Gearing up for Halloween

I love Halloween. I love how much my students love it too. We also have a shared love of candy. This year may be one of my best Halloween costumes to date. Pictures will be posted with a write up of what it is after our Halloween parties at school. I don't want to give it away to any students. It is also that time of year when my second grade students take a pumpkin and decorate it to look like their favorite book character. I will also post pictures of that when the halls of school are fully filled with them. What book character would you dress up as?

Just for enjoyment and possible guessing of my costume, a sampling of a few of my past costumes.
Friar tuck
rainbow bright
pippi longstocking (3 times)
alien
ghost
Skeleton + dog in skeleton costume
Jack in a Box
Old Lady
Gypsy
Hippy
static cling

Grading

There is one major thing I despise about teaching. Grading. Not because I think that grades are unimportant. They can show a lot of things to me and to the students and their parents. I just hate doing it. I think this is partly because I don't have a class of 25. Every piece of grading that I have to do (paperwork and non) is times 200. So, my hatred for grading gets put into my other personal problem. Procrastination. I am a super duper procrastinator. Every paper I have ever written, every project I had a month to do, was probably done all on the weekend or night before it was due. Thus, my grades are due on Friday.
The school Halloween party is on Thursday and I will not want to spend one lick of that grading because I love the Halloween party day. Kids in costume are priceless.  So, I will spend my entire Sunday, working on my double vice of grading and procrastination and spend all day on my couch, grading.

first graders

I love first graders. So much. They are just learning what it means to be human. They also say funny things and do funny things. This week's round up of phrasesare fantastic.
We are learning musical opposites. High/Low, Forte(loud)/Piano(quiet), Presto(fast)/Largo(slow), and Solo(alone)/Tutti (together).
I have a little boy in my class who is smart. Very smart. But also a little naughty. I think he is funny and I can't let him know that I think that his slightly naughty comments and actions are funny. Twice today he got me. We were all asked to move closer to read a book together he yells out "SCUTTI" I asked later about something to do with the floor and he yells "FLORTE." I reminded him that the floor does not make sounds and cannot be forte because it makes no sound. His response? Well if we all stomp it is florte!

Once we were playing freeze dance. We often play this as a reward for lots of good behavior. I was explaining the rules to a new crop of 6 year olds and how when the music stops we all freeze. A hand attached to a girl with a very concerned face shot up. "What if you are itchy?"

I wish that there were no creepers out there and I could post hours of videos of my students doing funny things. I think they would win me some awards on AFV.


Today we also read Rattlebone Rock. This is a great Halloween book with lots of words and wonderful pictures. It named several spooky characters and we all go to make the sounds that they make. My students LOVE it and request to read it over and over. A wonderful little boy who has more energy than road runner told me that his favorite was the banshee. That happened also to be the one where we all went EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Wanted: fire extinguisher for life fires

Things are tough right now. We are broke. My job is getting a little more stressful due to the fact that Illinois is broke. There have also been a few too many family crisis for a short amount of time. So, today, we had an institute day at the school I work at. Meaning, no kids. Thank goodness or I might have cried in front of the kids. Do you ever just reach that point of total breaking and can't keep it together. Yeah, I'm there. So, I stood in the closet of my classroom and just took deep breaths for about 5 minutes. All I wanted was to go in there and find something. But, I have not been very good at keeping that closet organized and when I hit the mess, I was at my end.
I work with the best co-worker possible. She understands me and we have a phrase for when things are very difficult. "My life is exploding." Her life also has been exploding recently and we are a pair. So, this morning she walks into my classroom to get started on our morning of doing music teacher-y things and I said to her, "My life is so full of explosions right now. I need a fire extinguisher for my life to put out the fires." She agreed.
She wanted one too.

I write this not to complain about my life. I write it not to ask for pity or hand outs. I know full well that many of the situations I am encountering right now are partly or fully due to actions that I have made. I write this to explain my current mindset, attitude, lack of participation, and anything else that makes me not act like my usual self.