Classroom Store Ideas

I am trying to set up a classroom store for my second graders.  During the sumdog competition, I noticed that they were really struggling with coins and money values.  I think the perfect solution to this is to have them work with money in a classroom store.  I ordered a cash register with fake money this morning, but now I have to figure out what I'm going to "sell" in the store, and how I'm going to communicate the cost of those things.

1) I could get a drawer organizer and label each drawer with a different price.  E.g. - everything in the top drawer is 5 cents, everything in the middle drawer is 10 cents, etc.

2) I could put the items into groups on the table and put placecards with their price by the piles.  This is not so good an idea as I could see the items going everywhere and creating a huge mess, plus, if the item is removed from the pile it may be difficult for the students to remember their cost.

3) I could get price tags and individually label everything.  This sounds like it would be expensive and take a lot of time.  Plus the mess afterward of the students taking all the little labels off would probably leave me feeling depressed.

I am spending so much money on my students just to get them to learn how to deal with money!  Ironic?  I think so!

Thoughts on Teaching Struggling Students

I love being a student.  I love sitting in someone's class and just learning.  It is passive yet engaging.  I learn fascinating things.

Being a teacher, on the other hand, is not as fun.  You have to plan everything to make sure you don't lose anyone's attention and to keep control of the classroom.  You have to throw your pearls before swine, ie - topics that you love and think are interesting, there will be students who don't care in the least.  Any attempts at getting the unmotivated interested will only leave you feeling depleted of energy and will hardly make any difference in the student's life.  After all, who can move a mountain?

There are some students who do not want to be helped.  There are some who are content with failure.  I have learned that there is nothing I can do to help these students.

On the other hand, there are those that want to learn.  Even if they are struggling, they still try.  They put in the effort and let me know that they care about their grade.  These are the students that I come to work every day for, these are the students that will succeed.  The steps to success must start with a desire to succeed.


There are some still that can succeed if given enough one-on-one help and attention, but with time and budget constraints, this simply isn't an option for most students.  Thankfully, I get to do that with one student.  Our only constraint is time, because I only get him for third period.  He is the only one I responsible for in that class and so he benefits from one-on-one attention.  I have been able to focus my attention on him and realized many things about him.
a) He can hardly see the board from his seat
b) He falls asleep in class because he walks around at night with his cousin and friend
c) Instead of listening to his algebra lessons, he sits there and tries to find patterns in the numbers himself.  He likes puzzles.  As a result of this, he draws some pretty crazy conclusions and I have to fix it and re-teach him what he should have been learning in the first place
d) He has trouble speaking what his mind is thinking
e) He is not dumb, he is teachable.  When I have enough time with him he is able to work the problems on his own, which is more than I can say for my students in first period.

If only every struggling student could have this much attention and support.  That is why I believe in homeschooling, but you have to have intelligent parents.  Even if you are not homeschooled, you have to have home support to be successful in school.  If your parents don't care whether or not you do your homework, or cannot help you with it themselves, then you probably won't do it.  If your parents don't stress the importance of education or try to blame the teachers/faculty for all of their child's problems, guess what, that student is going to come to school with that same attitude.

My favorite was listening to the student's talk about their grades.  Mr. So-And-So failed me!  Can you believe that?!"  I let them know that teacher's don't fail people.  You earn the grade that you deserve.  It is your personal responsibility to get good grades, not the teacher's responsibility to simply hand them out.

Emotional Day

I haven't written in a long time, but I think it's time to pick up the habit again.  I have a little time on my hands today.  Today was the last time I will ever go to Smart E Pants daycare on business again.  It seems silly, I shouldn't have gotten so emotional over it.  Elizabeth only went there for 2 months (minus 2 weeks for Christmas break).  Still, she left an impression.  Miss Abby, her teacher, says that they talk about her every day.  She said that she misses her when she's not around.  It's things like these that made me a basket case today when I had to drop off our last payment and pick up her things.

