2018

It's early to be up, especially for a 'holiday' morning - except this appears to be what 'normal' looks like even in the holidays for our family.

I'm up a bit earlier - bad dream unsettled me and I wasn't chancing going back there if I fell into a light sleep again.  That means it is 6.23 and I've had one and a third coffee mugs already.  In my defense, they are mocha's.  I'll switched to Tleaft after this ...

3/5 (all my boys) are up and playing Minecraft or something similar on the ipad.  The girls will probably wake around 7ish and since we've cancelled Sky (ok, put on hold) for the summer 502 will go on at 7.30 and they can watch Sesame Street before some breakfast.

Summer is some sort of holding pattern it feels - I'm squirreling away on school work in the early mornings, days are spent knitting/sewing/FEEDING THE CHILDREN ALL THE TIME/cleaning/swimming/lagooning/doing dishes .... you get the idea.  DH has been working pretty much full time, except from Christmas - New Years - an as much as I love my tribe to bits, holidays time can get a bit long in the tooth. 

So ... in terms of school - this will be the the start of my fourth year at my school. I keep pondering a #oneword2018 but nothing has really stood out for me yet.  Consolidate and pace keep popping up into my head both in terms of family and work. - I will get back to you on that one.

The Y10s I started with are now Y13s and I'm really excited for that class.  The girls have keen interests and the course is designed around what they want to study; based on discussions with them at the end of last year.  None of them (currently) plan to study or major in English at Uni, but they are keen to look deeper into how we tell our stories and the feminist voices of the past. 

My Christmas Book (thanks to our local store for choosing one for me as a surprise whilst I choose the kids ones) was The Bone Sparrow - which nicely ties in with the Y12 theme for the year of 'Identity and Place'  They will start with a study on literature surrounding the Boat People in Nauru  and the voices that we hear through media and other texts.  We will study Warsan Shire and Apriana Taylor poetry - along with possibly either the film or novel Kite Runner. 

The Y11s were keen to do something around the world wars, so rather than sticking to a time and doing Wilfred Owen over and over, we'll look at several poems about conflicts from the past and they can choose the ones they want to really dig deep into.  We've also go the NZ drama scripts Land Girls/Glory Boys and The Book Thief to explore. 

My integrated studies class (Eng/Social Studies) will have the theme of 'Turangawaewae' - My space and place .... this is the one I'm having the most fun planning the first four weeks - and then I'll work with the students as to where we head.  We will look at Rekohu (Chatham) Islands for a start and also how story is passed down and the stories of the same places but from different peoples and perspectives.   One novel I have for a class study this year is Refuge by Jackie French - which does this to an extent. 

So that is a tiny snippet/ideas about my classes.  My professional journey will continue with COL work - and I'm excited to sink my teeth into that more this year.  Other than that ... really looking forward to #NZBFC630 starting up again to join my cup of coffee!!