Picture Day

I finally took pictures of my classroom. It's changed a little bit since the beginning. For one, I had to move everything that I could to a high shelf, so there's not much clutter on the tables, which although I like the lack of clutter, I HATE that my high shelves are packed and every two seconds I have to reach up and pull stuff down for the class to use. Also, as kids started coming in, I realized some things weren't placed super practically, so I changed it. Flexibility... it's a huge part of teaching.

I don't know how well I can line up the pictures and the dialogue, but I'll try. And sorry, blogger used to rotate the pictures for me, but this time it decided to keep them sideways.

It took until right up to the beginning of school to get my name up above my door. At the beginning of summer, I looked every day to see if it was up there. It never was, and I kind of forgot about it. But, the day it went up (once I noticed), I was so excited. It was really fun seeing my name up there :o)

Unfortunately I waited one day too long to take pictures of my room. My precious little angel of a student decided that I was for sure NOT his favorite person on Friday. So when he left the classroom, he thought it would be a great idea to pull a paper curly-q off the door and rip it up in the hallway. It doesn't make a huge difference in the decor, but it did add an extra special something, and now the "swinging into" and "2nd grade" aren't connected.

We all know, my classroom is a rain forest theme, so I have vines hanging down for the ceiling, and the blue ribbon is supposed to look like rain (and it did stand out more before I decided to hang the vines and "moss").

Every classroom needs a word wall, where high frequency words that students oober need to learn to spell go up. I turned mine into the "waterfall words" wall. Unfortunately the waterfall I made didn't fit into the laminating machine, so I had to cut it in half and then stick the two pieces up. So lame, but by time I realized it didn't fit (I thought it would work to angle it), it was already in.

I was so happy when I finally found a tree to put up in my room. I knew I wanted to do "Banana Birthdays" but I was so scared I would have to make my own tree because for all the hunting I was doing, I wasn't coming up with any trees. I eventually found this one and I'm going to have to say that it turned out pretty well.

To introduce students to the class, we did a thing called "King or Queen for a Day." They took a crown and a bag home. They decorated their crown and brought in 5 objects to share with the class. We sang a song about okapis (ha ha, I'm so proud that I squeezed the okapi into it all :o) and they got their picture taken. I now have a wall with the members of the class up on it. It's nice, gives them ownership of the classroom, and helps everyone remember each others' names. Oh, that lime green board is the daily schedule. I really need to be better at changing that on days when we have PE and Library, or on Mondays where we have a shorter day. Yeah, I'll get on that one.

The math corner is also where we do calendar in the morning. The easel easel is a useful spot where we can do whatever. Mostly it's language stuff, but today I used it for a friendship lesson, it's also where we have class meetings. It's just a spot where they go when their seats aren't working for them, and I need them to be closer to me, and less distracted. And, had I not had such a curious student in my classroom, there would be centers set up on those desks and tables. But for now, it works that I hide the centers until center time, and then I bring them out and set them on the table. That way works too.

The sink area has a hippo to designate the "wash station." Then the monkeys were a last minute throw in because I realized it would probably be a good idea to post the colors, since all the other teachers were :o)

The reading area is one of the most exciting parts of my classroom for me. Mostly that's because I inherited so many books!!! Oh my freaking gracious that was helpful :o) Although it was a ton of work to organize them and label them and all that jazz, I was glad that I had a lot to go through, and it was good because it gave me a chance to look through all the books I have. And it was a good thing too, because there were several books that I had to take out. Case in point, "The Stupids Die" yeah, didn't want that one in there. That's not teaching the students how to treat other people well. Oh, and the snake thing was no picnic. Unfortunately I struck out at the stores. All summer, and not a single large snake anywhere. I finally found snake paper and made my own, but it was too curly. I had to wrap it around the vine, but that wasn't too smooth of a process either. Anyway, I finally got it all up, and I'm pretty proud of my reading area now.

This last picture is just a picture of my front board. Up above I have the alphabet (inherited from Pennie), then I have the doubles, the white board with the date and a pattern of the day, and then underneath the board I made a little grassy area where the students love to read.

