IT'S COMING

Ladies and Gentlemen, I realized today that in three weeks, college football season will officially begin. Now for some of you (aka my brother) you could care less about college football or football in general, however, for the rest of us, this has been the moment we've been waiting for since the final bowl game of last year. There's just something about college football that automatically makes me smile and ready to fire up the grill, create awesome tailgating finger foods, and get pumped for game day. The overall atmosphere of the fans cheering together, the players leaving it all out of the field, or the crisp fall air. There is no better feeling than the just the over all energy that you feel when the first song comes on, the crowd begins to jump, and the players charge the field. AHHHHHHH.... I'm getting excited just thinking about it!!

Although, Virginia is typically my team (I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes and saying completely inappropriate things), I am a little skeptical of how their season is going to go. It'll be interesting to see how the team turns around (if they do) from their challenging season last year. I am pretty stoked that Virginia will be playing FSU (ahhh takes me back to great memories of my first college football game ever), and hopefully the outcome will be the same. BUT I'm even more excited about the Virginia Tech/Boise State game that will be the season opener. To this I must say HECK YES!!! Boise State is pretty legit when it comes to football, so this should a great season opener and we'll see what Tech's team will be bringing to the field this fall.

Other teams I'm going to be keeping an eye on this year: Ol' Miss, West Virginia, UK, and Auburn.

So grab your favorite college football Ts and memorize those college fight songs 'cause IT'S COMING!!!! If you feel the same way I do, let me know! So here's to life!!

Simply N

You "speak" sign language?

Now I am absolutely positive that there are no classes in your educational career that will ever fully prepare you for the first day of the school year. Yes, there are some strategies and information that are helpful for the first 7 hours of the school year, but all in all it's more or less resorting to survival mode. This isn't just being taken from a new teacher perspective, but I've come to the conclusion that more seasoned teachers think this also.

Everyone has their first day smiles on but really each and every one of us are about to vomit with nerves and hopes that the day will go without a hitch, and most of all at the end of the day all the kids, especially the kindergartners, will get on the right bus. I walked into my classroom this morning with 3 cups of coffee already in my system and had already been awake 4 hours. I would like to say that everything ran without a hitch, but there were a few glitches, but all in all I'd say on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) it was about a 7.5-8ish day.

3rd graders are so inquisitive and eager to understand things or share their thoughts on things. For example, "Ms. Lee I have slim in my shoes", or "you speak sign language" or "why can't I run up the slide?". The questions kept coming throughout the day and I realized that this was something that I should be expecting for the remaining of my career.

I'm so thankful that I have a wonderful mentor who not only has helped me with getting acquainted with the procedures and tidbits of the school but also for just the friendship that comes along with it. During the worst part of the day today, I walked into my classroom to find a note of encouragement and a basket full of goodies that will help me throughout the first few weeks and the year (sticky notes, sharpies, award badges, trail mix, chocolate, and yes, a screwdriver because "you never know when you'll have to repair something")

Not only am I blessed to have my mentor, but equally blessed to have a great Co-teaching partner that I can bounce ideas off of and we have a similar teaching style. She's amazing and I'm so thankful for her.

So here's to a great first day of my professional career, here's to getting all my students to their right places in the afternoon, and as always here's to life!

Simply N :)

So It Begins.....

"A penny for my thoughts, oh no I’ll sell them for a dollar"-- If I die young, The Band Perry.

I have come to the conclusion that as much preparation and educational classes you sit through, you'll never know what is coming next when you enter the workforce and "real world" of education.

As I write this, I am sitting on my couch enjoying the last Saturday before my first year as a teacher begins. I have sat through orientation meetings, met a lot of great people and have gone through the routine beginning of the year meetings that I've heard would happen when I was going through college. I even won a gift card to the local coffee shoppe and a book titled "Why didn't they teach me this in college" which I have a feeling will be very helpful throughout my first year.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I would have an actual classroom instead of a hallway to work with my students and equally excited to get it set up and ready for open house. I share the room with another teacher and we both agreed to go with a farm theme for the room to bring in the culture that the majority of the kids we'll be working with know. Now I've collected some things over the years that I was in school to start setting up a classroom, but when you're expecting a room that's pretty much only a 1/4 of what you are given, my little collection seemed very tiny. Now don't get me wrong, I'll take the bigger room, and with that spend more to try to get it looking nicely before my kids come. I laughed with a seasoned teacher the other day saying you can tell who the new teachers are because they are the ones walking the halls looking diligently at the items on the "free take me" tables that the seasoned teachers have put in the hallway. Yes, I was one of those people, and the good news is I found the materials the other Deaf and Hard of Hearing teacher left (which I get to inherit). The dollar general store in town and I have formed quite the relationship and most of the employees would probably know me by name right now if I would tell them. Some of my favorite purchases have been a 5X9 rug, 12 plastic blue bins, composition books, and file folders (3 in a set)! Mom and Dad have always said I'd spend most of my leftover money from paychecks on things my students need, and I'm starting to believe they were absolutely right.

For now, I'm making a list of all the things I still need to add to my classroom and last minute check lists that seems to be growing. I have a feeling that will never end.

So a penny for my thoughts, oh no I'll sell em for a dollar....if you think you're fully prepared to go into whatever job you have straight out of college, you're wrong. You'll have those "holy crap what did I get myself into moments", but you'll find that you are more prepared than you think!

So here's to life..
Simply N