Bootcamp

We have made it over the hump! Hallelujah! Just seven more school days to spring break, though I can't get too excited about that one, yet. It is officially crunch time, and my to-do list seems to be getting longer and longer each day. We have just 12 (!!!) school days until STAAR, and I tried to instill some fear in my kiddos by writing this on the board - today was 13 - but I think I only instilled fear in myself.

Going over the calendar made it all very, very real. That ready or not (and trust me, some of my students are certainly not ready), the STAAR test is coming. I'm going to offer a STAAR Bootcamp these next two weeks during lunch tutorials, in the hopes that some of my students will soak up some extra test-taking strategies. If nothing else, my hope is that they will become more comfortable with the format of the test, because it is no easy feat. While STAAR is looking more and more like TAKS every day, I more than remember being exhausted after sitting in a room for five hours just reading and writing and reading and writing. And then when you finish you get to read some more! I say this like I didn't love TAKS week, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I'm realizing just how silly it all really is.

But I won't even get into that right now. Let's talk exercise! Because I'm still not running (ugh, it's killing me), I decided to stay after school and attend a 4:30pm bootcamp class at the 24 Hour Fitness right by school. I have attended this bootcamp before, but it has certainly been a while, as evidenced by one attendee who said, "I don't recognize you. You must be new." Hey, I think I held my own! That being said, today's workout was tough. I was absolutely drenched in sweat by the time the clock hit 5:30pm, and again, I don't want to compromise the instructor and his class by sharing what the entire class looked like, but I'll share a couple of my favorite exercises with you guys.

We started out the class with some jump rope - 1 minute, 2 minutes, and 2 minutes. That got my heartrate up quick! We then did four rounds of a circuit that included six different exercises. We only did 10 reps of each exercise, but that was enough. Trust me. I thought when I graduated from high school (and volleyball), I had graduated from burpees. Nope. They follow me everywhere I go. But these burpees looked a little bit different. They go by the name of Lateral Burpees, in which a bar was placed on the ground, jumped over twice laterally, and then completed a burpee. I think this move is very crossfit-esque, but whew, it got me good. And you could easily make it harder by building a higher step, but honestly, it's hard enough as is.

(Source)

And I was surprised by how difficult this exercise was for me. I consider myself to have a fairly strong core, but I will admit that I have neglected targeted core work in favor of running, running, running. So these also got me good. The only piece of equipment needed? Two pieces of felt. I got in push-up position, with one piece of felt under each shoe. I completed two mountain climbers before getting down in plank position (on my elbows) and brought my knees to my chest (at the same time), twice. I then reverted back to push-up position and completed that sequence ten times. Okay, I took a couple of breaks. But don't knock it 'til you try it because it's much harder than it sounds.

It looked like this, though we were on our elbows (Source)

After bootcamp I headed back over to school, because sitting in 5:30pm Houston traffic is one thing that is not on my to-do list. I blasted some music, spread out my papers, and made myself comfortable as I cranked out grades and comments for the expository essays my kids wrote on Tuesday. It was my goal to get them finished as soon as possible, so that I can get them back to my kids and actually talk about them and see what last-minute improvements they can make to help make that jump from the 1/2 range to the 3/4 range. My cart is overflowing, my folders are stuffed to the brim, and I am counting down the days until I can chunk all things expository- and short answer-related.

And normally I don't use an actual red pen

But until that day comes, I will probably be seeing some later hours of the night, my kids will probably be seeing more of the Kelli bun, and some of them will likely be seeing more of their principal's office. Though today a student asked me, "Do you really think the threat of going to my principal is going to make me behave?" Excuse me? If a teacher ever even uttered the words "principal's office" to me (spoiler alert: this never happened), I would have started crying in the middle of class. I would have apologized profusely, and I probably would have brought him or her Starbucks every day for the rest of my life. My oh my, how times have changed!

I hope your Wednesday has been just wonderful. Stay warm, because this arctic freeze is coming!