So that's it. That's my room. It's nothing so incredible, but I like it. Today was the 22nd day of school, and I can say that I for sure feel like the teacher. It is my room, my class, and although I know I'm not doing everything exactly right, I'm doing the best I can, and I don't think I'm really screwing anything up that badly :o)

Being Sick Sucks!!!

Oh my goodness gracious, I am SO embarrassed about what happened today. Sunday morning I woke up with a sore throat and knew I was going to be sick. Monday I took Excedrin and was fine through out the day, but started getting way tired my time the day ended. The terrible part about the school day ending was that I had to go to a new teacher meeting that was two hours long. Toward the end of the day I had started getting the chills and was absolutely freezing in my classroom. The meeting was not any better. Oh, it was such a waste of time. The things they were sharing, I didn't agree with, and I was miserable. I went home, and just laid in bed. I called Mom and she told me to go get medicine and to call the principal to see if I could get a sub. I finally agreed to go get medicine, but was NOT going to call for a sub.

I woke up this morning and felt okay. I was moving slowly as I got ready, but I felt just like I had on Monday, and I survived Monday. I got to school early because I had a bunch of things to prep. I went to the work room and made some copies, and stayed in the work room to cut up cards for the kids to use in math today. Toward the end of cutting the cards out I started to get really hot, so I took off my jacket and finished cutting. Then I headed back to my classroom, and on the walk back I started to not walk exactly straight and my vision started going blurry. I saw that Stacey was in her classroom, so after I got back inside the building, I headed toward her classroom to let her know that I was feeling dizzy and probably shouldn't stay at school, so what is it that I needed to do? Well, I didn't make it that far. The next thing I know, I'm laying down wondering if I'm sleeping and the whole morning had been a dream. No, I told myself that I distinctly remember getting up and making all those copies, so what's going on. I open my eyes, and I'm laying in the hallway, with all of the cards scattered on the floor. I was so mortified that I had blacked out at school.

I left the papers in the hall and walked into my room, knelt on the floor, and put my head on a student's desk. The next thing I know, I look up and Katrina is right next to me and asks me, "Do you know what just happen?" I told her that I fainted in the hallway, came in and put my head on the desk, and then, no, I have no idea what happened. She told me that I had been shaking pretty badly, I'm not sure what that means, but I was so embarrassed that she had witness me convulsing or whatever happened. She called our vice principal and told her that I was at school, but that I was really sick and needed to go home. They tried to find a sub who could come as soon as possible, but I had to start my class off in the morning.

Teaching my class went fine. Once they showed up, I was feeling better. It took me quite some time to write up the sub plans and prep things before I could leave, but it didn't help that once the sub showed up, she didn't take over so that I could speed up the process, nope, she hung back and had me continue to teach the class. Oh, I did not want to leave my kids. For one things, I always think it's best if I'm there in my classroom, but for the second thing, I did not feel very confident about that lady. I'm sure she did just fine, but I much rather would have been there.

I came home and napped, and rested, and I'm feeling better (except that spot where I hit my head on the tile is sore, and so is my hip and elbow, I must have done a three point fall, hip, elbow, head). My body is regulating it's own temperature, I've mostly dealt with a headache and sore throat today, so I'm ready to get back to school tomorrow. I'll be cautious though. If I start getting fuzzy vision or feeling dizzy, I'm gonna sit down right away. Plus I'm going to pack myself snacks and medicine and fluids to take to school with me. And I'm going to go to bed early and I'm not going to school until 7:00 at the earliest, none of this 6:30 stuff that I've been doing the last couple days.

Man, I had the goal to be in my classroom every day this year (except when meetings call me out), and I already failed. Dang shoot.

But seriously, all day, I've started giggling because I honestly cannot believe that I passed out at school. And that I had to be sent home. It's absolutely ridiculous.

This One's For Me

So, remember how I use this as my journal? This one is going to be one of those posts that is strictly for me. It's not one that's being written to get sympathy, I'm not looking for people to solve my problems, or pry to find out more, this is just because I needed to write it, and I really don't keep an actual journal any more. Feel free not to read beyond this point, because it won't be very interesting, again, it's just something I needed to get out. Because as I write about it or as I talk about it, I'm able to think about it at the same time.

