Summertime, Summertime, sum sum Summertime

Last day of school was June 5th, but it wasn't until last Friday, the 14th, that I finally felt that school was truly out. We had the "End of School Ceremony," or whatever they call it, on Thursday. It was rather sad this year, what with the levy failure. When they honored all the people retiring, I was thinking about all the other people who would be leaving within the next year.

Then last week I had Common Core training for two days. Finally, second and third grade is going Common Core. I feel like the last teacher on the planet to be starting with Common Core - "Everyone is doing it!" For those of you not in the know, Common Core are the new nation-wide standards. Most states just started the new standards for everyone all at once, but WV has been rolling them out s-l-o-w-l-y, a few grade levels a year. The reason is that our test isn't changing until 2014-2015, so idea is to continue to prep kids for the test they are going to take. But in trying to get a job in another state, this may count against me.

That left just four days to undo my classroom. Which would be more than enough, except I was going though most everything, deciding what was mine and what was Title 1 or belonged to the school. Just in case I get a job this summer. But last Friday I just quit. There was one whole section of shelves left to do, but I was too tired of the whole thing. And, anyway, I don't imagine I'll get a job this summer. Too little time to get my name out there, ya know?

And I'm finding it hard to focus. I get a couple of good hours in on the job search each morning (except this morning, since I chose to do this instead), then I feel the pull of Naptime. Yesterday I also spent a few hours labeling books for my classroom library, a job that will take weeks, I think. The rest of the time I spend playing Hay Day.

We got new iPads - for school. Yes. For doing school stuff. Like, I don't know. DIBELS. Except we're not using DIBELS next year, the license is too expensive. So we got new iPads for DIBELS just in time for us not to use DIBELS anymore. But with Common Core, there are a lot of performance goals, so I can use the camera feature to record that, I guess. I'll think of some why to use it. I guess.

So, anyway, as Tech Coordinator, I signed the iPad out to myself for the summer. Then I downloaded some games. Well, what do you do with your iPad? One is called Hay Day. It is a build-your-farm type game. I am totally hooked. If you are on Facebook, you can play this game too. Look for me as dmmabc at Twin Oaks Farm.

The game is a little disturbing, however, to one who really knows where food comes from. Bacon, for example. In real life you have to kill the pig to get bacon, not put the pig in a steam chamber. And why does fruit take so much longer to grow than grain? And how do they make a hamburger out of bacon? Plus, who would want a bacon pie? or a carrot pie? Why not apple pie? And why do the apple trees die after just three harvests? And why do you have to mix the grain together for so long to make animal feed? You know, they will eat straight corn or wheat or soybeans if there is no "feed." And why can't I buy more sheep? I want more sheep now!

But it is a fun game anyway. I just hope no kid playing it is getting his whole knowledge of farms from this game. Most farms do not have diamond mines.