Visitors

Well... when you hop in the shower and turn the fan on you never know who will come knocking! And the worse part is you won't even hear them knocking! I was sooo bummed out. I missed seeing some friends from home! I thought they were joking when they told me they stopped by. Today was another crazy busy day. The superintendent stopped by and we discussed some of the needs/issues at our school. He has been down to visit our school many times and since he is new to the area I think he is getting more and more aware of what the whole district is dealing with. He's very personable to talk with so that is nice! The more I learn about certain things the more frustrated I get. People are not doing things in the correct way or the honest way. I think because we are isolated there is sometimes a lack of oversight. Which is a blessing and a curse. I just have to keep my focus on doing right and help others who are also trying to do the same. It sounds like I may be losing my carpeted classroom and be switching to vinyl floors! That would be WONDERFUL!! The carpet is so old, torn, taped, and stinky. When my class has been closed for the weekend I walk in and it smells like used kitty litter. Nice eh? Some positive change I am seeing is that more people from the community are willing to get involved with different activities. I am glad to see this because it takes a lot of pressure off of me. I feel like I've been the instigator most of the time on getting things going. Having the community get things going is much much better! We have a school board presentation coming up with all teachers doing about a 2 minute talk. UGGH.. the Principal keeps saying talk about this or that... and so far I'm like hmmmm not impressed w/ you suggestions. Anyhow, there is a solar eclipse occurring on May 20th, 2012. Our area of the state is in the right alignment to have a great view of this. A local person asked me to help host an eclipse viewing event. So I am helping with that. To view it safely you need the protective glasses... so we are ordering them. We are also having the event on a nearby mountainside over looking a valley and facing west. Afterwards we are cooking up S'mores... so that on Monday I will have students crashing from sugar!! YAY!! ahem. I have forgotten to tell you about the Dangers of Tobacco. We had students from the larger town in our district come teach our students about the dangers of Tobacco use. One of my first graders became more and more upset by the presentation. She clinged to me more and more. I finally asked her if anyone she new smoked, or chewed. Nope she didn't but her soft little heart was sad for all the people who died from cancer etc. caused by tobacco use. They also had 2 pairs of pig lungs. One pair healthy and pink and breathing correctly (on a machine), another pair that was damaged to recreate the idea of what a smoker's lungs would look like. This was very very upsetting to her. I reminded her of "Little Britches" by Ralph Moody. I said what was the purpose of the life of a pig? "To be food for us", I said "well the rest of this pig was made into food for us" "but the lungs were saved to teach us about why not to use tobacco" "so these pigs purpose was to teach us, which is pretty neat if you think about it". She agreed that these pigs got to do a little more for us than feed us but she still thought it was scary and gross. Well there you go! Anyhow I talked with her parents later and they said she was very upset for the rest of the night. I don't think they have to worry about her smoking. Well in a previous blog I told you about teaching my students to "toot". Well this has become a really fun stretching activity. Thank you mom for bringing me that bottle of "Febreeze" we needed it. On spring break I bought a Cd for my students called "Horse Tunes For Kids"... they are loving it but I had one of the songs rolling through my brain as I was trying to fall asleep last night. I finally turned it off and the wind picked up and was gusting against the side of my apartment. It finally slowed down and I feel back asleep. Welll that's all for now