Sleeping in!!

For the rest of the semester I'll be working 7-3 on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday I'll be working 9-6. Why? Just going with the flow. My teachers assistant that is also a teacher (she'll have her own class come December) had two classes where she needs to leave at 4, but we do not have anyone to fill in for her during that time. In the past we combined classes with the other pre-k room but our class size has grown to 8 and combining with another group of 7 breaks the teacher:student ratio. I'm clearly not upset about this because it means two days a week I'm able to sleep in a little. :)

Oy....

I don't know when I picked up saying "Oy!" but it has definitely been showing up in my vocabulary lately to an extreme.

Oy #1.... work makes me so exhausted. I'm also suffering from the sink or swim feeling that first year teachers are said to experience. I have been given a ton of positive feedback from the higher ups in my school but I'm still trying to find my footing with kids this young. Most of my students will turn 4 this fall but one will not turn four until May. In December I'll take over the 5's which should be easier.

Oy #2.... the heat!! Could Texas get any hotter????

Oy #3.... doctor appointment this week, crossing my fingers that my doctor really listens to me.

Oy #4.... I have cut ALL caffeine out of my food and drinks. I even switched to decaf ice tea which surprisingly taste the same despite being lighter in color.

Oy #5.... I've cut out most sodas too... but I still drink sprite when out, but man those headaches were killer for a full week.

Next week will hopefully be easier.

A Clean Office... for now.

Part of our compromise into not moving at the moment was that we would finally make the office nice. So far we picked up a black bookshelf from target that is only two shelves and my TV sits on the top of it. It is nice because I can now do my workouts in the office without feeling like Chris could walk through the room at any time. I hate people seeing me workout. With the TV being set up nicely on a short bookcase we have now moved the hutch back on top of the desk. Unfortunately we realized we just cannot fit two desk into this room without it feeling completely over crowded. So we're sticking to my desk (Which I love but he doesnt) and we're going to sand it down and paint it. We're also going to do the same to the dresser in the bedroom. When? Who knows. It could even be months from now. I love the cherry layer on the desk, but it is very thin and I've used quite a bit of furniture markers on it that keep wearing off where the desk has worn the color off due to use. So it'll be nice having it painted.

Back to the point... our office is finally shaping up. Much to my delight on Saturday the office will once again be a mess. Why is that delightful? Because it will be full of teaching materials that my last teacher (when I was an assistant) is giving me for FREE. I'm picking up the first bit of it on Saturday to go through and decide what to keep and what to toss. As I keep things they will make their way to our storage unit and hopefully my classroom. Another large chunk of the items will be library books that my old teacher is donating to the school that I work at. They are not library books in the sense of being from the Houston Library, but rather her own personal classroom library. I'm super excited about all of that.

In other work news, things are getting interesting at school. I am currently teaching in my own classroom which is considered the upper 3's classroom and 1 four year old. I found out that come December I'll be switching students with the other pre-K teacher and I'll have her upper 4 and early 5 year olds along with the 4 year old that I currently have. Then next August I'll move up with the same kids into the Kindergarten class. Confusing? Kind of. Do I understand why this is happening? Not quite except that my skills are probably more useful for an older group, but atleast I'm getting closer and closer to Kinder. Though I am already attached to my kids :( They are an awesome group and I'll miss them when it is time to switch. On a great note, I'll keep my 100% awesome classroom. No way will I ever want to give up my room.

I also have a new aide that started today. I absolutely love her to death, she is awesome. The cool thing is that she was the prior pre-k teacher but went back to school for her masters. She decided to not take a heavy class load so she is back as a teachers assistant and when she finishes then she'll move back to being a lead teacher again. Still speaking of new, I was also given another new student today... I'm up to a class roll of 7! The little girl is a very young 3 but she is as bright as can be. She walked into my classroom with her mom and the owner and simply sat down on the rug and was ready to learn. That is my kind of student!

Until next time! Have a great week!

You Know...

You know you work in a private school when you have worked there for two weeks and on one students last day she gives all of her teachers (even new you) a $40 heart necklace from James Avery. Really?? I totally teared up. Insane and totally unexpected but I love it.

Another cool note... it almost matches the same heart necklace that my aunt gave me when I was born. So now I know where to go to continue the tradition of giving heart necklaces :)

This totally turned my mood around after the Snow White incident listed below.

Snow White...

Growing up I loved watching the Disney princess movies. I practically wore out the sound on my Beauty and the Beast tape, and danced around while singing songs with Ariel. I loved Disney movies! I'm also not afraid to admit that I would fast forward through the parts that I did not like which usually had to do with the parts where the villain would be winning at the moment. In fact, I still fast forward through those parts. There was one movie however that I did not like, Snow White. Her voice was too high pitched, it was a silly story, and she wasn't smart. Who walks in and falls asleep in a strange house? Rude.

