It's that time again...

School starts on Monday. I didn't go in for our last day of teacher workweek because it's quite possible that I wouldn't be able to make it home. See, my school is surrounded by roads that all have very steep hills. The slightest bit of rain tends to wash those roads out. Personally, I don't want to be trapped at school for the holiday weekend.

It was a good workweek, overall. I like being busy, so it was a nice change from this summer. My room is all set up and beautiful, if I do say so myself (and I do). We have a new class pet. He's a hamster named Snooze. Snooze is very cute but he screeches when he gets nervous. Who new that hamsters could scream?

We had Back to School Night yesterday evening. I had a good turnout despite the rain. I met several parents who seem very nice and supportive. It should be an interesting year. I have a lot of kids who are said to be high maintenance and chatty. Hopefully I'll be able to break them of that habit pretty quickly. I just know that my room will have to be even more structured than usual to keep the kids on track.

We have two kids in 5th grade named Earl. Weird.

I'm really excited about the motto that my school has adopted. We are now officially a "Work Hard, Be Kind" school. The music teacher wrote an awesome song for the kids to learn. It involves clapping, drums, and different groups of kids singing different things at different time. She told me the word for that but I forgot. She taught the song to the teachers at our last staff meeting and I got to play a huge drum. A fourth grade teacher and I were in charge of chanting the background beat. I don't know why we got paired up because we kind of have a history of playing around A LOT, but we did a very good job and had so much fun. The teachers already love the song and I know the kids will flip out over the chaotic, yet rhythmic nature of it all. I mean, they get to sing really loudly. What kid doesn't like that?

I'll give updates as the school year gets started. I'm feeling really good about everything and I actually can't wait for all of the craziness to start!