5 More to break...ramble

I have decided this week, that next year...if I'm still teaching (who knows what the future holds)...I'm going do do a 12 days of Christmas in my classroom. I want to have some sort of Christmas activity each day for the 12 days leading up to Winter break. I have no idea what it will look like. Hopefully, I'll actually follow through. I really don't know how you fantastic teachers come up with units of study. I feel like I'm sinking in common core and testing.

But oh well..

Today, I taught my kids how to make snowflakes...and not the crappy square ones. It took the last 15 minutes of school to do it. I didn't send home folders. We just needed something fun to do. One girl said I was the best teacher ever and then asked for my autograph.

My best friend's brother is dying. He stopped breathing on Monday and hasn't had any brain activity in the last 24+ hours. She lost her mom about a year and a half ago to cancer. Her brother has had health issues all his life, but this is obviously the most serious thing to happen.

I told one of my kids about it today because I've been keeping my phone close during breaks. I told her that my friend's brother was very sick and in the hospital. She said that I need to go get him some vitamins and take them to the hospital so he could get better. How sweet!? I wish it was that easy.

The other day she told me that her head was going to explode with peas. I asked her if she had peas at lunch. She said..."no. Nachos." I laughed. Yesterday she told me her head was going to explode. I asked her with what this time. She says..."uh...lots of little Miss R___'s (my name)". I gave her the strangest look. Ha! I love that kid.

5 more school days to go. We so got this...and will somehow squeeze in a crazy amount of testing!

Happy November!

I can't believe tomorrow is our 50th day of school!! Our kids had a FIVE day weekend due to parent teacher conferences and Halloween. We had PTCs on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday. We all got Friday off. Today was a professional development day.

We finished our business centers. Pointless. Our new Superintendent of Elementary-in training is an idiot. Seriously. The only reason he's making us do this stupid stuff is because his school made AYP last year and he can show off. So..if it doesn't work for the rest of us..because our kids are not the same kids he had last year...can we cut the busy work? I know I haven't been doing this a long time, but this is ridiculous. I know that every place has issues. Nobody is like us. My district is so ridiculous sometimes. If my school doesn't get AYP this year, it's for sure going to be handed to us. There's a possibility that the state will step in and we'll all have to reapply and interview with the state. Ugh. I don't even want to think about that.

There's so much stress and tension in the building that it makes focusing on the teaching difficult. As a new teacher, I feel like I'm drowning.

Oh well, right?

I was supposedly groomed to be an urban teacher....to withstand the drama and trials to last longer than most urban school teachers. I'm supposed to go longer than the average turn-over rate. Yah...I'm sure I'm going to go under it. I am too young and too ill-equipped to deal with these pressures. I don't know how anyone can do it with a family. I would quit. Just up and quit.

I love my students. I love teaching them. I love sharing stories and learning with them. I love learning from them. I love opening a new world to them. I love helping them through struggles. I love giving them praise and teaching them how to act appropriately. I love the hugs and pictures.

I would really love to be able to close my door and teach. Maybe that's what I'll work on this quarter.

We interrupt your daily scheduled classroom....

We spent an hour and a half in our hallway today.

The tornado sirens went off around 11am. I knew we were supposed to get rain, but I had no idea the weather was going to be so severe. I honestly wasn't sure the sirens were for real...like maybe they were a false alarm. I saw the other teachers in my pod area taking their kids into the hall, so I did the same.

I calmly asked my kids to line up, and we headed into the hallway to assigned place. My kids were FANTASTIC!! They got right behind the kindergarteners, dropped to their knees and covered their heads. I didn't have a single kid cry!! (But I did have one fall asleep.....)

We had teachers coming down the hall with updates. At one point there were 4 tornadoes on the ground around us and some that were headed in our direction.

My hallway is K-2. Our kiddos were really calm. Our teachers were really calm too. We all had our phones out and were texting family members. My parents are back East, so I was texting them like crazy. Some of my friends were in the way of the tornado. I was trying to keep up to date with them and check on my brother as well. Crazy boy was driving right into the mess on his way to work!!

We ended up staying in the hallway for AN HOUR AND A HALF!

We didn't get an all clear until around 12:30. Our kids had to go to the bathroom and were hungry, but they really didn't complain. We kept telling them this was serious and they needed to stay down and keep their voices quiet.

The other hallway (3-5) was in hysterics. They kids were balling and wanted to call their parents. It probably didn't help that some of them had been learning about weather and learning stuff about what happened in Joplin, MO., and one of the teachers was telling them that a tornado was coming towards us. Really? Who tells kids that?

I understand that it was a VERY serious situation, but to scare them? That's not our job. We're supposed to be the calm, reassuring ones. I consoled two first graders (who are not in my class) letting them know that we're in the safest place and that we're going to be fine and their families are going to be fine, too. We had a couple of parents come to the building while the sirens were going off. We weren't allowed to let the kids leave, so the parents joined them on the floor.

I couldn't believe how calm I was. I HATE tornadoes. BUT...I couldn't really see anything going on in the sky and I didn't see a radar until after the fact. I suppose we just get adrenaline or something going and know exactly what to do.

I think I'm going to have a better kit prepared for stuff like this. I also thought that I probably need to get email addresses for my parents, those that have them, to send them updates when stuff like this happens. This is the first time this has happened in the three years I've been in my building.

What a crazy day! Only 2.5 more to go!!

Summer-itis

We have it.

We have it really bad.

We've got Summer-itis!

It feels like absolute craziness in my school.

For whatever reason, I don't remember what last year was like at this time. I'm sure it couldn't have been worse than this year. I feel like it's come out of nowhere. I have students who are acting like it's their first day of school EVER!

Of course today wouldn't have been a good day.

We had a schedule change 30 minutes before school started. The other two teachers on my team were out today. The SPED teacher had meetings in the morning and couldn't take her kiddos. One of them is on new meds, and they take FOREVER to kick in. Oh...and I had a TWO hour observation today.

My special friend decided to whack another kid with his backpack while standing outside the classroom door. He then proceeded to rip a think sheet into itty-bitty pieces and throw a fit. Ugh. I'd just like for him to actually act like a first grader just one day. Just one. And of course, kids were playing in stations and yelling across the room and bothering me while I was trying to DRA. And of course, my Cross-Cat kid would show up when he normally doesn't on Wednesdays. And of course, I wouldn't be able to try out a new strategy I've been planning especially for R-controlled vowels because my students wouldn't allow me to explain it before they had to tell me about their shoes or jackets or pets or whatever it was. And of course, when I asked them to be quiet, three more who WERE quiet would feel the need to talk. Ugh!

It was all I could do to keep it together today.

It felt like last year all over again.

Alas! Only 7.5 days to go. 6.5 for me because I'm out on Friday. I've got to keep myself in the present and not worry about all the things I want to do this summer.

We can do this!