What should I be?

Halloween...do I want to dress up?  This is the question....


Maybe I should be Dorothy....

what do you think?

Super Stars in my Family

This afternoon I received an email from my cousin Marte in Norway.  She was telling me that the children's book she has been working on is almost done.  She now has an illustrator and they are working together to bring the story alive in pictures!  Her illustrator is using manipulated photographs along with drawings to illustrate the book.  Marte is using people she knows and loves to be the characters in the book.  Her daughter, Tinde, is the main character and her son, Torn, will also appear in the story.  In the email, she said she has a character that is the owner of a kiosk where Tinde will get her breakfast and orange juice in the mornings.  She said the character is happy and always smiling and she said it reminded her of me.  So, she asked if I would like to be in the illustrations!!!  Of course I said YES!  Marte is emailing me pictures of the way I need to pose.  I will get someone to take my pictures and I will email them to her.  They will then cut the photos and paste them in the illustrations.   So cool.   When the book is published in Norway, I will get a copy and scan the pages in so yall can see them. 

Other super stars are in their family as well.  Marte's husband Lars is in a TV commercial for the company he works for...GET ( it is the Norwegian version of Tevo).  

Here is his TV commercial...

Tonights dessert....Easton Corbin!

Wednesday night the 151st Mississippi State Fair opened at 5:00 pm. And guess what? I was there to hear the official countdown to the gates opening...lame I know. I was excited. I was going to my first state fair...ever! Seriously, I have never been to the Mississippi State Fair or any other state fair.

My friend/co-worker, Monica, and I decided to go and have 'fair food' for dinner. Everyone talks about the fair food. I personally was thinking "what's so great about fair food?". I got my answer Wednesday night. We started to walk the midway and looked at all the different vendors (and try to make up our minds). Our first stop was the biscuit booth...yum! Hot buttery homemade biscuits with maple syrup in them! Oh my mouth wants one now! (ok I have to say that I think they also tasted so good because they were FREE!!) Oh I have to tell yall that there was one very interesting booth - the Krispy Kreme donut booth. They were selling donut burgers - imagine a donut, a beef patty, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, topped with another donut. I never saw anyone eat one but I would like to. I can't imagine those flavors all in my mouth at once. OH the beef, it what's for dinner booth had a beef sundae...ummm, I couldn't tell what was on it from the picture, but again not on my menu for the night. So, second stop was the roasted corn booth. Yumm-o! Hot roasted corn on the cob (still in the husk) dipped in melted butter. Ok, my mouth is watering for one of these too. I shouldn't look at the picture anymore. As we were walking we were harassed gross carnies. (ok some weren't too gross, but some were) We took a break from dinner to play Skeeball....
and check out some of the rides...

Then it was time for some more fair food....corn dogs and funnel cake!
Here is a picture of the Italian sausage with all the toppings...it smelled so good, but it looked like heartburn city!
There is a free petting zoo, so we checked that out and then enjoyed the setting sun on the midway!




Then it was DESSERT time! Now, I had an alternative motive to going to the fair this night. The free Easton Corbin concert was what drew me in. I will be honest, the food was pretty good...WAY over priced though. I was disappointed in the rides. Some of the carnies were creepy. People watching was FUN! Will I go back? Maybe if all the girls from work want to go to the Boys II Men concert next week (I saw them in High School), but I will eat before I go, well maybe I will get some more corn (it was the best).

Now, for those of you who don't know who Easton Corbin is, he is a new country singer and is being call 'a young George Strait'. He's pretty much fantastic. The concert was fun. He played for an hour and a half and we were able to get right up by the stage. The lighting was dark and my ancient camera did the best it could! Here is Monica and I before the concert started and some shots of Easton.






Oh also for those who don't know who Easton Corbin is....here is his video to

"A Little More Country Than That"

The Happenings

Ok, sorry it took me awhile to realize that my last post was appearing in webdings...my mom kept telling me and I kept saying, it looks normal to me! and it did on my computer! So, the last post was about mid-term and that was really 4 weeks ago...the first 9 weeks ends next Wednesday! Good news, I lost 9 kids last week and gained 1. Now I am at 27 (which is state limit and in reality still TOO MANY kids in a kindergarten class). I did lose some of my lower ones so now I am only stressing about 9 kids, but we are making improvements! I was truly surprised today as I was giving a 9 weeks test and I was calling out letters for them to write - and one of my low ones got ALL of them! YES! at mid-term he only knew 3 letters! I wanted to do the happy dance.

