More training?

I feel like I've been in so many meetings for the last few days. Today was school inservice. The Principal had scheduled today and tomorrow for it, but lucky for me, we got through it all today, so tomorrow is a teacher work day. More time to work in my room!!

I finally got through all of the dishes and things that the last teacher left. I threw away so many spices. I called the McCormick people and asked them how to read the codes and how long the spices were good for. She said, "That's easy. We've been putting 'best by' dates on our bottles since 2004, and we only guarantee them for 2-3 years." Spices don't really expire, they just lose some of their punch. We kept talking and it turns out that some of those spices were at least 20 years old. I think I'm going to have to clean out my mom's spice cabinet sometime soon. **Note: If you have any spices in the McCormick TINS...they were made in the 80s. Chuck them.** So I finally put my room back together. It was a many day project. And I still have to label my cupboards, but at least everything is off the tables. Next week I am going to have the students take a piece of butcher paper and draw outlines for everything that should be on each shelf. Then I will have it laminated and we will use it for inventory so I can check people out after labs. It's a brilliant idea (not mine...definitely stolen from another teacher.) It's all going to come together....

Yesterday I also started planning for a bulletin board that is right outside of my room. I have the creative energy of a dead animal. I've always said, "Ask me to design a project and we're toast. If you tell me what to do and give me the tools to do it, I will come up with a brilliantly constructed item for you." Let's just say--google is my friend. I looked up "bulletin boards" and there are oodles and oodles of sites. My bulletin board says "Pencil Us in For a Great Year!" And there is a pencil that says "Family and Consumer Sciences" and then a clipboard with a piece of paper that says "Welcome to class! Tips for Success:" And then it lists my class rules. Blasted brilliant. And it looks dang good. I was so excited about it last night, I couldn't sleep. Either that, or it was the 20 oz coke that I had with dinner. (I'm usually not a soda drinker, so when I drink soda--especially with caffeine--it makes me pretty wired.)

I also read a great book yesterday. It is by Harry and Rosemary Wong called "The First Days of School." And dang. It was a great book. It was my textbook for one of my education classes in college and I never really read through it then. I read about half of it last night. So, so, so helpful.

You see, I'm so terrified about the first few days. I can't even think about curriculum because I'm so terrified about what to do in introducing my class and rules and procedures. It's overwhelming--especially as a first year teacher, because everyone says that classroom management is the most challenging aspect of teaching. But the Wong book laid it all out. Step by step. I am going to do the following things:
1) Post my rules at the FRONT of my class (I recently discovered that they're actually hanging in my room already. At the back of the room in a random corner. Yes, that will be changing.)
2) Greet my students when they come to my room on Monday.
3) Set them right to work as soon as they come in. I am going to give each student a half-sheet of paper with a few questions on it so they are working at the beginning.
4) I will not be giving my students assigned seating on Monday. Wong says to do it. But I'm going to try this time without doing it. If it blows up in my face, I will change it next term when I get new kiddies.
5) I'm going to smile. A lot. And be excited for what I do.

Did I mention that I COULDN'T FALL ASLEEP yesterday because I was so excited? Because I totally couldn't. I was so excited. I just had to tell myself, "fall asleep now so you can wake up and go to school tomorrow!!"

Love it. I love it. Yay for teachers!!

~The Teacher