It seems so silly.  I never wanted to put my kids in American daycare, especially this one.  It looked dingy from the outside and the staff did not leave me with the easiest feeling at first.  Her teacher was great, but I will never forget Miss ____, who would always make Lizzie cry and she would never stay with her to eat breakfast because she hated her so much.  She would ask us at home if she would have to be with Miss ___ and we would tell her no.  Even though she loved Miss Abby, as a whole she is happier going to our friends' house.  She gets to be in a home environment and play with her friend, Katie.  It is better for her, and in the end her happiness is all that matters.  She would dread going to daycare, asking us at home, "Do I have to go to daycare tomorrow?"  Poor baby.  Now she cries when we pick her up because she doesn't want to leave her friend's house!

I must be PMSing.  There is seriously no other reason why I should have gotten so emotional about leaving Smart E Pants (I realize the name of the daycare makes my plight seem all the more trite), but I did.

I've been writing during my second period class at the school about what I witness in the classroom.  I am considering publishing it as a book titled "Inside America's Classrooms - What Really Goes On"  It's a good thing that I get to be a part of two classrooms - one who has excellent classroom management techniques, and the other one who is not so good.  I get so frustrated witnessing the latter classroom that I have decided to write about it.  After all, I have to have something to laugh about later.

Happy and Alone

I am really enjoying being alone.  The part of myself that I felt I had lost wasn't because I became a mother, it was because I wasn't allowed to be alone.  There is something so sweet about simply existing without onlookers or opinion.  It is so beautiful to just be here, doing what I want to do, listening to what I want to listen to, and drinking my tea.  I am remembering myself, it is almost as if we are being reintroduced, and I love who I see.

I suppose it is only a matter of time until the loneliness sets in, but for now I am content to just be.

On Moving Away from Suburbia

I am pleasantly surprised.

Upon my husband losing his job two months ago, to him becoming a teacher and us having to move (the seventh move we have had in our five years of marriage), I was at first feeling sorry for myself.  We had been in our first house for only 14 months when we had to move as my husband's job was 5 hours away.  Thankfully, we were able to rent it out to family members did did not have to sell, but part of me felt like we had still lost.
Fast forward to now.  We are renting out a mobile home in a very country area and I am happy.  I thought I was happy in suburbia, but I realize now how much stress was put on me in that setting to perform simply as a mother.  There is constant attention put on your children and your home.  Everyone is trying to be Martha Stewart and they are doing it all on credit cards.  It is absolutely INSANE, and I am happy to be taking a breather.  I am happy to be in a place where people will not judge me for having mismatched furniture.  I am happy to be in a place where I do not feel judged at every red light for the car I drive, or the constant pressure mothers feel to take their kids every day to one of the following:
a) the park
b) trampoline park
c) inflatable jumping park
d) play date
e) church event
f) Chik Fil A

If all of the above fail, it's off to Target, the mother's entertainment. (Read $$)

The amount of money it takes to, "keep up with the Jones," and to simply keep oneself entertained is ridiculous.  $30-$40 a day for you and your kids options (b) and (c) make them a once in a while affair.  Texas weather makes (a) an option only during a few select weeks out of the year, and (d) requires coordination which sometimes happens, but everyone is also afraid to have people come over unless their houses are spotless.  With kids, let's be honest, this is hardly the case.

In the past, kids simply played outside with their neighborhood friends.  It was as simple as asking mom if you could go to so-and-so's house, her saying yes, and you walking down the street and doing it.  Now, everyone is afraid of everyone.  You don't see neighborhood friends playing together simply because they live on the same street.  Play has turned inside as parents are afraid of their children ending up on the news if they allow them to play unsupervised.

Another point - There is always a holiday.  It used to be that people decorated and got ready for Christmas.  Thanksgiving simply required a meal and dressing up, and Easter had some festivities as well.  Today, suburban mothers are expected to dress up their homes for Valentine's Day, Father's Day, St. Patty's Day, Fourth of July, Summertime (in itself a holiday), and Halloween.  There is this unspoken contest between members of suburbia to outdo their peers in the festivities for any and all of the above "celebrations," and it gets even worse for Christmas.  I cannot tell you how much we have spent on Christmas decorations, it would make me cry.  We always talk about the dichotomy of how a season that is supposed to be about giving and goodwill to your fellow person can turn into a commercial conquest.

