Our school psychologist, one of the many people who helped make the decision on David’s placement, stopped by today after the children left to see how things were going.  It was a rough morning, of course, with Nan having to give David and Max all of her attention and skills.  She was amazing, and they made it through, but David threw ...

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 in the interview the Prince kept sending me these looks saying, “let’s hire ...

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 are boring, so I went straight to a unit on bugs and an author study on Mr. Willems, my ...

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 Nan go after him (walking, of course; we don’t chase children), and I went down to ...

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 going.  Now they are all gone — except for you, Ferdinand, and I’m glad to ...

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 specialists put in to fight bacteria is natural (I think the guy said it was ...

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 are here, I hope you know, friends, How much I love you, When we’re ...

I stopped by today — the first time I’ve ever been to my classroom in the middle of summer, and all my furniture was piled up in the hall by my cubbies.  I went inside and it was completely empty, except for all the dust bunnies.  And the tech guy who is currently installing my videodata [...]

“Leaving on a jet plane, Don’t know when I’ll be back again…” I am leaving for Washington D.C. and the NEA-RA Convention today. I will post about what I learn upon my return. Also, I am helping to hire three new English teachers the day after I get back, so I’ll report on that as well. Until [...]

Things are looking up.  Finally. After my not-so-great last day of school, I had a not-so-great last day for teachers.  My children came to work with me, and I thought they might be helpful, but instead they were bored and underfoot.  I tried to keep them busy and slogged away at taking things down, cleaning, organizing, [...]