Resolutions

Happy New Year!

The first semester ended as it has for me in the past: classroom holiday celebration including treats, presents for me, and parent volunteers asking me, "How do you do this all day every day?" (Side note: one mom even told me she'd "probably have to be drunk all the time" to handle my class five days a week. Vindication?)

Anyway, Hubs and I had a not-so-relaxing but oh-so-fun trip home to New Orleans. We went to some fun parties, celebrated and spent time with family, and watched our beloved Saints whip up on our rivals the Falcons before heading back up here. Then I headed up to visit my best friend in Virginia, returned and spent New Year's with our friends here, and even got to watch the last regular-season Saints game today with my fabulous aide from last year (hi, friend!). It's been a much-needed break.

You'll note, however, that "preparing for the upcoming semester in any way, shape, or form" and "cleaning my hot mess of a classroom" were nowhere in my holiday description. That's because I haven't done a damn thing for school, and you know what? I'm ok with it.

New me!

We have a teacher workday tomorrow, and I plan to be super-focused all day to make up for my holiday enjoyment.

In the spirit of ringing in a new year with resolutions, here are a few I'm planning to focus on that relate to school:

1. Take care of myself. This doesn't directly relate to school, but a happier person is a happier teacher. Hubs and I have been working on getting our house in order, so it looks more like we've lived there for 6 months and less like we are squatters and/or hoarders. I'm also back to watching what I eat carefully and exercising. We'll see how that goes.
2. Get school preparation done farther in advance. This has been a goal since I started teaching - hell, since I student taught. I'm never going to be the teacher who's planned 3 weeks ahead of time, but my goal is not to be making things I need the morning I need them.... at least, not very often....
3. Adjust my expectations. This is both for me and for my students. I need to realize that I have the children I have, and I am the teacher I am. I am not going to beat myself up inside if a lesson isn't perfect, and if my class' stupid test scores aren't what another class' are. On the other end of the spectrum, as far as behavior goes, my expectations will be a-changin'. I'm getting serious with that, y'all.

4. Keep my classroom organized. Haha, yeah right. That was just a little comic relief. But seriously, I do have specific goals like "see the bottom of my desk at least bi-weekly" and "put something in a file folder at least once." Small steps.

Anyway, I hope that you are making resolutions too. I think it's a healthy and helpful process to examine areas of our lives that could use tweaking or improving. Don't change too much, though - where would that leave you for 2013?

Winter Art

So I feel like my blog is usually just me rambling and/or b*tching about whatever I feel like... and I've decided it's time I actually show you something I've done in my classroom.

My old school in New Orleans is a charter school with an arts-based curriculum - which means that we had a lot of time to work on fantastic art projects. One of my favorites was our winter tree/snowman artwork. I decided to share it with my team at my new school.

The kids use crayon to complete their winter scene, then paint over the entire background with watercolors. Then - and here's the wow factor - you sprinkle salt on the picture. The salt absorbs the water where it touches, and it creates a "snowstorm" effect. Pretty cool, huh?

I apparently neglected to realize that this project only works on watercolor paper. Unfortunately several teammates did the project with so-so results using cardstock and drawing paper. (Sorry, guys!) I trekked out to the store and picked up the incredibly expensive so worth it supplies to complete our work. I think they came out well:

Merry merry!

The Library Fairy

Something extraordinary happened in my classroom.

Yesterday, when my kids went to their enrichment block in the media center, I noticed that my library corner - something I take great pride in - looked a hot mess. The stuffed animals, bean bags, and pillows were strewn about willy-nilly, there were papers and pencils left on the floor, and even - gasp - books overturned on the floor getting wrinkled and probably stepped on by 8-year-old feet.

Not ok.

Not when I have spent dozens of hours and probably thousands of dollars building up a library of books so that my kiddos will have enough to read every day.

I had a meeting to go to, so I had to leave the library corner the way it was. In general, leaving a mess behind with a close of my classroom door is not a problem for me. But this time, I was not happy about it.

Cut to this morning.

When I entered my classroom, what should I find but my library corner roped off with notes reading that the Library Fairy had closed the library until further notice because it was not being respected.

Well, obviously I took this very seriously with my students. I explained to them when they arrived that this was how I found everything this morning, and I was as mystified as they were. It prompted a very important and long overdue discussion about respect for our classroom materials.

They have been mistreating the library corner, so it is closed.

They have been tearing up cap erasers and throwing them at each other, so there are no more cap erasers in the cap eraser basket.

They have been too noisy when they line up, so they will practice silence for the beginning of lunch.

I am sorry, but I am done. It is December, and they are in third grade. I don't expect them to act like miniature grownups, but I do expect them to pick up after themselves and take care of the materials that the school, myself, and their parents bought them. You should have seen the look on their faces when I showed them the book about Degas that I found upside down with bent pages on the floor and told them that it cost me twenty dollars during my trip to New York this summer. I explained that I am not rich, but that I am happy to buy them all the books I can so long as they treat them with respect.

Thank goodness that Library Fairy's got my back. ;)