I'll give you a dollar if you let me pull that tooth out?

La la la lots to write about...I even made a list. Except, I kept it in my purse for two weeks...whoops. Clearly that list has grown.

I hope your November's are as amazing as mine has been! I think I'm just so overjoyed that October is over with. Phew. Don't worry, I started Christmas music on November 1st...approximately 45 days after Jeannie asked for my Christmas list...you tell me who is early in celebrating the season?

Hm...let's rehash the last few weeks...we had our Halloween party and even though we were in competition with a jerk-wad from Clarksdale trying to show off his huge house by having a frat-style delta halloween party...we still had a lot of people show up. My roommate and I weren't overly intense in our costumes as hunters, primarily because we found nerf rifles at Wal-Mart and that basically captivated ALL of my attention that evening. This thing is insane, it even drops the bullet shells...why do they make things like this for kids?! Anyway, we had a fun night and clean up really wasn't THAT bad the next morning.

We FINALLY made it to the pumpkin patch! We rescheduled our trip at least 3 different times and it kept stinkin raining. However, we went...on November 3. No worries, the kids still got pumpkins, ha. Let me preface by saying that it wasn't nearly as thrilling as last year because we didn't go on the haunted walk (due to so much rain the woods were a mess). However, the kids still got to chase lightning, the baby pig who grew up A LOT over the last year and definitely slowed down with age. However, I was the only one who came close to catching him :) We also go to go on a boat ride aka "alligator hunting" and feed goats, sheep, a cow and see a llama. He even took a couple of kids into the llama's pen and they got to see her spit. It was gross and awesome at the same time. The kids got to pick if they wanted to ride on a couple of ponys or a horse and be led around a huge field that had inflatable games they could play on, a haymaze to go through or get their face painted. At one point I looked over and saw one of my favorite rolly-polly kids, Kayla, leading a pony with Ashley on it. Clearly this pony was going to follow whoever was walking in front of him but he stopped for a second, long enough for Kayla to say in her most demanding, high-pitched voice, "Ashley, tell your horsie to GO!" I was the only one who almost fell over from laughing so hard!

Last week we also had to sit in on a conference call from a woman in Wisconsin telling us how to decipher the results from this assessment that the school purchased called Star Early Literacy. She kept referring to printouts that you could send home to "show mom and dad" or "allow mom and dad to help..." or "point out to mom and dad..." I think I was the only one who sat there thinking that a lot of my kids don't live with their dad, don't know their dad, don't ever get contacted by their dad even if they see them around town. Family structures here really disturb me and make me disgusted at the number of children who do not have a solid home lives.

A majority of our Wednesday's are 60% days, meaning students leave at 1 and we have professional development. Last Wednesday, professional development was planned for grades 2-5, so Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers were sent to the school library to "learn what the librarian has." Basically it was a place to send us to fill time. However, after our 20 minute tour, we sat in the library and chatted for 2 hours. It was so wonderful. Except, we spent a significant amount of time discussing my semi-recent increase in my fear of snakes. Everyone had ABSURD stories to share which made me even more disgusted and paranoid! Clearly no one knocked on wood that day because the next day in our hallway a snake had gotten in. Of course I didn't go look at it, but my co-teacher saw it slide UNDER the exit door and then turn around and poke its head back in before going out for good. oh.em.gee. No more words need to be wasted on something as disgusting as this...

Mrs. Barner teaches Kindergarten with me this year...we had a conversation about teaching phonics the other day. The conclusion of our conversation led to wondering if the achievement gap in Mississippi could be attributed to a southern drawl. Think about it...kids cannot read/pronounce vowels correctly, mainly because people teaching them don't say the sounds right either. Hmmmm...it's all in good fun, we had a good laugh! The other night I went out with Mrs. Barner and her daughter and some friends to a clothing store that was having an open house...let me tell you...it was like my grand entrance into the life of a southern bell. I felt so out of place! Luckly I was dressed in school clothes still....because otherwise I would not have been dressed anywhere close to the 9's the way these women were. And I stood out like a sore thumb with burnette hair and minimal make up. Haha..it was so fun though. I love some of the people at my school and the fact that we're attempting to hang out and socialize. Our school has NO camaraderie, partly because it's not instilled or wanted by administration. typical drama....

HUGE thank you to grandpa and grandma Davis for the new DVD/VCR player that now inhabits my classroom. Soooo exciting to use it and not have all of my tapes eaten!!

I don't really write enough about my kids...let me tell you why I wear a side-part. I have grey hair. It's okay, I've faced that fact. If you don't believe me, I can prove it. However, we can attribute my side-part to select kids. You heard enough about one last year...this year is turning into a mildly similar story. He is mad 70% of the day. Like pouty/annoying mad (not throwing chairs or anything like that). Ugh, it drives me nuts. He doesn't do his work at centers because he cannot get along with other kids in his group. If he gets pulled out of his centers and has to do an independent center, he generally slides all of the picture cards across my floor, kicking his shoes off and yelling. No real reason for it...just being annoying. His mama comes in everyday after school to find out what color he is on. Generally he goes home to granddaddy for a whoopin. No lie, he sometimes deserves it. Twice this week he was pouting and mad and told me "I'm gonna tell my grandad to come up here and shoot you in the eye." The second day I took him to the office, he got paddled. He thinks he can say anything he pleases and has NO respect for me or the directions I give. It's progressing rapidly and he'll go to the office until he figures out that he is 5 and doesn't run things. Let me just say that my assistant has way more patience for him than I do, even though the other day he was mad and almost kicking her because she was sitting next to him. Ugh...I don't remember ANY child acting like this when I was in elementary. Does this happen elsewhere? I often get so caught up in the way things are in my daily life that I forget things aren't like this everywhere.

I'm doing a much better job of tracking my kids to find out which skills we have mastered and what we need to work on...all working towards making at least 1.5 years of growth in reading. Today I tracked their results from an assessment I gave on Friday and we are now at 80% for phonemic awareness skills which is HUGE! These skills are segmenting syllables, identifying beginning sounds, ending sounds, middle sounds, blending and segmenting CVC words, (consonant vowel consonant words), and a ton of other skills. Last year I didn't track these things, I had no idea how well or poorly some of my students were doing. This year I know EXACTLY which subgroup of students I need to focus a lot of remediation on and which skills to be doing. It's such a great guide and saves my sanity on a daily basis!

Only 6 more days until I am headed O.U.T of the Delta for Thanksgiving break. So.flippin.excited! We are in such need of a break and I love the fact that the semester flies by at this point. And because I am getting more and more disgusted with little things, like ants in my room. I went to record their homework the other day and no lie, killed 20 ants that had made their way into and around that stack of papers. Why. And why do parents send their kids to school with teeth just hangin' out of their mouth. Shoot, they're going to be running at recess and the darn thing is just going to come loose...it's that bad.

Okay, this post is getting out of control with all of this random junk. Better go build our bonfire before it gets too dark..we're going 2 for 2 on bonfires this weekend! 6 days until I leave 80+ November weather for Minny-snow-ta. AHHHH...cannot wait :) :) :)