exercise books. I am really starting to like this way of organizing classwork because I hardly ever have a student as me for a new copy of a handout they've lost. Back home, students lose their handouts so often that we post them online for them. I don't have to worry about any of that here! It's brilliant! 

The year seven girls, who are 11 years old, really like to decorate their exercise books. They are quite cute, and here are a few of my favorites. :)

I taught my girls the catch phrase I use with my American students: "Heads up." At first, they thought it meant you thrust your head into the air, but now everyone understands it's a figure of speech that means to stop talking and look at me. The year seven girls really like "Heads up," and several of them used it in their book decorating. :)

Keep Calm and Love English. Amen, sister!

More "Heads up!"

This one is just perfect! It has "Heads up," an American-British flag, and a fabulous "Keep Calm and Teach On" decoration. Love! I think "Keep Calm and Teach On" has just become my new motto!

My Fellow Crazy Americans

I had yet another fabulous weekend reuniting with my Fulbright friends for a weekend of fun in central London. The British Council brought all the Americans placed in the UK to London for an official embassy welcome on Friday night and then a nice meeting on Saturday afternoon.

But before all that, I got to host two friends--Natalie and Jessica--at the flat in Brixton when they arrived Thursday night. It had been a long, challenging week at school for me, and so their timing couldn't have been better. They didn't arrive until after 8 p.m. Thursday night, but we stayed up late chatting and catching up and just having a good (and much needed) laugh about how wild this whole experience can be sometimes. The next morning on Friday, I headed to school bright and early. I was feeling a little jealous of my friends who got to sleep in while I rushed off to school...until the massive garbage trucks arrived in the complex and started clamoring about, emptying all the large bins. I hate to admit it, but I did laugh a little when Natalie shouted out, "Are you kidding me!?" when she realized how loud and annoying (and slow!) those dump trucks were.

I had a nice morning at school, which included my first formal observation/evaluation. I'm happy to report that everything went well, and I received good, positive feedback. It's funny how I never get very nervous for evals back home anymore, but I felt like a brand new teacher, so nervous and worried about what might go wrong, last Friday. Needless to say, it was a good reminder to have a little more faith in myself and my skills as a teacher. I feel like such a newbie here that I do sometimes have to remind myself that I have seven full years of teaching experience behind me.

That afternoon, I caught the Tube and met the rest of the American Fulbrighters down at The Strand hotel in the theatre district. It's really a lovely hotel, and it felt nice to check in like I was a tourist, even though I was still in London. We headed down to the embassy together, but we did lose half our group in a crowded Tube station. Luckily, everyone made it to the US embassy eventually. Because there were protesters outside the front of the embassy, we had to go in through the back door. That meant no fun pictures--sorry! Our embassy event started with a meeting with some UK Fulbright alumni who had just returned from America. They were very kind and encouraging, and I got some good tips. The best tip? Accept the fact that there will always be more to do than what you have time for each day. For a perfectionist like me, that's a tough one to reconcile.

After that meeting, we had a lovely reception upstairs at the embassy. The British Council invited our head teachers (UK speak for principal) or mentors to attend the event, and I was lucky to be able to invite both my head teacher and my mentor. We really had a nice time, chatting while we enjoyed some tasty appetizers. We even got to take home a fun swag bag of books about America. I felt really good knowing that both my mentor and head teacher were interested in coming to the event. It made me feel supported and important, and it also helped me get to know them both a bit more. I hope they also got to see a more laid back side of me, as well.

Fellow Fulbrighter JJ and I posing at the Lion in Trafalgar Square. We decided to be sensible and stay on the ground while these crazies below climbed up.  I know my limits.  :) 

The wild ones conquered the statue! Natalie, Jessica and Rebecca.

Safely on the ground all together in Trafalgar. 

On Saturday, we got up nice and early for a meeting with all the other teachers placed in England.  It was nice to catch up with everyone in a more formal way. We all shared how our experiences were going so far. It's nice to see that we are all facing some of the same challenges that come from packing up your life and moving away to start a new one. There is strength in knowing we are not facing these challenges alone. There's also strength in having others with whom to share your successes.

After the meeting, a group of us wandered around and ended up at Southbank, which is quickly turning into one of my favorite places to hang out on the weekend. Surprisingly, I forgot to take a million pictures--shocking, I know--so I only have one more to share with you.

It was good fun to see some of the city with my friends. And there were even a couple times where I knew something interesting about London and could share it with them! I do love to share a good tidbit here and there. :) I'm not quite a tourist and not even close to being a local, but I feel like I've found a new happy medium somewhere, and having my friends in the city, all so excited to see the sights, made me feel proud of where I get to live this year.

