106 DEGREES

Well, my class in full, yup, I have my full 20 kiddos. They are cute, but so, so energetic. We have really great air conditioning in our room, but outside it is wicked hot! It is supposed to be this hot for the rest of the week. Any ideas for getting wiggles out of seven-year old kids in 106 degrees? The birds are just as active and noisy! We have a great class - I'm looking forward to this year! I'm wondering about getting an ant farm. Any comments? I don't mind them in the farm - not too crazy about them on my counters and crawling on the floor. I wound up with 10 boys and 10 girls - a great mix!

Drive-throughs

Hey, I want to know if anyone else thinks that drive-throughs are like the express lane in the grocery store? That's what I always thought, but the last two times in the drive-through I've sat behind people with humongous orders - either for their whole office, or their whole extended family and it took FOREVER. Today the lady had to check and recheck her order. The drive-throughs in CA don't let you back out either. I'm waiting just to order my diet coke, or one measly meal. This is getting old. What is your impression of drive-throughs?

Back IN the Saddle Again

It was in the 100s by degrees today and HOT! Thanks be to Jesus that our air conditioning is working well. 17 of my 20 showed up. It will be an interesting year. Now that I'm back, I have mustered up some excitement! I have some familiar kids after all - a cousin of a boy I had last year, a sister of a girl I had two years ago, and some people that visited me during Open House last Spring. An interesting mix. One of the three missing children has dropped and been replaced already. I think the other two moved, but can't drop them until three days have gone by.

Anyway... I now have THREE birds. They are sure active and noisy! I hope they don't procreate like my friend's do. Her birds have laid lots of eggs and 10 survived. This was all in a year.

Back to the Saddle Again

Well, it's off to work on Monday. Where did the summer go? Each year, Steve reminds me I hate the end of summer and dread going back to work. I watched "The Ron Clark Story" a couple of nights ago to jumpstart that old desire to meet my new class and get going with preparations. It helped a lot. There are some really amazing teachers out there along with their inspirational stories of work with students and families. My major goal is always to instill the love of books and reading to my students. They are at a perfect age for that. With so much excellent children's literature available, it seems like an easy goal. Last year I had a real challenge with one of my students, but we hit it again. By the end of the year, she was reading during all her spare time and improving rapidly! It just took us the FULL year to get there.

Ok, here I am at two rainforests - the top two pictures are in the temperate rainforest on the Olympic penisula in Washington and the bottom picture is in the tropical rainforest in Costa Rica. It's been a busy a fast-moving summer.