I'm Finally Back!

Wow!  It's taken me a long time to get into the swing of things this year and get back to my poor neglected blog. Between implementing common core, stressing over the new teacher evaluations and what they will be using as the evaluation tool in first grade, it all gets to be a little overwhelming !  Between school and home and other obligations it's been crazy.  Now that things are settling down some I promise to get in the habit of blogging on a regular basis!

It's hard to believe that this week is the end of our first nine weeks.  This Friday is a teacher planning day which is a welcome end to the week.  Last week we had some fire safety fun which included a visit from the volunteer fire department on Friday.  Our principal's husband is the fire chief and he comes out every year with some of his crew.  They do a great job and the kiddos are always thrilled to see them.  It was a beautiful day and rainbows appeared as they had some of our little friends helping spray the fire hoses.  But guess who forgot her camera??  How unusual, I always have my camera but walked out of the room without it that day.  We also had our Fall Festival on October 6 and we grossed $28,000 between the sales of chance drawing tickets and the money spent on tickets and food at the Festival itself.  This is the only fund raiser that we do each year and it's always a big event.

In addition to looking forward to our planning day, we are busy planning our 50th Day of School celebration on Friday, October 26.  This will be the third year that our first grade classes have had "Fabulous Fifties Fun" on the 50th Day of School.  We have classroom level hula hoop contests prior to the big day and each class gets a boy and girl champion.  On the 50th day, we dress up and have a sock hop out on the bus shelter with dancing and ice cream floats.  One of the highlights of the sock hop are the contests to determine our first grade hula hoops champs.  The girls battle it out and then the boys take their turn.  It's amazing how long some of these kiddos can go with those things while walking around and showing off for their friends.  We always have a blast!  I won't forget my camera that day and I'll post pictures of our fun.