Tomorrow I have a parent teacher conference about something that I am not happy about. I have twins in my room and this past Friday, they went home and told there mom that Ms. P (my assisstant) and I cursed them out and told them not to tell their mom. Really?!?! I was speechless when my principal called me in to ask me about it. Now let me give you a little history of the twins in the past 8 weeks....2nd week of school they tell their mom that everyone picks on them and no one plays with them - lie - I had the mom come observe and twin #1 was picking on two kids while she was there and during recess they played with most of the kids on the playground....3rd week of school twin #2 tells mom that Ms. P and I won't let him use the bathroom and said we said that we don't care if he pees on himself or not - lie - I explained to the mom that the students have free use of the bathroom in our room throughout the day and we go as a whole group after lunch, we only ask the kids if they can hold it if they ask during carpet time (which is when I am giving whole group lesson and I don't want kids constantly up and down - because if one goes they somehow all need to go) - now, if a kids says they can't hold it, we let them go. I don't want pee or other stuff on my carpet or anywhere in my room - gross- if I wanted to deal with human waste I would have a different profession. Now the lies had stopped until last week when on Wednesday twin #2 went home and told his mom Ms. P called him an a@#hole. Really? When did happen? P and I are together ALL day...if I had heard this I would have said something...so again - lie. Are we seeing a trend here?

I am quite upset about this whole thing. First where do the lies end? They are only getting worse. I don't want to talk to either of them in fear that they will fabricate what I say. I don't even want to give them a high 5 in fear that gets twisted around. So now I am getting to the point where I want as little interaction with them as possible...and they are in my room for 27 more weeks. What do I do?

Here is another problem with this situation. My principal told me to set up a conference with them mom so we can get to the bottom of this... done. When I asked my principal to sit in on the conference for another set of ears and support..her reply "Why don’t you plan to meet. We can strategize about who would be good to sit with you." (Reply taken from email from principal who told me to email time and date of conference to her). Really? is that beating around the bush, why don't you just tell me no? Ok, blow to the stomach taken...you don't support me or care. Not really surprised. Monday I asked the assistant principal...her reply "I really don't want to, find someone else if you can". Seriously? another sucker punch. Ok neither of my administration support P and I in this situation. So I asked the guidance counselor who was more than happy to sit in on the conference. I was talking with a friend about this and she said to call the superintendent and have him sit in on the conference... I would do that but DW (principal) would make my life a living you know what. She is a beast. That is being nice. I really don't want to rock the boat because DW has been known to not give good recommendations to those who do. I want/need a good recommendation because I am not renewing my contract next year. (That's my plan/thought at the moment - nothing set in stone - no final decisions made yet) Maybe not the smartest move in a down economy but I can sub (not in JPS) and move home if need. (My mom might groan a little, but she would be REALLY excited to have me back home- she misses me). I am also starting my move towards my masters... LSU looks like my school of choice (that's Louisiana State University for those not from the South). Leaving this school is a good thing - I am pretty sure - just thinking about it makes me feel a little less stressed. You know it's getting bad when a veteran teacher (20 years) wants to transfer to another school in the district.

So this is my delimma ...feedback?

MidTerm Already!!!????

I don't know where this school year is going, but it is flying out the window already! We have been in school 4 weeks now and mid-term is this coming Friday! I seriously feel like all I have done is give placement test...with 35 kindergarteners this does take forever! Good news on the number of kindergartners I have this year, they will get me down to 27 (state limit) hopefully in the next 2 weeks and not the end of October like last year...well, that is what they are saying, but I won't hold my breath!

Over all this year is going a little better than last year. The kids still TALK so much, it makes me wonder if they open their mouths once they leave the classroom at the end of the day. For some of them, probably not - they are sat down in front of the TV/video games and have no interaction with a live human being until they come to school the next day. After talking with the other kindergarten teachers, as a whole this is the most chatty bunch yet.

This year we have found that the kids don't know:
1) how to write/spell their names (much less know their given name - please if you give your kid a nickname, teach them their given name - I can't call your baby ReRe, NeNe, "D", LeLu, etc - also, spellings...hello throwing some letters together and saying it spells Sam when there is no S, A or M in the spelling, the people at the hospital should have slapped you! For example in Mr. B's class there is a little girl named LeAnna but it is spelled: Lajhadienne ... I am serious as a heartattack.)
2) their alphabet (yes they can sing the song, but can they pick out an A? No!)
3) letter sounds ... how can I teach reading/spelling when they don't know the letter sounds?
4) numbers ...again they can count to 50, 100, etc but do they know what the #1 looks like? I have had this discussion with several parents already, and they just don't believe their baby doesn't know their numbers and letters.

So with these 4 major issues, I am (and the other kindergarten teachers) having to start from the bottom and build the foundation. Unfortunately the pacing guide doesn't factor this in so it is flying through the race and we are still trying to make it to the starting line.

Well, tomorrow is a kid free day, but it is parent/teacher conferences...I would much rather work with the kids. Some of the parents I have this year, oh my. That is all I can say. It should be interesting and I may have some stories to tell.

I will have pictures of my new class for you soon! They really are cute, when they want to be. Thanks for letting me get on my soap box there for a moment!