Didja miss me?

Seneca Rocks
Originally uploaded by h0kieerin.

We're home from West Virginia. We had a lovely week. The Queen Mother...no...the King Mother...LMK's mother and I went shopping. Lots and lots of shopping! The woman had no idea that Staples has HUGE sales in July. She's been paying full price in August. Heh. I've corrupted her now. She's addicted. She pretty much cleaned them out of the $0.78 two pack of composition notebooks and she should never purchase pencil tip erasers again (35 boxes, 12 in a box makes for 420 erasers, sheesh!)

I have a lot of the stuff on my list that I needed for my classroom now.

She and I even made curtains. I ironed them (how I loathe ironing) and she sewed them. I still think she got the cushy job. SITTING in front of an air conditioner while I STOOD in the basement beside a hot iron. Have I mentioned I hate ironing? Hate it with a passion now. However, since she was sewing and I don't know how, I decided to suck it up. LMK got the brunt of my whining. Lucky him.

We also saw I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. It was nothing like what I thought it was going to be and I really enjoyed it. LMK has promised me a trip to see Hairspray and Chick-Fil-A since we wussed out last week before Harry Potter was released. Also, by the by, my book that I pre-ordered from Amazon that I was told wouldn't arrive until the 24 unless I upgraded to paid shipping (I had the free shipping) arrived at 10:30 on the 21st.

Ha ha! Cheapiness wins out!

Finally!

It is finally H.arry P.otter time! Woo-friggin'-hoo.

LMK and I will be heading to Large City this evening to try and get a book. We preordered our book back in March from Amazon, but I couldn't upgrade the shipping like I wanted to so we'll be getting that book sometime next week. Meanwhile, LMK and I will be heading to West Virginia tomorrow. This does not please the King. (Truth be told, I'm ok with having two books.)

So this evening we're going to head to Large City. We're getting dinner at Chick-Fil-A, which I love and will use any excuse to eat there. Then we're going to go see H.airspray. We'll probably tootle around Pe.tsmart, T.arget, and the school supply store in the process.

Heck, we might just leave for West Virginia and stop at a 24 hour Wal-Mart.

Tomorrow we'll be reading! Hooray!

Stick a Fork in Me

I'm done at school! At least until we get back from West Virginia. I've done just about everything I can do without LMK's help and some key purchases.

I still have one bulletin board left to do, but I can't do it until they install my new whiteboard and re-glue the cork board. It is going to be my classroom jobs board. Right now, I have no idea what to do for that board. I have a Helping Hands board that is really cute or a notebook paper/thumbtack idea, but I'd like to do something different. Any suggestions?

My favorite bulletin board is my lunch count board. MY 4th grade teacher had this board. Each day, the kids come in and pick their lunch decision. I can tell at a glance who is absent and who is buying hot lunch, cold lunch, salad, etc.

Everything is pushed to the left side of the board so that the kids won't have to climb all over the computer to get to their name. I'm concerned it's going to be a bit tall for 4th graders so I might pick up my grandfather's old step stool when we're in Ohio. That should give the kids enough of a boost to reach the highest crayon. I tried to put the less popular lunch options at the top, too.


I also put up a bulletin board my mom did several years ago. It's called a pocket dictionary. I used library card pockets with the letters of the alphabet on them. This way, when kids need to know how to spell a word, they can bring me the Ss card or the Ff card and we can add it to the card for the next person who needs to know how to spell that word.

Since I didn't get to order some small pocket dictionaries for each student, I figured this would work instead. I didn't laminate the library book pockets so I hope they will hold up throughout the year. If not, I'll know to laminate them for next time!

Updated to add: I forgot to mention my current favorite thing about teaching. Blah, blah, blah impacting young lives. But honestly, I can order these and horde them all for me. Mmmmm, THESE are what being a teacher is all about. I got the big box with the "new" scents. Some are ok, some are NOT. Give me purple, red, blue, dark green, and brown any day. The new light blue and light green smell yummy, though. (Click on the picture to make them larger. You know so you can read all the scents.)

It was only a matter of time...

until my first injury in the classroom. While interning, I missed a chair and fell in front of my third graders. Then while student teaching I slipped on some black ice right before school started one morning.

Yesterday, while working in my room, I flipped myself out of my desk chair. I knew they were slippery on tile floor, but evidently they're just as rolly on carpet. I come by it naturally though, my mother fell off a desk one year working in her classroom.

I should have known it was going to be a bad week after the desk chair. This afternoon, I was standing on a chair hanging posters. When I "hopped" down my ankle gave out and I fell. Luckily, the file cabinet broke my fall. A lot of crashing later I was able to get up and limp home.

My husband was not amused. After a trip to the ER, I MAY have broken my ankle. They're sending me to an orthepedic doctor for a second opinion. Right now, I am on crutches and Loritab. LMK is having conniptions at the thought of me unsupervised on crutches. Heh. You'd think I was some sort of klutz. Oh wait...I AM some sort of klutz.

Please Lord, don't make me start my first year of teaching on crutches.

**Update: It's not broken! The ortho doc said I could even stop using the crutches. I may use them another day otherwise I tire out really easy.

Anyone thinking I should go back to school tomorrow morning? Yeah, me too!