Saturday night, Natalie, Niki, Jessica, Christy and I all went to see "Cantina," a fabulous cabaret/circus show that was down at Southbank's London Wonderground. I saw the advertisement for this show weeks back when I was having a wander through the Wonderground, and I was so excited the girls wanted to go see it. The show was incredible! The most amazing acrobatics and feats of strength I've ever seen. We all loved it! Of course after the show got over, we wanted to soak of some of the Wonderground atmosphere, so we sat around and had a couple drinks in the nice beer gardens they had set up. It was a perfect evening.

We all had to say goodbye Sunday as everyone headed back home. But I was fortunate to have Niki stay at the flat one extra night with me. After a quick trip home to Brixon to drop off some stuff and do a bit of lesson planning, I headed back to central London and met Niki at the Victoria and Albert Museum. We had a nice lunch at a cute cafe/bakery and then took our time checking out some of the exhibits. My favorite was the one that showcased fashion through the years. It's a great museum, and it was on my list of must-sees.

Alfred Steven's Truth and Falsehood. Here, Truth rips out Falsehood's tongue. 

By early evening, we were pooped, so it was back to Brixton for a quiet night in. Niki left very early Monday morning, and I headed back to work and my new normal life routines. Just another wild, whirlwind weekend!

Sometimes, I think we're all a bit crazy to have embarked on this journey. But you know what? Being a bit crazy isn't always a bad thing!

Earning my trip to Paris

After surviving my first full week of teaching, I felt like I had definitely earned a fabulous weekend getaway to Paris. So, after a week of long days and late work nights where I was constantly looking down at this...

My work table at home.

It was so fabulous to be able to look up at this...

Beautiful Paris!

But don't worry. I didn't run off to Paris on an impulse...although I may have to try that sometime since it's actually something I could do now. No, we actually planned this trip way back in August at the Washington, D.C. orientation. And man, am I ever glad we did! I traveled with fellow Fulbrighter Christy who flew down from Scotland and met me at the Eurostar station in London. We took the train over Friday night, and we met up with two other Fulbrighters: Natalie, who flew out from northern England, and Susan, who took the train from Rouen, where she is living, to Paris. Back in D.C., we were sitting around the bar after our long day of meetings, talking about how much we wanted to take advantage of every opportunity that came our way and travel as much as possible. We certainly crossed one of our must-see places off the list last weekend. 

Susan has a wonderful friend Laurent who lives just outside of Paris, and he put us up at his house. And after living in Paris multiple times and taking many students travel groups through the city, Susan knows the city in and out. We were so lucky to have her as our unofficial tour guide for the weekend. I would have been totally overwhelmed without her! Laurent and his friend Fred met us Friday night, and we stayed out way too late checking out the nightlife...till 3 a.m.! Then Saturday, we got up for a whirlwind sightseeing tour. We saw a lot more of the city than we expected to, and we even had time to stop for a fabulous three-course lunch! Later we had dinner with Laurent and more of his friends. We were all pretty wiped out Saturday, so we decided to take it easy and made it home around midnight. We slept in a little later Sunday, then had a nice relaxing brunch before checking out the Eiffel Tower and a couple more sights. Then, before we knew it, it was time to head home. I had such a fabulous weekend, and I've never been so happy to be so tired! 

With Susan and Christy, right after we arrived. What a good first stop! 

Outside the Louvre

Outside the Louvre

Paris is for lovers. Here's a bridge where they all leave their locks. 

There are so many pretty things in Paris. Gorgeous architecture and beautiful signs galore.

La Conciergerie, where they imprisoned Marie Antoinette 

Inside a gorgeous church.

Gargoyles keeping watch over the church. 

Outside Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris

Where cool writers like Hemingway and Ezra Pound hung out in the 1920s.

The awesome old French collection of Shakespeare I bought at Shakespeare and Company to add to my collection of neat old books. Most of the books in my collection are westerns, so I'm happy to add a little style and class with some old Billy here.

Beautiful water fountains like this can be found all over the city. They were put in a long time ago to improve the drinking water in the city back when there just wasn't enough clean drinking water.

Standing in the Rue du Chat-qui-Peche (The Street of the Fishing Cat)--the narrowest street in Paris

Where we had our fabulous three-course lunch.

I loved all the fun Metro station signs.

Another fabulous Metro station.

Montmartre. We didn't fight the crowds to go inside, but we did enjoy the gorgeous views looking down on Paris.

Looking down from Montmartre.

Moulin Rouge!

Arc de Triomphe

My tasty breakfast and new favorite food--croque madame

Yay! The Eiffel Tower!

I now feel the need to pose with plastic ice cream cones...and yes, we did have ice cream at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and it was divine! 

Later, we stopped in this garden for a little rest.

The other side of the garden.

Then we decided to take the water taxi around for a bit. Here I am waiting for it to arrive.

We had some great views of the city from the water taxi along the Seine.

I'm on a boat!

I thought this guy was pretty neat looking.

Very fun to cruise past the Eiffel Tower on the boat.