Wordless Tuesday Picture

Our little goof cracking herself up over her "toots" in the tub...silly little thing.

Very Hard Start to School

My positive attitude about school is still here...but I'm finding it harder and harder to keep it. My class is actually great this year. I have a crazy mix of kiddos who can't even recognize the letters in their own name, to kids who are reading at a 4th grade level. I have kiddos who don't speak any English, to kids who are identified Gifted and Talented. I have a kid who was born addicted to meth and therefore incredibly mentally impaired, to a kid who is probably the smartest 2nd grader I've ever seen.

Should make for an interesting school year...

Yesterday was rough. I have 29 kids this year and that's a crazy amount for a primary classroom. Research shows that 18 is the optimal number for kids who are still learning how to read and write. Our curriculum is late arriving this year so we don't have enough books or materials. My computers are all broken and no one seems to know when someone will be in to fix them so I can't set up my technology for the kids to use. I'm going to a training next week (which is insane that they scheduled it for us) so I have to create 3 days of sub plans and hope that the kids haven't lost all the rules when I get back.

And...

My car was spray-painted in the parking lot yesterday. We left around 12 to go get lunch (we didn't have kids yesterday...all the kids in the district were off), and I walked by my car to get into my friend's car. When we got back around 12:45, this is what I saw:

I was shocked. Speechless. WHO would do that? We called the cops and they think that some punk kid (probably a middle-schooler as it's right across the street) started to tag my car with something awful and was scared away. I'm lucky it isn't worse. However, we don't have the $250 to fix it so I'm thinking about just going to Hobby Lobby and buying some red paint and touching it up myself. What do you think about that??? :-)

We're off to go camping this weekend with my family to get away for a bit. I'm excited: Maelin LOVES the mountains and we haven't been able to get up there as much as I would like. She'll be able to play with her cousins and Uncle and Auntie and have a great time...and I'll get to sit and watch the river and the campfire and try to forget (if even for a night) about the paint and the challenges that await me.

...and the painting I need to do.

Oh School...

I've been back for two days now and I'm happy to report that I'm doing pretty well! Yes, the heat was on till this morning, making yesterday absolutely unbearable. Yes, I have 29 students registered right now...could drop OR could go higher. Yes, I don't have enough desks or chairs. Yes, we don't have enough reading materials for all these kiddos so they're going to have to share. Yes, none of my computers are still loaded with all the programs I used last year so I'm going to have to spend hours reloading them, and yes, my room is so crowded (even without the new desks), it's really hard to even move around.

However...

My team is working really well together this year. Not sure what the difference is: maybe we finally realized how important it is to help each other out, instead of isolating ourselves. Anyway, we've split up a lot of the work this fall making an easier ride for all of us. It's really nice.

Another nice change is how clean my room was when I came back. This is the first year in 6 years that I didn't have to spend 2 full days just unpacking, cleaning, organizing, moving furniture, etc. There were a couple bulletin boards I had to create, a few posters to draw and a couple boxes to unpack and that's it! Instead of doing manual labor, I was able to sit and create a few behavior plans and start creating lessons...which is what a classroom teacher SHOULD be spending the first few days of school doing!

We have all day Wednesday in our classrooms and we have a bunch of meetings scheduled and then 1/3 of the kids come on Thurs, 1/3 on Friday, and 1/3 on Monday. Then the first "Full" day of school is Tuesday. We spend Th, F and M doing assessments and tests to see where the kiddos are at. I'll be getting quite a few who speak no English at all, so that will be interesting. I'm curious to see how this bunch of kiddos compare to previous years...

Oh, and by the way: Maelin is doing great at Sandra's house. We have a new baby over there: Baby Carson, the 8 month old son of a friend of mine. She LOVES playing with him...when she's not outside playing in the dirt. Today when I picked her up, Mae was playing in the dirt in the front yard and was filthy. She was using a beer cap to scoop dirt onto a toy car. Completely absorbed and could have cared less I was there. Makes me happy she has such a fun time while I'm working...

Thanks for all the phone calls and emails: Mae and I are going fine!

Back to School...Already?!?

Sigh...those of you who have been following this blog for a while are probably tired of these posts. "Oh yay, here's Mara crying about having to leave Maelin while she goes back to work. She's lucky she gets so much time off at all, blah, blah."

I know, I know.

I'm determined to make this year different. Maelin is thriving in daycare, Kevin and I made a plan for him to help out around the house more this year, I've been working on some work things that might make the start of the year a bit easier and as long as the HEAT is turned off in my classroom (oh yes...it's 94 degrees out right now and on Friday, the heat was on in my room and no one knew when it would be turned off), I'm getting excited about the new school year!

Yes, I'm going to have more students this year than ever before. There aren't even enough desks in the building for all of them. Yes, we got rid of the bilingual program so lots of our kiddos aren't going to speak any English. Yes, our CSAP scores are wayyyyyyy down this year and that creates a lot of pressure for all of us to get our kids to proficiency. Yes, we aren't getting a raise this year due to budget cuts. Yes, we lost quite a few of our finest teachers last year to other districts, and yes, this is one of the hardest jobs anyone will ever do.

However...I'm optimistic. I've received personal emails from some of my students this summer asking how I'm doing, how is Maelin, they miss me, they can't wait to come back, etc. That wouldn't be happening if I wasn't touching them in some way...affecting their lives positively in some aspect.

As long as I can continue to do that (even on a small scale), and Maelin continues to love learning Spanish and loving playing in the dirt at Sandra's house...

We're ready to go back to school.

Gulp!

Maelin and "Bang-Bang"

No, it's not a toy. Bang-Bang is what Maelin calls my dad. Sometimes she calls him "Papa Dan" which is what her older cousins have always called him and he answers to just about anything.

Maelin loves her Bang-Bang. Here's a few pics of Mae and her Grandpa just enjoying a summer evening.

Wordless Monday Picture

As I'm heading back to school in less than a week (sob!), I'm not blogging too much right now. However, my travels are never far from my mind and especially now when faced with the daunting idea of a new school year.

Love this picture because Paris is one of my favorite cities in all of the world. This shot was taken in the early morning hours in Montmartre: arguably the best neighborhood in Paris. They were getting ready for the daily market.

Sigh...