Umm...

I sat down to write an inspired post, but I'm not sure how to follow Phil's.

I'll start with the fact that he is now 31. :) He still hasn't received his gift from me (I have a difficult time planning ahead in my personal life), but he did get several lovely cards and a pair of reading glasses from my mom. This just in- my mom's hilarious. We celebrated with birthday cake after Open House at school and had a birthday dinner of Chinese take-out this weekend. Happy birthday indeed!

School has started. Tomorrow will be the beginning of the first full week of school. Last week, we had a four day week and our first week was only three days. The school climate is very different than West Grand, and based on my students' behavior, listening in class has not been a huge priority. In an attempt to create a more positive school environment, we are implementing Responsive Classroom practices. The basic belief of this philosophy is having a positive classroom community will result in fewer misbehaviors. Which I agree with, but...there are two sides to every classroom management system: positive and negative reinforcement. Responsive Classroom doesn't really have either. So, I'm mixing in my own management style with elements of RC. I am stuck with giving time outs to my 5th and 6th grade students which makes me feel stupid and is a giant waste of time, but my kids are earning marbles for positive behavior. When they've earned enough marbles to fill an empty pasta sauce jar, we'll have a mini-celebration for the class. One RC practice that I do like is Morning Meeting. Every morning, we circle up as a class. There is a greeting for every student, an activity, and a message from me preping them for the day. On Thursday, we did an E.T. greeting. I showed the kids a movie clip showing E.T.'s glowing finger, and instead of a hand-shake or high-five, we touched "glowing" fingers. Confession: I've never actually seen E.T.

Because not all of you lovely readers are teachers, I will stop rambling and give some basic facts about school. Then I'll be done for a while.
1. My room is still a horrid shade of orange. I've covered as much as I could with bright orange, blue, and zebra print.
2. I have 17 kids in my homeroom class of 5th and 6th graders. In the afternoon, I have 20 6th graders for math. I like my mornings better.
3. There are 3 other 5/6 teachers and after a literacy meeting on Friday, they are starting to realize that I know quite a bit about teaching reading.
4. I don't yet know quite a bit about teaching 6th grade math. Can anyone please tell me a real life example of dividing a fraction by a fraction or a decimal by a decimal? Seriously, please help me out here.
5. One of the 6th grade boys got stuck in the baby swing on the playground while I was on duty. I didn't laugh until after I sent him to time out.
6. School starts at 8:00- sort of. Kids can eat breakfast until 8:15, so I really don't know when I'm supposed to start my day.
7. School ends at 2:45. Thankfully they've started ringing a bell at this time. My classroom clock is about 5 minutes fast and the first couple days were pretty confusing.
8. On the first day of school, our new art teacher played the bagpipes as kids were entering the building. It was pretty sweet.
9. Our school website is Richfordk6.net if you are interested in learning more about the Richford Rattlesnakes.
10. Open House was Thursday, and I had one of the few not awkward experiences of the evening. Apparently teaching a class full of odd ducks for the past four years has desensitized me to awkward situations. I feel that's an excellent life skill.