Summer is in sight!

The end of the school year is quickly approaching.  My desk is scattered with papers and final exams.  In less then one week, I will be enjoying another beautiful summer break!

This is my fourth year teaching in my current position, so in high school terms, it's kind of like I'm a senior.  Actually, it means that the Freshman I taught my first year are all grown up and graduating!  I've had only one student who has been in German all four years and one student who I've taught three of the four years, so I had to take the opportunity for a picture with them before they went out into the big, real world!  (One of them even built me the awesome podium a few years ago in his shop class!)

German Food Day

Some of my students gave presentations the other day on different German foods.  Unfortunately (for me), they chose very rich foods full of butter, cream and eggs including Kartoffelsalat, Apfelkuchen, Linzertorte, Bienenstich, Lebkuchen and Stollen.  The other students had fun sampling the foods, and I guess that's the important part! 

Ready for the Weekend

I feel like I've been on the go non-stop for the last two weeks!  Last week, especially, was a crazy week at school.  Even though it was a short week, I was gone on Wednesday for a PBIS conference and Thursday morning for CPR training.  There were other meetings, practice and paperwork during the week... AND worst off all, I only had one prep for the entire week!  I feel like I'm still catching up this week.

To make things a little better, last week I started a Maerchen (fairy tale) unit with my German 3/4 class.  It's one of my favorites!  There is a lot of grammar, culture and history to discuss.  We ended the week by watching The Brothers Grimm.  I think it will end up being a five-week unit and hopefully, the kids (the majority of which are male) enjoy it as much as I do!

On top of that, Chad's basketball team has been playing in their regional tournament (which they won last night!).  I've had the difficult job of keeping book, which is really just to help me watch (pay attention to) the game.  The dance team and I have also been hosting our annual Kiddie Camp at the elementary school.  I've been making the rounds between all three schools in our district!

I've also managed to stay up-to-date with my training schedule.  As the weather has been cold and snowy, I've been running inside and making use of my gym membership.  I've been trying to keep a pace of at least 10:00 miles on my training runs.  It might seem slow, but my fastest half was at a pace of 11:30.  Since I'm only training eight weeks, I thought I should try to pick up the pace... we'll see how that turns out. 

So, here's to a relaxing weekend!