The Cat in the Hat & Fishing for Friends

I'm completely aware that pictures of my colleagues and my bulletin boards are not very exciting but it's really all I have to offer. The first 2 belong to my fellow K teachers and the last 2 are mine. Actually, I'm behind because the Cat in the Hat is already down, the shamrock men for St. Patricks Day only have a few days left, and the spring flowers are in the box in the plans ready for when we get back.

Giant Grasshoppers & Dead Fish

Do you see that HUGE grasshopper!?? We got to hang out with them a little over a week ago at an all school field trip to the U of I campus and the "Naturally Illinois Expo." Thanks to be able to leave all my troublesome students back at school, we had a good time. It was a lot of scientists talking and explaining things at a level WAY over our students comprehension level but they didn't complain. We stayed almost 4 hours when we could have been done in 2. If it weren't so crowded we probably could have stayed in the bug room for 45 minutes. They really were pretty cool.


They also had some dead fish for us to touch. We did touch them but didn't like it very much.


I'm on spring break and have a couple more pictures of bulletin boards so hopefully I will get to that later this week. It's on my list.

T-Shirts are my favorite.

I hope there is never a time in my life where I feel like it might be not okay to wear a t-shirt on a lazy weekend. Or every day of my summer vacation and spring break. T-shirts and hoodies were made to be enjoyed for long term. If you have disagree, than we will have to agree to disagree. I hope I wear t-shirts when I'm 80.

Remember when my principal told me I needed to "grow horns." Well, it must be working because last week a student said, "Ms. Lock, are you ever going to smile again?" I'm not sure that's the kind of teacher I want to be but at least for now I am accomplishing what my principal wanted. The old adage goes "Don't smile until after Christmas" and perhaps that's what went wrong. I smiled too early and got ran over.

Perhaps these two paragraphs are what sum up my classroom management issues. My personality is more fitted for a t-shirt but it needs to be more buttoned up. I'm too relaxed when I need to be zoned in. I let little things go that can escalate into bigger things that are too far out of control. I've said all along that I thought this year was better than last year and I still believe that. There's just a lot more that I can do better. I'm sure I'll never have it all figured out. I've changed some things and they have gotten better. I hope I'm always changing to make things better. It's the best practice and best way to be successful in the career I have chosen. For now, I know I need to put the t-shirt mentality away and keep wearing a tie. Save the t-shirts in the tub for the weekends. That's where they're at their best anyway.