I thought I'd share some photos of where I spend all my time. I leave our apartment about 6:15am in the morning and get home at 5:30pm, so it's a long day. Every day I'm making progress with my students and I continue to receive little 'gifts' from God along the way. Today right before my recess duty it started to rain and I was dreading indoor recess. But about two minutes before it was time to go outside- the rain stopped, the sun came out, and we got to go outside for recess. Ironically enough just as we were lining up to go back in... it started raining again! Thank you, Lord, for that thirty minutes of timely sunshine!!
So here is a photo of the ramp leading up to my classroom door. I teach in a red trailer with bars on the windows. Home sweet home.
The kids don't have lockers so they hang their backpacks, coats, and umbrellas on these coat hooks along the wall as they come in.
I have 32 students in each of my classes, so it's a tight squeeze but I make it work. (I ordered the chair packs for the backs of the chairs and I love that the students have clipboards, paper, and pencil in each one- really cuts down on transitions in the lessons.)
Here are the curtains I sewed for the windows (and hearts the students decorated as part of a song writing project we are doing).
There is not enough room for a teacher's desk in the room, so here is my little station for my laptop (we do have projectors in our rooms) and my walkie talkie so I can contact the office (no intercom here).
It feels nice to have my piano in the room (I ordered the exact same piano I had at my old school so I could be familiar with all the settings).
I really should have taken a 'before' photo because all that was in this classroom when I started summer training was the chairs. That's it. Just an empty room... "go!".
Our school is big on "Tiger Values" and all the student's take Latin one hour a day so here is a bulletin board I designed using both of those elements.
Here is my 'time out' corner. I thought I'd make it all 'zen-like' in hopes of calming the troubled student. Little did I know I would need 30 time out corners...! :)
And I have a cute little classroom library in my room. I've never had one before so it was fun ordering the books. We are all required to have at least 90 books in our classrooms of various reading levels.
I still have a few more decorating things I want to do in my classroom, but for now I like it.
I wouldn't say the job is getting easier, but I'm finding ways to deal with how hard it is- if that makes sense. Today after I walked my dismissal group down to the city bus stop (at 4:30pm) I went back into my classroom and just started laughing. Because I was just so exhausted and had such a ridiculously tough day that all I could do was laugh at myself. I'm sure it was a bit of delirium but it was better than crying.
The next two weeks I only have to work three days each week (due to some random holidays) so I'm really excited about spending time with Jamie and the girls!
