First Two Days Down, Only 178 More to Go...

It's not too early to start counting down to summer vacation 2012 is it?!?!?  I didn't think so either...come on June 20th!!!!

Sorry I've been missing in action, but the week leading up to the start of the school year was extremely busy.  I didn't have a spare moment to breathe, let alone blog.  Between the 4 full day meetings about everything we were expected to do this year as teachers, getting my classroom set up (pictures coming up shortly), cross country practices, and my administrators switching up my schedule and adding a brand new class that I've never taught at this school 5 days before the school year started, I had my hands full!  But the school year was going to start whether I was ready or not...

                                                     (In my classroom!)
I'm always excited to get new students.  In fact, the night before the first day of school, I'm so giddy/nervous that I don't get a whole lot of sleep.  Yes, I'm dorky like that.  At least when I got to school Wednesday morning, my classroom was all set up and ready to go!

Yup, that's my name up there on the white board.  The chicken up to the right is Shirley, she's the classroom mascot.  A student gave her to me my first year teaching because I call Wednesdays 'Chicken Fried Chicken' days (something my master teacher during student teaching used to do) and I just think she's awesome.  The glare is kind of bad, but if you look really hard, you can see her bikini tan lines! :)

This is the view into my classroom from the door...

...and this is the view from the front back to the door.  Yes, my classroom is THAT SMALL, and yes, they continue to put over 30 kids in each of my classes.  Today, we had to borrow 4 extra chairs from a neighboring classroom because there weren't enough seats for all my students.

My wall devoted to all the sports teams I love...the Gonzaga Bulldogs, the Boise State Broncos, and the Pittsburgh Steelers...

...and a close-up on the posters from the last two Bloomsday races that I've run!

And what math classroom would be complete without a Pi Chart (get it...eye chart, pi chart, LOL!!!)?

And of course, my pride and joy, all the pictures that my students have drawn for me over the past 6 years of teaching.  I LOVE MY STUDENTS!!!!!

This Saturday is the kids' very first Cross Country meet of the season down in Olympia.  I'm excited to see them race, and promise to report back on how they did.  And on a final happy note, I have officially completed my Master's degree.  I ended up acing the final exam I thought I did so horribly on, and got a 4.0 in the class...which brings my final cumulative GPA for my Master's program to 3.96!!  Extremely proud of myself, and extremely happy to finally be done.

So, what was your favorite thing about the first day of school?