Gifts from my Munchkins
Notice that I received MANY mugs.. 8 of them and a number of candles... 4 of them.. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but mugs are a VERY common gift teachers receive...
Great Things for the Classroom - Part I of Many..?
The other day I was thinking: what are some good gifts for teachers? I started to think of the numerous shopping trips and thought I'd compile a list. No, I'm not hinting for you to go out and buy me lots of "gifts" (yeaaaa.. things for WORK!!!!), but perhaps someday, when you have kids, it'll come in useful (if you want to be a helpful parent)!
1. Baskets - all sorts of sizes. Dollar store is great (BUT, when you have to buy tons and tons of things to stock your class, I'd rather a penny store).
2. Dice - MATH GAMES
3. Playing cards - MATH GAMES again!
4. Zip lock bags - come in handy in all sorts of ways
5. Stationary of all types - pens, pencils (OMG, pencils.. EXTREMELY useful), paper, etc...
6. Large bowls
5. Empty plastic containers/baby food jars - for arts and crafts, experiments
It's really very sad how much I've spent on my classroom this year. $1000.00 would be a good estimate. I'm not kidding. Between purchasing materials such as school supplies to books for the class library, I've spent way too much of my own money. It's heart breaking. As some of my fellow teachers have pointed out: what profession needs to buy their own tools? I'm sure there are, but when we are government workers.. that's RIDICULOUS! Even for experiments, I end up spending my own money. For example, today, we did this health experiment where I had to use about 1 dozen eggs to prove to the students that coke, vinegar, coffee and tea are bad for your teeth (think egg represents teeth). SO, I had to spend money buying the eggs, clear plastic cups, vinegar, coke, coffee, and tea. Not to mention the time it takes to run around getting all that stuff + the time it takes to boil the eggs.
The tiny stuff doesn't really bother me, but after having to spend THIS much money, on things that really SHOULD be provided, I find it disheartening. PLUS, when the kids don't respect your materials.. it just makes me downright mad. I don't know how many times I've ranted about them just throwing my things back on the shelves or not taking care of things around the classroom because "it costs more than a happy meal at MacDonalds" or "I'm working on this when you guys are at home playing video games or watching tv!"... not that they probably understand what I'm saying. But hey, it seems to be working, I've seen improvement - they don't dare just throw my board games on the shelves anymore (last week I took all of the games away during an indoor recess and they were NOT pleased - it worked though, because they've been neat as a pin ever since.
Anyways, today was cute. We had our Christmas concert. My class chose to sing two songs: Walking in a Winter Wonderland and Rudolph. We had to learn Winter Wonderland from scratch so they weren't super comfortable with the song although they knew the words. Anyways, to keep it short, they sang Winter Wonderland very softly and Rudolph in quite excited voices. Lots of chuckles from the audience. Anyways, I'm glad it's over!!!!!
Ciao!
Almost Christmas...
Wow.. it's almost been a month since I last posted?! It feels like it was just a week or two ago..
It's now count down to the holidays. 5 more school days left before we have a glorious two week free of ...
School this past week and the week to come have/will be like a ZOO. The kids are EXTREMELY excited about the holidays.. and it's as if someone opened all the cage doors and let the animals OUT. I really felt like that on Thursday during our indoor noon hour (OMG.. indoor recess AND lunch was He**). Kids were all over the place.. loud.. hyper.. bouncing.. I felt like I was escaping into the safety of the staff room!
This coming week is basically a write off. Probably won't get a whole lot out of them because they just can't sit still for 2 minutes. The other day, I, yes I, staged a walk out on them. I wasn't really actually THAT annoyed with them, but I wanted to see if it would work. I told them that I was very frustrated and I needed a break from them, so I left the room. Their first reaction was "_____, it's all your fault!" and then they proceeded to start arguing. 2 minutes later, myself and my colleague across the hall saw the door shut. She went in and gave them a good talking to about how they are NOT suppose to close the door, only teachers are allowed to do that and that they need to LISTEN and be RESPECTFUL. Anyhow, our minds are constantly boggled at how little these children know about manners and respect.
What really irks me is that I happen to know that there are schools out there, in the district, that have MUCH more support than we do. We are basically an inner-city school, high needs children and little support. There are other schools out there, whose "modified" students (students who are on special education plans (known as SEPs) who are not just on accommodated programs, but MODIFIED programs) are considered "average" when compared to the general population of our school. I have a transfer student who is running at a higher level than some of my students who are NOT on SEPs! She came from a school that basically had a TA (Teacher's assistant) in each classroom. WHY DO WE ONLY HAVE 1.5 TAs on our floor!??!! We have a grade 4 classroom that has about 18 SEP students (out of 23!) and a class with 2-3 students who are VIOLENT, as in punching fellow students in front of a teacher! It's ridiculous! Our school also does not have a PALs program (which is when a company "sponsors" a school by sending in their employees once a week to run programs for high risk students - basically mentoring them) and we are not allowed to go out and ask for sponsorship. A school this large with the kind of population we serve not having these basic resources.. ridiculous and completely unacceptable.
The other thing that ticks me off is that our school budget was cut this year. They took those funds and turned them into something called an ILF grant (Innovative learning fund) where we've got to apply in order to get the money back. Most of the ILF grants have gone to schools in Moncton.. so we are basically giving our money to Moncton schools. ARGH. Anyways, if anyone has any great ideas for something innovative that has to do with Smart Boards, let me know.. I really want to apply and get one into my classroom.. permanently!
Anyhow, that's my rant for now. With contract negotiations about to happen in February, we've been warned about speaking out to the media. They only said that we were allowed to tell our friends and family.. and that that may be the only way we can try to get our voices heard.. sad eh?
Yesterday was our staff party.. wow.. I never anticipated teacher's to be so WILD. I think they were only just getting started when I left around 11.. but boy, can some of them party. Dancing in the windows and everything. I had actually been dreading the whole event as I heard that in previous years, people were extremely drunk and crazy, but it actually turned out to be an enjoyable evening. Hung out with my group of teacher friends and left at a half decent hour.. (I've been fighting a cold for the past week so I was quite tired last night).
Alright. I am going to stop here. I've got to get cracking on some things. I'm taking part in a bake swap (12 people participating, everyone bakes 11 batches of something and each person switches their baked goods with what everyone else baked). I am only going to say, this is the first and last time I will do this. Too time consuming, cost of ingredients sucks, AND.. what am I going to do with 11 batches of cookies?! (I'm planning to give them away :P)
If I don't post before Christmas, I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday. May the new year bring some peace into this world. Lastly, as we sometimes tell our students: "Tell someone something that you appreciate about them today!"
