light at the end of the tunnel

The worst is behind me. I’m pretty sure about that. This week is a short week, to fit in parent conferences. That always helps. I will finally have an assistant teacher — hooray! She starts Tuesday, and I can’t wait. She was so awesome Read More...

knuffle bunny saves the day

Hooray for Mo Willems. I decided that September would be Mo Willems month in my classroom. Usually I have this “welcome to school” theme and I read all these books about school, but this summer I admitted to myself that I think all those books Read More...

yes David, I love you

David is struggling. He came off the bus angry today — I found out later that someone at home had yelled at him. I was trying to line up my class to go to gym and he got off the bus late and started laughing and running through the halls. I let Read More...

to my new class

Hi. So, uh, I guess I’m your new teacher. You’re all looking at me so expectantly, and I’m looking at you and thinking, wow, you guys are young. I hate to say it, but I miss my old class. Those guys were awesome. We had a great thing Read More...

a teacher’s thoughts after two glasses of wine

Life is good. Okay, the basement is chaos, with furniture piled up in one end and there are many different fans and blowers and dehumidifiers going, but hey, at least it wasn’t sewage that leaked all over our basement carpet. And the stuff the water-removal Read More...

My school family

Every day, at the end of our morning together, my class stands up and holds hands in a circle, and sings the “School Family Song,” to the tune of “You are my Sunshine.” You are my family, my school family, I feel happy when you Read More...

A perfect day for the park

On Monday we went to my favorite coffee shop in the world and got treats (cinnamon twists for the kids, coffee and scones for the grownups) and then went to a cute neighborhood park to play all morning. The weather was gorgeous, and the morning could Read More...

What we did this year

I asked the children to tell me the story of our year yesterday, so they told me things that we did, played, learned, and sang, and I wrote it all down. Here are some samples: This year, we: had a necklace of nametag on the first day of school didn’t Read More...