Ugh...

Well, you are now hearing from a 4th grade teacher! Crazy, huh? It's like being promoted... I walked in a 2nd grade teacher and now I'm a 4th grade teacher.

This is the right decision for our school. There were 52 4th graders and only 1.5 classes for them. Now we have 2 4th grade classes and we each have 26. (The 4/5 combo teacher became a 5th only teacher.)

But... ugh... I'm exhausted!! Mentally and physically.

Mentally this change meant I'm no longer working in the team with which I'd been planning and socializing. I need to adapt to the idea (and the curriculum) of a totally different grade level.

Physically this change just meant a VERY long day moving all of my FULLY FINISHED classroom into a new room. The teacher who I swapped with is a special education teacher and so her instructional assistants helped us move too. John and Jimmy even came and helped move some of the bigger stuff (although John's back has been bothering him immensely, so we tried to have him take it easy-- HA!).

All of my beautiful room truly torn off the walls. And, my wonderful wall of windows is only 1/3 (2 of the 6 windows I had)... and, my new room is moldy. They're working hard to fix the mold, but the windows aren't really a fix.

I've spent all day looking at the bright side... and remembering the time I was told at the last minute that I was going to be teaching reading, which I ended up loving! But now I'm just worn out... maybe my head hurts from looking "up"?

Tonight was Back to School Night/Meet the Teacher. Fortunately, it wasn't in our rooms!!! I had some "hard ball" questions... about curriculum and homework... all completely fair questions, except for I'd had my roster for 10 minutes and hadn't even gotten a chance to look at the standards... YIKES!!! I gave them honest and authentic answers about my philosophy with homework and school, but didn't mention that I'd only been a 4th grade teacher for a day ;) Anyway, if I didn't have 4 years of teaching experience, the questions would have really thrown me. Nice to have those under my belt.

Everyone has been helpful and sympathetic. My coworkers have pitched in to help and my principal offered to put up bulletin boards. I know Mom wishes she could fly back up, but it will be okay. Kyle reminded me of our own 4th grade teachers. John and Dad are uber-confident.

Okay... that's all for now. If you don't hear much from me over the next couple of days, know I'll get back to you... with NEW classroom pictures ;)