Anyway, I just realized that I am no longer able to cry. It's weird, and at first I was completely fine with it because crying is too time consuming and super not productive, but at the same time, it can feel so good and be such a relief to just have a good cry. But I can't do it! This week there have been plenty of times when I felt like I needed to cry, but didn't or couldn't. Life right now is stressful. I knew it would be, so that's no surprise. (Something else I've realized is that as long as I go into a tough situation with realistic expectations, I'm able to deal with it better because I've already planned on it being hard.) But for real, teaching is stressful, there are so many aspects that I have to think about- curriculum, individual students' abilities, home life, teamwork abilities, etc., all the students all at once, time management, parents, other staff, and SO SO SO much more. And aside from school, there's my dramatic living situation (where my solution has now been to ignore the problem and live my own life), and then social problems.

So, with the stresses of school, there was one particularly hard day this week where I sat down at lunch and was working on something and really felt like I needed to cry. I told myself that I couldn't because it was freaking lunch time and I was at school, and I just couldn't break down. I thought that maybe I'd go home that night and cry about it, but I got home that night and had so many other things that I had to get done that I didn't have time to cry, nor did I feel like crying would be productive. That's example number one of how I'm not able to cry, I'm too logical to have feelings any more- no, not that I don't have feelings, but I'm too logical to let my feelings take over and interrupt my life. Who would have ever thought that "Baby Brooke," who earned an "eagle" every time her sisters made her cry would ever be too logical to cry?

Second example happened this morning. Ew... I hate that this boy always does it to me. He treats me like crap, and I let him, he never remembers anything we've done together, even though we've hung out a lot and have been friends for years. Every one tells me that I just need to stop hanging out with him and I know it's true, but most of the time, I actually do enjoy my time with him. He's not ALWAYS acting like an A**. But last night I had had it. There's too much that he did wrong to blog about it, but I finally saw everything he did and it finally hit me hard enough that I'm way better than he makes me feel. Anyway, I was pretty irritated last night. And I don't want to say that I'm really mad at him, because I KNOW that's who he is (when he's around me anyway), and it's my fault too because I'm the one that wants to hang out with him, and I know what that means when I ask him over. So, it's not really that I'm mad, it's just way frustrating. Luckily I was so super tired last night that I was able to fall asleep as soon as I got home. I woke up this morning pretty down though, because I know he knows I was upset last night, but I also know that he doesn't care. All morning I've been ranting to poor Alysha about how crappy this situation is and how I've known it the whole time, but now I'm finally, I don't even know, it's like I'm finally awake to how insanely lame this whole thing is, and I'm no longer okay with the crap he pulls. While talking to Alysha, there were a few times where I felt like crying, but when I went in my room, the most that came out were two tears. I went back into her room and told her how I am not officially incapable of crying. And, I'm not sure that that's a good thing. I don't get it. In this situation I don't want to cry because he's not worth crying over. But at the same time, I was hoping that if I just got a good cry out that I would feel less stressed, and that I'd be able to cry and move on. He's out having fun with a friend today, not even letting me cross his mind once, and here I am, with PLENTY of things that I really NEED to get done, and yet I'm fuming and getting nothing accomplished. Eww (I really don't know how to spell that word, by the by).

I guess I'm just so concerned about not being able to cry because lately I've been really angry. Not about the boy situation, but about everything. I think that I think that if I am able to cry, it will soften my own heart and then I'll be less upset ALL the freaking time. I really do have a good life, and there are plenty of things going right, but it's SO easy for my mind to cling to the negative. And it's so exhausting. The end, I don't know what else to say about that. Writing it out did help me though, because the "softening the heart" thing came to me just now and that's why I wrote it, but I was hoping for some more solutions to roll around. Whatev, I'm going to read the book that I'm really enjoying but have been too busy to read. Hopefully that will distract me, add something happier into my life, and heck, if there's a sad part, like if someone dies (I don't think any one does though), maybe I'll cry about it. Maybe it's easier to cry about someone else's life than it is to cry about my own. Ooh, good idea, maybe I'll go rent a super sappy chick flick later tonight.