ahora vamos a contar

one of my kids has a blog.

THEY'RE IN SECOND GRADE! i wanna know if he bitches about ME after a long day =)

one of my kids threw up grapes today. not nearly as disgusting as it could have been. then another teammate had a vomit situation, this time in her room. i've never had a kid puke in my room and don't know if i would gag and then help or help and then gag. i love the mocosos and all, but i'm not into all the wiping and cleaning biznass. not that anyone IS, but some folks are just more accepting than others. i would fall into the "others" category.

today me and some co-workers were talking about how thuggy some of our kids are. one second grader who gets advanced scores in thug life was telling his teacher how his momma was gonna get him a grill (grille?). he drew a picture of a kid with a grill then drew him a t-shirt that appropriately stated "I got a grill". one of my kids was bragging that he was going to get his ear pierced today. i would have called him a liar, except i noticed a third grader with a diamond stud bigger than my shiniest rhinestone earrings. the truth will come out in the morning. this same guy said i look like L'il Kim (I DON'T) so he's not the most reliable person i know. anyhoo.

kids still crazy, and don't. trust. administration.

everyone just wants to cover their own ass.

classroom photos are up on flickr. a former student came by yesterday afternoon. his mother was concerned because they moved to a new home and transfered the boys to a new school. the entire family is unhappy and my former student spent the last two days sobbing and dreading school. she's at a loss as to what to do... leave the boys in the new school and see if they get used to it, but what if they decide that my school is a better choice but it's too late to transfer? she was calm and collected until i ushered her into my room to keep the baby out of the Texas heat.

then she lost it and started crying.

and i, being totally incapable of staying stoic when others are crying in front of me, lost it, too.

today at lunch i had to discipline one of my favorite, sweetest students. had to walk away because i started tearing up. against my better judgment, i stayed after school to work on some things to aid my extremely low students. one of which doesn't know the alphabet. and i went to the office to show the stuff i did to a teammate. my frustration and panic was obvious. and i lost it again.

i'm such a friggin' baby.

update: she enrolled him back at our school. he marched in this morning like it was the first day and didn't miss a beat. i love these friggin kiddos!

who knew the first day of school could not only fly by but go pretty damned well?

nice.

professional development still sucks, but it's astounding the stupid shit that comes out of people's mouths. to describe losing his temper, my principal said he "shot the wad." a co-worker presenting internet images searches suggested using school-friendly search engines instead of google so that when you do a search for "plants" you don't end up with a picture of "weed."

teachers, can you believe 'em?

for those of you that are friends & family on my flickr site, i'll be posting photos of my new classroom later this week... it's got a great color scheme and brand new theme. i've spent the last three hours at a coffeeshop translating centers into spanish from the great 1st-3rd book "What are the Other Kids Doing? ...while you teach small groups" Tons of great ideas that keep the kids engaged and challenged while allowing for plenty of differentiation without tons of prep work. If you're a bilingual teacher who would like to see my Spanish worksheets, send me an email.