What helps me get through the day.

Since this was Black History Month, we had our students create different types of projects either about Martin Luther King, Jr. or Jackie Robinson (our SOL-related historical people). I added the option of a PowerPoint and was so glad that three of my students chose to do that type of slideshow. AJ even made his into a movie on a DVD! He took it to the next level which was pretty cool (even if he did get help from his parents). This past Thursday, the kids marched in an around-the-school parade to show off their projects. At the last minute, I decided to get a cart for my techie kids to show off their smarts (which they were so thrilled about pushing). My class got so many compliments because of it!

If nothing else perspires educationally for me this year, I'm glad that all of the problems I have had forced me into finding solutions to make my days easier. And it's helping set me up for hopefully becoming a TRT. Gosh, I really hope I get that type of position... I try not to think about it too much because I don't want to disappoint myself, but I would be so much happier and useful...


In other news, all of our butterflies have hatched and are loving on the oranges I put in our butterfly net.

I'm such a nerd because I definitely went into all the scientific parts about the butterflies with my kids. They totally make me do it though... and it is really cute when they totally repeat me.

D: The butterfly's proboscis is in the orange!
W: Why is the meconium still on the net??

:)

Random Excitement-- People have been buying a lot of the materials I've created on TeachersPayTeachers.com. Yay for idea validation! :) Hey, it's not a lot of extra money, but it's something!

All right, I need to go finish some errands before Ms. L's birthday laser tag tonight. Fun fun!

-- Miss Chelsea :)

Better weeks.

I've had better weeks, but it seems January and February came in a stormy load. It's been very overwhelming avec my first minor anxiety attack. I say avoid those at all costs; they are downright scary if you've never experienced one before.

It was one of those days where everyone seemed to be complaining. The kids, the teachers, everyone. This week has been a headache and a half and so I've been mentally exhausted. To bring on the nagging and nitpicking onto that stack meant migraine.

Mrs. MS had a talk with the principal two days ago, and apparently in that discussion, I was mentioned. Apparently, the principal asked her if I wanted to leave. Thankfully, Mrs. MS has a voice and her voice is candid, yet cautious. She told her she didn't know, but that I feel like I've been set up for failure from day 1. (It's true, and I'm glad she said it to Mrs. F.) Mrs. MS also talked about how we needed more support and guidance since we were all relatively new to teaching.

Well, the result of that informal meeting was that changes are being made to our grade level. We now have to do our own individual lesson plans so she can find where the breakdown in teaching/learning is. There is a disconnect, she said, and it needs to be found to be fixed. In other words, even though we all stay until about 7pm to 8pm every night, we're going to need to find more time to do things without a planning period.

We're rather discouraged since we seem to never do anything right. We are GOOD TEACHERS. We know what we're doing and we care about our students. We are new, and yes, we are learning ourselves about the politics of education. We know our content and curricula very well, though. That's hard to learn, but at least we have that!

I'm hoping this all results in a change in administrative support. We have had too many events that require their attention, but those events are neglected. Case in point--- today, a student brought in an adult magazine (with oh-so-wonderful fully colored photographs of compromising subjects). What happened to him (a student who just had a parent-teacher conference the day prior)? Nothing. The administration said he is on an ST5 (a behavior management plan).

This bothered me so much because the boy already knows he has no consequences!! And so he jeopardizes other students' emotional innocence. Ugh. It disgusts me to think how he even had access to the material and then his showing it around to other eight year-old kids. The principal wants nothing to do with it. My sense of ethical justice was rearing its ugly head.

To cheer this post up, a cute quote was mentioned today. We were talking about scarcity and limited resources, so we made a list of things we wanted to buy. My students were talking about Xboxes, candy, ice cream, WWF tickets, etc. My little Napoleon Dynamite raised his hand and definitely said he wanted to buy a violin. :) Gosh, I love that kid. He's so awkwardly adorable.

-- Miss Chelsea :)