Mom always liked ME best!

Disney Update

It's getting closer and closer--only 17 more days until Disney!

"I suck at reading"

A 4th grade class was working in my lab, testing in math and reading the other day. One boy raised his hand and said, "I'm done with my math test."
I looked at the test and said, "You mean you're done with your reading test."
He looked at me and said, "Yeah, I suck at reading."

I guess so!

Black Widow

The king was helping to blow out the King Mother's sprinkler lines today, and put his hand in a hole in the ground where out crawled this Black Widow Spider. That bright red spot is her hour glass spot. YIKES! She's about as large as 1/3 of my index finger! She's dead now but was alive when the photo was taken. The princess is taking her to school tomorrow. I hope to never see her, or her kind, again!

Wake Up Call

What did you wake up to this morning?

Your alarm clock? The phone? Your kids fighting? Your spouse tooting?

I woke up to geese honking today.

But a couple of days ago I woke up to cows mooing.

A few days earlier, it was the middle of the night, and coyotes howling woke me up.

It's odd to live in the country IN THE CITY!

We watch the antelope play regularly. Horses and cows pasture behind us. Deer are also our neighbors, and lets not forget the skunk I saw crossing the road the other night. I didn't SMELL him, just saw him!

Funny Story!

We've been back at school for a couple of weeks now. Our school went to all day, every day kindergarten this year and had to find the space (we are very over-crowded right now) for several new classrooms. We are in the process of building a new Middle school, which will open next fall. Meanwhile, there are rooms all over the buildings that are sort of out of place. For example, in my building of 3, 4, and 5th graders, you'll find 3 kindergarten rooms, offices for the Yellowstone Valley Coop (they run the Special Ed. services at our school including speech therapy, physical therapy, etc), and offices for the Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch (a mental health facility which helps out-patients in our school). Also, next door to my lab is the Middle School computer lab, and finally, the Family Resource Center--a community outreach/support program. Lockwood has definitely got it going on!

So when the kindergartners moved in this fall, we were looking forward to lots of fun with and stories to tell about those little people. Turns out, though they run away sometimes and are really noisy in the bathroom, they aren't all that fun!

So I then turned to my current 3, 4, and 5th graders for good story material, and again, they mostly just bug me. No great stories to share yet.

Fortunately, I was saved by one of the teachers. She teaches 3rd grade and caught me in the hall on about the second day of school. This was her story:

"You know, I came into school the week before school started, was fixing my room up, and thought, 'I love teaching. I'm so glad I'm a teacher.' I got my room ready, got excited about the upcoming year, made a class list, and was ready to go. Then school started, the kids showed up, chaos was everywhere, my room is full of ADHD children (most of them undiagnosed), and I thought, 'I don't love teaching. What I love is SUMMER VACATION!!!'"

So there you go, only 171 more teaching days until summer vacation!

Countdown to Disney!

We're starting to get excited! Only 6 weeks until our Disneyland adventure begins! Look out Micky, here we come!