Square One

This morning, my classroom looked like this:



By this afternoon it looked like this:


Why? The Assistant Principal came to tell me that they're ordering me a 12 ft. whiteboard. Woohoo! That means that painted chalkboard is finally going to be functional! I've got a room to rearrange and bulletin boards to change! I also got enough chairs for my desks, a new computer table, a new desk chair, and a new bookshelf. Squeeeeee!

As the principal told me, it pays to be around in the summer. We think of you when you're here.

Crap...I just ordered a bunch of chalk, too.

Hella Hot

Hot
Originally uploaded by h0kieerin.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not handle heat well. Nothing will drive me into drunken sailor-like cursing like being hot. Nothing. So with the current temperatures in Northern Virginia I am anything but pleasant. It's fucking hot!

Just to further piss me off, the air conditioning on my side of the school building isn't working. That's right, it's frickin' hot in my air conditioned school too! The administration knows there is a problem and to their credit they are doing all they know how to do to fix the problem. One of the secretaries told me today that I can either freeze or roast. Please! I will freeze!

LMK's CPAP machine is wonderful. He sleeps so quietly I find myself checking to make sure he's breathing. He's never slept so quietly. Of course, now I have to get used to sharing the bed again. Boo. When it's hot, double boo.

This and That

• I think I may need to tone down the school talk. Last night, I woke LMK up because he was snoring. He sat bolt upright in bed and exclaimed, "What grade level?" Heh.
  

• Speaking of snoring, LMK is now the proud owner/renter of a CPAP machine. Hallelujah! The very nice tech came out and showed us how to work it this afternoon. I could hardly hear the thing when she turned it on, so I'm not worried about not being able to sleep with it on. And, LMK has to keep his mouth shut when he's wearing it. Oh, those jokes just write themselves.

• I sat in the computer lab so kids could come in and take AR tests today. It was interesting to say the least. One dad said he'd come back for his daughter (and son who isn't in school yet) in about a half hour, and hour later he returned. In other words, I babysat today!

• One mom had an adorable little girl with her (maybe 3 at the most). Mom gave her a piece of candy which she immediately chomped. Then she wanted a piece of gum. Mom gave her gum with the strict instruction NOT to swallow it. ("It takes Benefiber to get it out of her," she confided.) Two minutes later, guess who wanted some gum. Mom said no, but got distracted helping the other kids choose new books. So the little girl just reached into Mom's purse and helped herself. Five pieces later, Mom caught on. It's gonna be an interesting weekend!

• Some else, please tell me you are addicted to this site. Every day, I find some to giggle over. They're adorable.

Found this on You Tube. Love it!

My new favorite poster

My new favorite poster
Originally uploaded by h0kieerin.

I've just had the best idea.

I'm still going to do the "Me in a Bag" activity, but in my bag is going to be a dvd - All About Mrs.

Opinions?

Bygones, my butt.

So...I was all prepared to let go of whatever angst I was harboring regarding my classroom after that last post. As Pigs says, bygones.

However, today, as I was trying to organize my desks and failing miserably, I remembered that her desks fit in the room easily. What am I doing wrong? I have 30 desks and they're just not fitting. What the hell?

So I come home and check the pictures I took when it was her room. They're different desks!

She took the "nice" desks to her new room and gave me all the ones that are missing screws and are insanely high for 4th graders! Did I mention I have 30 desks and 18 chairs!?

Oooooo, NOW I'm pissed.

I don't think there is much I can do but try to find a way to get rid of some of the desks. I have 6 more desks than she had, where on earth do I put them!? I figure based on the numbers I've been told, if I have 25 desks, I'll be more than safe.

Advice?

Here's what I think

When I walked into my room filled with the former teacher's stuff, I almost had a panic attack. Everything was nicely organized but there was just so much stuff! There was no where to even put something down without losing it. Clutter and disorder make me anxious. I know you'd never guess that from the state of my house most of the time, but it's true. I left the room completely overwhelmed.

I checked in at school one day when she had come to move stuff. The principal suggested I go up and talk to her, so I did. Yeah. I don't think moving was her idea. Long story short, I didn't get a very friendly vibe from her, so I vacated post haste. I waited until she was done and then went back to see the room.

Everything was gone. Part of me was annoyed that she'd taken everything. However, like Carrie said, she probably bought a lot of it herself. I can understand. Heck, I would be doing the same thing.

That being said, taking the chalkboard erasers seems a little petty to me. The stuff she did leave in the room isn't all that helpful. The textbooks are in a pile on the counter. Not in nice, neat piles - just tossed on the counter. Along with the teaching manuals and whatever manipulatives come with the set. The computers are tossed on a card with cords strewn all over - no idea what cord goes to what computer or where they go. Figuring that out ought to be fun.

The one thing that makes me smile is thinking of the room that this teacher moved to. It's half the size of mine. Her new room is packed to the gills with stuff and she hasn't even gotten desks for the kids in there. Karma is a boomerang.

However, I have quite a bit of stuff myself. Not only do I have the things I've collected over the years while I was wishing for my own room, I've got stuff from teacher's I've worked with, and anything I wanted from my mom's room when she retired. Stuff, I got!

I just didn't know I should have gotten her erasers!

Silly me.

More pictures on Flickr.