Well Snow White... today you gave me another reason to dislike you. Today my class and I cooked applesauce. They had a blast, we wrote out how to make it, put the ingredients in one by one, stirred it, and set it to cook in my crock pot. The room smelled amazing and the kids could not wait. To tide them over we also had apples at lunch where the kids tried one piece of a Jazz red apple, a yellow delicious apple, and granny smith green apple. EVERY single child had a favorite and they are loved it, it was great. I gave them their apple sauce and they all started to eat it, except one little girl who said "I... dont... like... this" well knowing that this child is picky I asked her to just dip the fork in and lick the fork to try it. She agreed and promptly did just that. In a split second all you hear is a bloody scream. What was wrong? She cries and screams some more so I pulled her into my lap to get her to stop screaming. By now you're probably wondering what was so horrible right?

Red apples are poisonous.

With that the rest of the kids quit eating the applesauce and my great day of cooking was ruined.

Snow White... I like you even less now than I did when I was little.

Two Week Update:

I can honestly say that I love teaching, I love

my class, and I love my job. Lets hope that doesn't change. The past two weeks have been very busy and a lot has happened (in my eyes at least). This post is going to talk about the good and the bad, please don't take me talking about the good as bragging, this is my journal and I want to chronicle what happens on both ends.

So here is a picture of what my classroom looked like two weeks ago compared to now:

I am still working on it but I would say there has been a significant improvement. I have also had some major confidence boost given that I've only actually been teaching in my room for one week. I started out with four kids that are in the second half of being three, they will turn four this year. Enrollment is still rising and for the past two days I have gained a new friend in my classroom. There are also two more students currently set to join but they will not return for a month or two. I did have one nervous moment with my job when I ended up five minutes late and the moment I walked in the door my boss said that they needed to talk to me. As I secretly curse the reason being late (we'll get to that soon enough) I started to worry inside. Would I be written up? Nope! It turns out that she had two things to talk to me about. The first being that the old teacher asked for her job back. My heart sunk when I heard that, however it was quickly said that my boss told her that her job had already been given to someone else (me). Thank Goodness... bullet dodged there. She will be coming back but as a different teaching position. The second item that my boss wanted to move their son into my class. Yikes... pressure there. However he transitioned really well and I feel pretty great about how it is going. One pretty cool thing is that the admins at this school are constantly watching our classrooms. There are daily walkthroughs, they can watch our classrooms through the video cameras, and we have viewing windows. Surprisingly that does not feel intimidating, it actually gives me a feeling of security and comfort.

Another surprisingly unexpected thing that I have noticed are the parents. They want to help their children learn. Each week I have to send home a copy of my lesson plans because the parents actively want to know what is going on and how they can help. That is completely the opposite of my experience in public schools. I love it.

I did have a moment of doubt this week because I have received many calls (1 each day) for positions in a great school district that pays quite a bit more than what I make now... but I feel that I made the right choice. I love the support that I have, the freedom to teach how I want to teach, and the luxury of small classrooms with great parental support.

I am completely happy right now... minus one thing. My car. As you know my car and I have been through a lot. She is a 2001 Ford Focus Wagon that my parents gifted me for Valentines Day in 2003. She has jumped many curbs with me (though not recently), helped me make every major move that I've ever had, spent a little bit of time in high school, all of college, and the big transition into the working world in a new city. We went from country roads to major toll roads. However at this time I am having major withdrawals from driving her. Why? Because she is currently in the hands of my husband. His *cough* NEWER *cough* Ford Fusion has an issue (that is thankfully covered under the warranty) and has been in the shop for a couple of days now. We don't know when we'll have her back, but hopefully it wont be too long. In the meantime my husband is using my car, and we carpool to work since he is on a project just 5 minutes from my own job. Really it isn't that bad unless my husband forgets his security badge which causes his wife to be five minutes late for work one day (yep, that is how it happened).... but I do miss the freedom of driving my car, bouncing around the driver seat while I horribly with the radio, and listening to my morning shows that drive him nuts. We're estimating that it may be another week of carpooling. Until then I'll give my singing voice a rest which would probably be best anyways given I am currently hoarse due to a cold or some other bug I caught at school.

None the less.. My car is awesome for being this old, having 116,000 miles on it while still remaining very dependable :)

Zzz....Zzz...Z..z...zzzzzzzzz

Alright so far I've made it through half a week of teacher.... okay okay so coteaching... okay fine being like an assistant the first two days, and co-teaching today so that I learned the routine. How is that possible? Because the pre-k kids have not been split yet because my classroom is kind of lacking a major detail, carpet! However so is the pre-k room. The carpet people keep skipping out allegedly on coming in to install the carpet so we have temporary carpet in the new pre-k 2 class and zero carpet in the pre-k 1 class (my class).

So this week has mostly been about survival. Keep the kids alive, don't worry about art projects... just keep the kids alive. We have been eating lunch and snacks on our sleeping mats and also on a picnic blanket that we found today. We're still missing key furniture pieces due to a shipment that ended up very delayed. So picture our classroom with cheap brown carpet cut to kind of fit the classroom but not stapled down, nothing touching the walls because the mural is actually being painted during the day, and toys hiding in all of the built in cabinets. It is crazy, but we're doing great so that is all that matters. We're excited about our rooms, and we're excited about the kids that we have, but we are exhausted. I have been crashing almost right after dinner so i haven't been online very much lately. As for now, back to sleep :)