Don't get me wrong, Christmas shopping is fun.  But the line is crossed when you have to pull out the credit card.  The line is crossed when you start buying toys for your kids not because they need it, but because you want to have more presents under the tree.  These are the toys that will become clutter for the next year until you surrender them to the Goodwill.  The line is crossed when we stop looking forward to Christmas and we start resenting the amount of time, money, and labor that it will cost.

I am thankful to be in this mobile home because it is a shelter from all of this madness.  We moved in on a Tuesday night and had three very happy days before we drove back to Dallas for a second round of household goods, not the least of which included all of our daughters' books and toys.  We filled three very large boxes with these goods and were the majority of the trip.  What before had been a peaceful safe haven has now turned into a chaotic mess.  I have half a mind to not even unpack the last box and simply give it to charity.  We would be much better off for it.  I kid you not, 50% off this box is toys that are no large than 3 inches.  It frightens me to open this box.  I do not want to introduce this chaos to my environment!!!

Ahh, suburbia.  You sell a dream, but you sell a whole lot more than that.  If I could tell you the amount of door-to-door salespeople we got within our first year of living here, it was at least one a week.  People everywhere see this area as a profitable money pit.  You have many educated, young families together and that smells like money.  I am so glad to be getting a break from all of this and to be analyzing our finances.  While not all of our debt is a result of shopping (about half is from medical bills), I am happy to be taking a step back, slashing our living expenses and getting out of debt!  There is something so freeing from separating yourself from the hype and being independent for a while.

Andy is doing very well at his job.  They are already talking about having him go to physics training next summer, which implies that they will hire him on again.  Even though I was at first afraid of this happening, I am beginning to embrace the change.  There is something in the air here.  It is opportunity.  Instead of being in a place where every move we make puts money into someone else's pocket, this is a place where we can create our own fortunes.  I am excited to see where this place takes us.

A Prayer for the Future

I am having a really hard time with this moving thing.  Yes, I am happy that Andy is no longer working his old job, and, yes, I am happy that he is finally able to get an opportunity to play football.  With that being said, this move is going to be harder for me than I originally thought for the following reasons:

1) Friends.  We moved to this neighborhood in May of 2013 and I have been so blessed with so many friendships.  I have never been in a neighborhood like this that schedules regular playgroups and events and is so kind and open.  They are a real resource and source of companionship and friendship.  I will miss them dearly.
2) Fingers on the Move - I just started teaching piano in March and after five short months have to tell my students that I am moving and end it all.  This was my baby!  I had grown to six students every week and was about to get three more this month.  I run the risk of appearing unprofessional and it severely stunts the growth of the business.  I have already had to turn down several people who were interested in starting at the start of the new school year.  Yes, many of them have said that if we come back that they will continue with me, but these kids are close to my heart and I hate to let them down.
3) Our house - This was our first house and we hardly had enough time to enjoy it.  I love having our home that is right next to the elementary school (that I hope Emma will be able to go to next year 2015-2016), and the playground.  I love the walking trails next to the large ponds (small lakes) and how the fountains look when they're lit up at night.

I know we are giving this up for a season for the promise of something greater.  I know that Andy was made to coach football.  It is in his blood.  I pray and hope that he is able to shine this year even though he is only the associate defensive coach.  I hope that he is not overshadowed and that this can open up new doors.  And I sincerely hope and pray that with the end of this school year and the accomplishment of his full accreditation that he will find an opportunity to teach in the Dallas area.

Amen.

Things I want to remember about Lizzie

*The way she says, "I loves you."

*The way she has started growling sometimes just like the baby on The Croods.  SO hilarious and cute!

She is bigger and stronger than Emma was at her age, but Emma is very petite.  She is learning how to use the mouse on ABCmouse.com right now.  She is a little daredevil!  She loves doing things that are thrilling and a little dangerous (spinning in my arms, having me throw her around on the bed, jumping on the bed).  Basically if it's thrilling, she loves it.