One Week Down

Whew. That was so exhausting. Everything about this week has been crazy.  Despite the craziness, I am SO thankful for all of it. 

I had 28 kids on my roster Monday morning, but only 22 showed up.  Then I got a new one on Tuesday morning, and then 2 more new ones on Thursday morning.  I'm back up to 25.  It makes for a very crowded room.  They did, however, tell us that we WILL be getting a 7th teacher. :) This won't happen until after Labor Day, but it will happen. It stinks to know that I will lose some of my kids, but I know I will get them back for half of every day anyways when we rotate classes. Having to wait another week to find out exactly how everything will fall into place makes things so complicated.  I want to assign my student numbers.  I want to give them mailboxes.   I want to post my class list in places.  I want to write my kids names on the birthday poster. I want to get into a routine.  One more week(ish) and then hopefully I'll be able to get it all together. 

Kids say and do some funny/sad/strange/memorable things.  They have had me cracking up and extremely concerned so many times this week, and these are some of the things I want to remember. 
- We were going to make a birthday bar graph with sticky notes on the board at the beginning of the week, so I handed every kid a sticky note and asked them to write their name and birthdays on it. 
             "Ms. Lackey, when is Thanksgiving?"
                 "Well, sweetheart, Thanksgiving is on a different day every year."
             "My birthday was on the day after Thanksgiving last year."
                 "Um, well, I don't know what day Thanksgiving was on last year, I'm sorry."
  ...His sticky note ended up in the February column with February on it.  ...His birthday is November 27th. 
This has encouraged me to make it a goal for my class that every student enter the 4th grade knowing exactly when their birthday is.
- Friday during recess, I was doing recess duty with Micah and Maggie.  They were standing on one side, and I was standing on the other.  I noticed two boys standing across the play area facing the fence with their backs towards me.  I looked over at Micah and Maggie and they were both looking at the boys, too.  It seemed to me that they might be ...well...using the restroom, but I couldn't tell for sure.  I looked back towards Micah and Maggie and they were still watching the boys closely.  The boys began to turn back around toward us and ZIPPED UP THEIR PANTS. Uh... I looked back at Micah and Maggie and they were both laughing.  I went to join them and we were all very confused.  We got our giggles out and called the boys over to discuss their, um, choices. They definitely did just decide they needed to use the restroom. I guess boys will be boys? I had to call parents and all of that fun stuff, but the boys, I hope, have learned that there are better options for that particular situation... Oh geez.



I went to dinner with some of the girls from my student teaching cadre on Friday night.  It was SO GOOD to get to talk to someone who is going through the exact same thing as me.  We all learned together and practiced together and were/are so prepared to tackle all of this.  But, that doesn't make it less stressful.  I'm so thankful for the friendships I gained from my student teaching experience, and I look forward to sharing stories and ideas and strategies as we all continue in our careers. :) I hope the rest of the ladies that are still on the search for a job find their perfect match soon! I'm praying for you!