All In A Day's Work

This was my Friday.

5:30 a.m. alarm goes off. Time to get up....except, wait. WHAT TIME IS IT????? 6:30 This cannot be good. How did I "snooze" for an extra HOUR? I need to leave my house by 6:50 to get  Lil' Man dropped off, get my Sonic drink, and be at school by 7:45 for morning duty. So, yes, this is when I had a sneaking suspicion my Friday could be interesting. I did leave my house by 7:05, hit minimal traffic, dropped off Lil' Man with Miss Christine, and made it to work at 7:44, just in time for my hallway duty. Notice I did not add in my Sonic stop...this is because something had to give...and my Rt. 44 Diet Dr. Pepper had to be it.

Work day was good. Enjoyed some good laughs with co-workers. Seriously, love the people I work with. My students are doing AWESOME at regrouping with addition...Yes, my FIRST GRADERS are not only regrouping...but they are explaining the process! None of that "carry the one" stuff...they are using vocab words and are understanding why they are having to regroup...I.love.it.

Speaking of math, here is a story for you. So, yesterday we (first grade) were outside at recess and everyone was having a good time playing and enjoying the great weather. Whistle blows. Recess is over. Kids line up and we get ready to go inside. Well, the grade that comes outside after us was at a field trip and so the playground was going to be free for awhile longer. We let the kids play for 10 extra minutes. EXTRA RECESS the kids were ecstatic...all except one student...my student. One of my boys was NOT happy about this. He went to the corner of the playground and started crying. I went to see what was wrong. I was so worried something had happened or someone had said something. After A LOT of coaxing (not from me, he was so upset I had to have someone come and talk to him) we finally discovered why he was so upset. He did not want extra recess because...he wanted to go back to class and do math!!!!! Now, let me explain to you that it has taken a lot of effort to motivate this student. It was months before I could get in completed work from him. He had no confidence in himself and could not even identify his numbers to 10 accurately. I hope you can feel my excitement, pride, ELATION when I heard he was upset about extra recess because he was wanting to go start our math lesson. This is why I love being a teacher. This little incident today was such an inspiration/reminder to me of the impact we can have on our kids.

Change of pace. I have picked up Lil' Man and we are finally home. It is 6:00. I debate what I should do...clean house, make dinner, "troll" (as a friend once said) Facebook? I went outside to let my chickens out of their house and run around for awhile and decided I was going to mow the lawn. It needed it and I wasn't sure when L was going to have a chance to do it. I learned from my mom if you see something that needs to be done, do it. Don't wait to be asked. So I got the lawn mower out, got Lil' Man, and we sat down, I started the mower and began mowing the lawn. (I was ban from using the riding lawn mower when I lived at home with my parents. I apparently have poor visual judgement when on it...I ran over a stump or two. I was really excited to be using one again.) Lil' Man and I were having a good time mowing and mowing...when out of the corner of my eye I saw this monster sized brown thing scurrying across my lawn. I quickly turned the steering wheel of my mower to head in that direction. (Thankfully I remembered to pull up the blade RIGHT before I ran over the extension cord that was strewn across the yard) As I got closer, a chill ran through my body. I can deal with just about any thing - snakes, mice, certain insects..whatever. There is one thing that can stop me in my tracks and make me feel FEAR. Spiders. I hate them. Hate them. Hate them. So what was scurrying across my lawn...a huge TARANTULA. Ugh. I hate spiders.

Back to better things. Lil' Man and I went into the garden to water all the plants and we had some very exciting surprises awaiting us. Look and see - 

Our blackberry bushes are producing berries

My green bean plants are about to break through

The zucchini plants are really doing great

A closer look at the zucchini plant

Cucumber plants are on their way

My cucumber bed (ignore the outside of the bed...we are still working on everything)

RADISHES!!!

Hot peppers 

Sweet peppers

Bell peppers (green, red, and yellow)

Tomatoes

Friday. It was a good day, but by the time it was all over I was EXHAUSTED and fell asleep in no time. I really wanted to post this yesterday...I was just too tired. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their weekend.