And so it begins again...

This past week saw the beginning of the end to my summer vacation. I finally had to accept that summer was over and it was time to start setting up my classroom. I put things off on Monday - going to work out with a friend, going to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls and beat Eric at a game of "P-I-G" on the putting green. However, at the driving range I tweaked my back, which in turn landed me in bed on Tuesday - thus putting me off even more in my classroom. Wednesday arrived to find my back feeling a little better, but with a more intense sense of urgency regarding the 51 boxes of classroom stuff just sitting waiting to be gone through. What was intended to be only three to four hours a day worth of work, ended up being a good 6-8 hours. My classroom now is pretty well set up, less bulletin boards. My new theme this year? "Monkey Mischief".
It should be an easy theme to branch off from, ("Let's Go Bananas for...", "Don't Monkey Around...", "Climb the Vine to Success...", and etc.) but the biggest plus of all? NO LIVE ANIMALS AS CLASSROOM PETS! Which in turn means no funerals to suffer through this year. I don't really think I'd get approval to have a classroom monkey, so I think I'm fairly safe from too many broken hearts. Granted, all the class fish from last year provided some great stories, but it was so hard to watch their little hearts get broken...three times. (Our "peace lily" is still alive!) Anyway - no funerals, no "dead songs" to be sung...only the lively, happy, mischievous monkeys adorning my classroom walls. I'm sure my students will only be too happy to perpetuate this "monkey" theme and morphe into little mischievous monkeys themselves. I expect nothing less. ;-)

I will post some pictures when my room is completed this week. In addition to adding the final touches to my room, I will suffer through hours of staff meetings and obligatory district meetings. If you didn't know my school is going through a severe transition and restructuring. Last year we were a district school, which bussed in students from all over our school district and had about 800 students K-8. This year we will be a "neighborhood" school, which means only students that live within walking distance of the school will attend, with the exception of those students in the "transition" years of 7th and 8th grade. So, our enrollment has dropped from 800 to about 300 K-8. What does this mean? It means that for grades K-6 there is only ONE grade level teacher. I am the only 1st grade teacher at my school! It's nuts, but exciting all the same. Talk about accountability!!

Add to this the probability of me having to go to the doctor for my back and you're talking one crazy week ahead of me!