Lambs to Lions

My 17th year has begun…looking forward with a peek back <my beloved student teaching year students are turning 30…wow>.   My checklist has slowly whittled down…

Made my “THINK” letters out of pennies.  Pinterest is the inspiration for many of my projects.  My next “money” project will be to make a sign out of nickels…just waiting for inspiration on the letters.  Okay, there is no educational purpose for my “Ninja Exit” Sign other than everyone needs to have one in their classroom.  It makes me laugh every time I look at it.  The kids did not take long to ask me about it.

I wanted to find a way to have my students look at the entire year as one experience soooo I divided my bulletin board into all the months of the school year.  My plan is to post sample “lion” work, torn “lamb” cards, and some other reminders of the month.   Best part of the bulletin board?  Making the lamb and lion icons which tell a little story.  On the top left of the August/September panel is a scoreboard of lambs and lions….Lamb 160 and Lions 0 as of today.  I found <on Twitter> a great poster that read “Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People”…it quickly became a poster <I put it over a project done by Rachel Rees many years ago…still there but my lack of wall space is causing me to place a second layer> A shout out to my principal for buying a poster machine.

Pinterest gave me the inspiration for the next quote that is prominently featured in my room.  It mirrors Fassold Rule #26–“Those that have the least to say speak the most and those with the most to say stand quiet.”  In my classroom I want to reverse this trend by getting my best and brightest minds to find their voices…too many times they stay out of the conversation unless they are brought into the conversation.  My last change was to search for a way to keep kids from feeling disconnected from me.  My beloved 7th period class talked with me last year about changing seats all the time; I thought it was because they wanted to get near their friends…it turned out that they wanted to be nearer to me.  I finally arranged my seats into two squares around the middle of the room…mission accomplished…no student further back than row 2.

My 7th period class also asked me to post Fassold Rules in my room <it seems they thought I was just making up the numbers and rules when it was convenient>…shocked face…however I finally wrote the first 25 rules down <I have added a couple since to the printing of the posters…grrrr my brain grrrr>.  I still have a couple minor things to do before my list is exhausted, but I feel pretty productive.

Finally, I moved my oldest daughter to college…toughest thing to do as a parent…she is strong and she will be okay.  I miss her,  but am proud of the person she has become.  Of course, my “red-headed” wonder is loving the only child status that she finally gets to experience.