Life as a Leach

Basically, my kid is a maniac! He is just such a little dare devil. I have caught him trying to ride his bus up the stairs, stand on the back of the couch, run into walls because he has a blanket on his head and is running full speed around the house, climb up the back of the kitchen chairs (only to have it fall back on him and then he just laughed), get his bus rolling and then stand on top of it while it is still going (and then he shouts TADA! at the top of his lungs!), and walk right off the side of the pool (into my waiting arms, thank goodness!) Of course, once in a while he will lay down so sweetly, say "Night night!" and pretend to sleep. Just when I think that he has finally calmed down, he jumps up and starts it all over again. *sigh* I thnk he just might be the next Travis Pastrana, which would most likely cause me to have multiple heart attacks. He just has no fear of anything. For a while, I thought it was just me still getting used to the boy mentality, but none...

All of the sudden, I'm back in school and I no longer have as much to say about my favorite topic (Caleb!) Here are a few things that have happened recently: * Today, my sister's dog Parker (a boy dog) was peeing outside in the grass when the kids were all outside. Caleb has never seen how a boy dog goes to the bathroom, and he was quite intrigued! In fact, he was so interested that he reached out to touch the stream of pee!!! Eww! * I had to have an administrator remove a kid today. Why? Well, it started with him playing with a stupid toy during class. I reached out my hand and asked him to give it to me. He refused and began thrashing and throwing things. When I gave him the choice between giving me the toy and an Action Plan (an in-class disciplinary action), he ripped up the Action Plan. Then he screamed in my face and broke his pencil in a violent action. Basically, he went nuts....over a stupid toy that he could have had back at the end of the day....*sigh* It...

* Coldstone: As mentioned in previous posts, I pretty much am obsessed with Coldstone Creamery. I know the phrase they say as you enter (as well as the tone and pitch in which they say it)---"Hi, Welcome to Coldstone!" I know the tip songs they sing and that they won't sing unless you put in paper money, no matter how much change you put in. I know that Candy Land is the absolute best Creation. I know that if you sign up for their birthday club, you get a free Love It Creation coupon on your birthday. Basically, it's the best ice cream place you could ever go to. It beats the PANTS off of Baskin Robbins!!! AND, I have a $15 gift card!!! :) * Kids That Bring in All of Their School Supplies: As a pretty organized teacher, I like to make a little list for the kids to look at on the first day telling them what to do with each of their school supplies. Then, I make little signs on my back table to help them put the "community" items in the right spot. Well.......

The first 2 days have gone pretty well. It's never overly enjoyable, since it's nothing but going over procedures, trying to learn names, and cramming a ton of information into small time constraints! You should have heard me trying to go over hallway procedures and resource schedules before they went to resource for the first time yesterday! The kids are a bit chatty, but that's to be expected. I'm staying on them so that they know my expectations. I am hoping to get that all under control very quickly. I have some really nice kids, and I'm hoping that my reading students will be just as enthusiastic and eager to learn as last year's group. It will be hard to top them! I did write my first referral of the year today!! 2 students got in a fight, which is an automatic referral. Of course, there is no consequence since it is the first one! I don't really care too much for that rule . Go ahead, set fire to the school! We'll forgive it this time a...

Today was a long one. We had a 2 hour staff meeting, School Improvement Team subcommittee meetings, special event committee meetings, and a 4th grade team meeting. We had 10 minutes, here, 15 minutes there in between meetings. There is even less time to work in our classrooms this year than there is normally, which is frustrating. I have so much to do but I tutored tonight and couldn't stay late. I have already told Matt that I'm not coming home tomorrow until it's done. I hate having to work up until the last minute. I don't do well under pressure and much prefer to start earlier and take my time. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed in our rooms until 2 days before we started (because of inspections) and children weren't allowed....which meant I really couldn't work too much before we started. A positive outcome of today: our principal did some door prize drawings and I got a $15 Coldstone gift card!!!! I was sooooooooooo ecstatic and proclaimed my ...

My mom's maiden name is Phelps. My grandmother was a Buckler with a whole slew of siblings and we are just about related to everyone in the county. My grandmother and her sister (my great aunt) married two brothers---Lewis and Philip. Therefore, their children are all double-cousins. One of my Aunt Betty's sons' names is Michael...making him Michael Phelps. Is he the Michael Phelps that is covering the newspapers and news channels right now for breaking an amazing Olympic record? No. But let me tell you a little about him, because he's pretty amazing too. My cousin Michael was married to a woman who had a daughter from a previous relationship. Michael went through the steps to adopt her and loved her as his own. He also had one son of his own (Philip) who is now in high school. When his wife left him when Philip was pretty young, he committed to raising him and also kept a relationship with his step daughter. Philip still saw his mom, but Michael was his prima...

Well, Friday was actually not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, considering that I was in meetings all day. Here are the highlights of Friday and Saturday: *I got a compacted curriculum to do with my honors students, which allows us the freedom to do a lot more research, extension, etc. This curriculum narrowed down the best stories in the anthology for honors students and matched them up by indicator. Now our compacted curriculum is completely aligned to the VSC (our national curriculum). * Because I had an honors meeting that lasted the entire morning while all of the other 4-5th grade teachers got to work in their rooms, I was quite behind in getting my work done. In our afternoon meeting, the reading supervisor let the honors teachers leave early since we'd already done our curriculum planning. I got to go back to my school and work without anyone there , so I got a lot done. It is sometimes hard to work when there are a bunch of people around. * I was still feeling...