Cypress-cicles

yeah, brrrrrrrr.

I know what you're thinking, "oh whatever...it's the south, it can't be thatttt cold." Well, let me tell you, this morning my car read 35 degrees at 6:30 a.m. and I guarantee my house temperature is probably hovering around 50. Ridic. I don't deal with indoor cold weather well at all....hence the reason my Heffy apartment was a tropical 85 degrees on most days...well, and because I didn't pay for it...thank you SMU. I came home and took a hot shower, like hot enough to get a sunburn, hot. Truthfully, the only reason I blow-dryed my hair was for warmth tonight! Heck, even last night I slept with my electric blanket under my several layers of quilts and fleece blankets set on number 7 while still wearning my sweatshirt and sweatpants. This is the lone reason I hate fall, when it starts to get cold. I hated it for the last three years when maintenance would resist turning on the heat...I was probably the only one that welcomed coming home to the burnt-register smell signifying the heat had been turned on. Anyway..my house is cold. We do have heat...it consists of individual heaters in both bedrooms, the living room and dining room. Those were just fixed/replaced last week but because they are hooked up to the gas and we are poor teachers, we are trying to minimize our gas bill and not use them until frostbite sets in. The light at the end of the tunnel is that it is supposed to warm up to 60's and 70's tomorrow and Thursday, please oh please....

So, I just got off the phone with the ever-so-hilarious Gabe King who turned 6 years old today. I love little kids...he had me cracking up. He got a bike WITH a WATER BOTTLE on it for his birthday, I love that kids can get so excited about things that are NOT electronic. I asked if HE liked his kindergarten teacher and he replied, "um...sorta" in a very matter-of-fact-Gabe-like-way. Apparently she is strict. But in all reality, she sounds a lot like me. They didn't get recess because they were naughty. check. They have to turn around and walk back into the room because they weren't walking in the hallway the way they were supposed to. check. In fact, tomorrow my class is going to skip morning recess and we are going to practice walking in the hallways. I don't care if it takes 15 minutes or a half-hour, we will do this everyday until we stop looking like fans from a Hannah Montana concert running down the hallway. Okay, it's not thatttt bad, but we don't walk in a straight line, we are always talking, we are never hip and lip (the ridic form they have to walk in--one hand on your hip, one hand on your lip). Anyway...today the ENTIRE class got their clips pulled down, TWICE. This means that everyone was acting a fool, so they all moved down one color from whatever they were on. Well, you know it's bad when everyone gets moved once, but TWICE. Good Lord...

We did carve a pumpkin today...it was the most uneventful thing that happened considering what the rest of our day was like...

A few tidbits that I definitely wasn't trained for prior to teaching Kindergarten. One of my girls was out of school for two weeks...why? This is gross...beware....a spider had gotten into/under her braids and layed it's eggs there (and/or bit her)...which literally made a large indent in her head. Soooo sad, I felt so bad for her. However, there was no way she could have known it was there and she didn't feel anything, so it's good that it wasn't painful. I was told by a school helper in my room that one of my little boys has ring worm on his forehead. Well, I saw there was a spot, but I didn't know it was ringworm. Heck, the closest thing I've come to ringworm is when we thought my first rabbit had it when I was in the 8th grade. I am not trained in this kind of stuff. I thought I was going to deal with loose teeth, wet pants, or scrapes and blood, not ringworm, spiders, etc! Ah...my poor babies, it's not their fault....

I realize that I never actually talk about the teaching aspect of this gig...I usually ramble about the "other" stuff. Well..my class has learned 15 letters, all but 6 have mastered all of them. We have learned 21 sight words, which means we are able to read a lot of basic words like, "the, and, I, a, is, my, like, can, etc." We sound out cvc words in our phonics lesson everyday and we practice reading for comprehension. My kids know what their schema is, we are slowly learning how to make connections while reading, and we have started introducing inferences this week. We practice separating beginning sounds, ending sounds, counting syllables, and a multitude of other things each day in centers. In math we have learned how to identify, create and extend patterns, position words such as over, under, on, above, left, right, and how to sort objects. We are currently learning (and struggling) with creating groups that have one more or two more objects in them, or one fewer and two fewer. Soooo difficult!

Anyway, there is my soapbox. Send some prayers and WARM wishes my way ;)