People who know me know that when school starts, I am all school until next summer. I had been teaching Pre-K for the last 5 years. Initially, I was not too thrilled about moving to another school and my heart was pretty much set on staying in Pre-K but due to extenuating circumstances surrounding the Pre-K program in our county, I was encouraged to leave.
The new school year has begun and I am totally thrilled to be in my new school and teaching third grade again and what makes all this doubly exciting for me is that I can share my concern and love of bettas with my awesome third grade class...and awesome they are!!!! I have discussed my plans with them about incorporating bettas into our curriculum to teach them how to properly care and learn more about bettas and the reception I receieved from my class was magnanimously positive! Homework assignments during the first week were based on betta research and I was extremely impressed with what the students shared they had learned about bettas in their research.
About three weeks before school began, a reputable breeder, an IBC member, posted on her Facebook page that she had young females she wanted to sell because she didn't like their pastel coloring, which was not what she was breeding for but they showed good form and would make good breeders. She was offering to sell them at a really low price because she needed the space to spawn for more offspring (bettas can be very expensive purchased from breeders with show quality lines in their offspring). I purchased 4 females with the possibility in mind that I would take them to use in my classroom, which cost less altogether than the shipping. I always ask for express shipping so that the bettas are not packaged and in transit longer than they have to be and express shipping guarantees live betta arrival or the breeder will replace any DOAs, which is extremely rare when delivered by express and depending on weather conditions a breeder may only ship express or delay the shipment date (good sign of a caring breeder).
About a week before school began, I met with the principal and assistant principal and got a tour of the school and discovered to my delight that the school has a science lab and I immediately noticed 2 fish tanks and this is when I asked to incorporate bettas into my teaching and they stated that they would be very happy for me to put the aquariums to use and thus my planning how to incorporate bettas into teaching 3rd grade began.
Thursday I elicited help from a few of the bus students that had not left yet to help me bring the fish tanks up to my room and was able to begin cleaning them out. Time seems to run out too quickly and I've not gotten as far with tank set up as I wanted to be due to meetings we had when enrichment classes began Wednesday. Since I am new to the school, I have a mentor I have been meeting with after school to help me learn all the details of policies and procedures required by school administration. Hopefully, I will have a little more time to spend on setting up the aquariums next week.
I want to mention and make clear that I couldn't be happier with the way things turned out and will always be comforted to know that God always has a better plan and will make good any situation through my faith in Him.
Preview of next post...Why I had to separate one of the 4 females (all sisters) after about 3 days of observing them together in their new home.
The new school year has begun and I am totally thrilled to be in my new school and teaching third grade again and what makes all this doubly exciting for me is that I can share my concern and love of bettas with my awesome third grade class...and awesome they are!!!! I have discussed my plans with them about incorporating bettas into our curriculum to teach them how to properly care and learn more about bettas and the reception I receieved from my class was magnanimously positive! Homework assignments during the first week were based on betta research and I was extremely impressed with what the students shared they had learned about bettas in their research.
About three weeks before school began, a reputable breeder, an IBC member, posted on her Facebook page that she had young females she wanted to sell because she didn't like their pastel coloring, which was not what she was breeding for but they showed good form and would make good breeders. She was offering to sell them at a really low price because she needed the space to spawn for more offspring (bettas can be very expensive purchased from breeders with show quality lines in their offspring). I purchased 4 females with the possibility in mind that I would take them to use in my classroom, which cost less altogether than the shipping. I always ask for express shipping so that the bettas are not packaged and in transit longer than they have to be and express shipping guarantees live betta arrival or the breeder will replace any DOAs, which is extremely rare when delivered by express and depending on weather conditions a breeder may only ship express or delay the shipment date (good sign of a caring breeder).
About a week before school began, I met with the principal and assistant principal and got a tour of the school and discovered to my delight that the school has a science lab and I immediately noticed 2 fish tanks and this is when I asked to incorporate bettas into my teaching and they stated that they would be very happy for me to put the aquariums to use and thus my planning how to incorporate bettas into teaching 3rd grade began.
Thursday I elicited help from a few of the bus students that had not left yet to help me bring the fish tanks up to my room and was able to begin cleaning them out. Time seems to run out too quickly and I've not gotten as far with tank set up as I wanted to be due to meetings we had when enrichment classes began Wednesday. Since I am new to the school, I have a mentor I have been meeting with after school to help me learn all the details of policies and procedures required by school administration. Hopefully, I will have a little more time to spend on setting up the aquariums next week.
I want to mention and make clear that I couldn't be happier with the way things turned out and will always be comforted to know that God always has a better plan and will make good any situation through my faith in Him.
Preview of next post...Why I had to separate one of the 4 females (all sisters) after about 3 days of observing them together in their new home.
No comments:
Post a Comment