A View from the Top...

...and it's pretty awesome!! This is looking west  from the rooftop playground at my new school.  There's the Empire State Building.  Just to the right is the Chrysler Building.  It's so cool that kids get to play in a space like this with a view like that.

To back up a little, this is what the school (PS 281 The River School) looks like from the ground:

It's situated at 35th St. and 1st Ave on the east side of the city, parallel to Midtown. You can see the rooftop playground at the top of the building on the left.  On the right side of the building is the East River (hence the name of the school), which is also a beautiful sight.  The school is very nice inside too.  It's new and still under construction on some floors.  I will start teaching in the 2nd year of the school's existence, so it's nice to be coming in on the ground floor, so-to-speak.  I saw my classroom, which is nice.  It has a Smartboard, lots of good kid furniture, and some nice windows. There's a yoga studio, a beautiful library, a STEAM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Art-Math) lab which is like specials for the kids.  There's also an indoor gymnatorium and there will be a kitchen for cooking with students!

I got to meet my colleagues and principal on Saturday.  We had professional development (yes, Saturday school for teachers), and it was good to meet everyone in person.  I'd seen everyone through Skype, but that's just not the same.  There are about 10 teachers and from what I can tell, we will soon become friends and a very close-knit family of teachers.  Loved Nicole, the principal, and my teammate Amy.  

We started planning curriculum for the year and one of the coolest parts of what we planned were two inquiry projects.  In the fall we're going to do a 3-month project about the farmer's market.  We'll get to go on field trips around the city to farmer's markets, taste test different foods from the farmer's market, bake, do experiments, incorporate math, reading, writing, and lots of other things.  The inquiry project for the spring is about bees, which will be really cool too.  I'm excited to be able to eat/cook with kids again.  Food is one of the best parts of life, so it should be a part of school (this is totally directed to CHCCS which has a no-food policy - bleh).

Anyway, I'm really excited about where I'll be teaching next year, the people I'll be working with, and the things I'll be teaching!!  If I have to leave Morris Grove (*tear*) this is a pretty great next place to land.