All is right in my world :)

My classroom is finally finished! The last few days have been jam-packed with labeling, organizing, and decorating! Today, right when I first thought I was finished, the PTA parents delivered my students' pre-purchased school supplies. There were 15 sets of them! This is good and bad: good because 15 of my 22 students have already purchased their supplies, and that is a good indicator of the type of class/parents I will have! Also, I am able to go ahead and unpack and label things before the craziness of the first day of school. It was only bad because it made a lot more work for me today! Here is a picture of the supplies once I had unpacked the sets and separated them:


That's a lot of supplies! And there is still more to come, too.

Here are a couple of pictures of my finished room. It's pretty much the same as last year, but with a nice big colorful rug and a few more things.





A lot has changed in first grade since last year! My team-mate Tracey moved up to teach second grade and we hired a new teacher in her place. Her name is Emily and I am looking so forward to working with her this year! She is going to be an amazing teacher :)We are back to three teachers in 1st! I also took Tracey's spot as team chair-person, so there is sure to be extra work and maybe (hopefully not) extra stress involved with that. Please pray for the dynamics of my first grade team, as there may be some tension for a while because of this news.

Here is a picture of me and my new friend and colleague Emily. We're wearing matching shirts because today was academic convocation for RISD and we all had to wear them.


Academic convocation was so cool! It is basically just a huge pep rally for every single person who works in the district to attend - from teachers, to support staff, to transportation and nutrition services, etc. Everyone came together in celebration of a new school year, and it was very powerful and motivating! I love RISD so much :)

Tomorrow we will have training at our school all morning and then time to work in our rooms after lunch. I am going to take Bella with me, and since Emily's mom is going to be in her room working during our training, she is going to puppy-sit! Tomorrow afternoon is when I will make the phone calls to my students to tell them that they're in my class :)

I apologize for the fact that this post is so all over the place. There was pretty much no direction: just rambling. My mind is completely fried from this week, and I'm lucky to have even had time to post!

Yay for less than 4 days until the first day of school!