Day 4:

• Seeing many of my little students dressed in red, white, and blue today for 9/11.  
• One of my boys loves control and is very emotional so today I had him be a buddy to one of my students who is having a hard time transitioning and doesn't understand a lot of English.  It was the perfect duo.  He was so helpful and they really helped each other!

Day 3

Day 3:

• A babysitter today commented that I am so perfect for this job. 
• I rearranged the way my kids sit today and I noticed an improvement. 
• I began a sticker chart for a little girl and she loved it and didn't need as many reminders today.
• I had a positive interaction with a speech therapist.  I also had one with a parent who I recommended an evaluation to.  It went well.  Phew!
• A motivational text from my mom when I needed it. 
• Going to apartment hunt for the first time tomorrow!!! And finally seeing Matt on a day other than the weekend. 

Goodnight!

Day 2: 

• Opening the door to greet my morning class and my one student brought me a homemade bead necklace.  Those are the best.

• I use a ton of music in my classroom.  Today, I taught them this catchy Heidi Butkus (I use her religiously) shape song/dance about circles to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell:

A circle is like the sun,

A circle is like the moon,

A circle is like the ball I bounce every afternoon!

My afternoon class was particularly enthusiastic about this song and we sang it about ten times throughout the day...maybe even more.  At dismissal, two students excitedly ran out the door and started singing it for their moms.  

• The teacher next door to me said that it was nice to have me as her neighbor.

• After coming home completely overwhelmed and frustrated about how a few things have been going with one of my classes, I got a lot accomplished and made a plan for myself.  I feel motivated to start it tomorrow.

Positivity

The purpose of these next few (and I'm hoping to make myself a more disciplined blogger) posts is to focus on the positive.  Change has been the theme of my life these past few weeks.  The company that I work for offered me a UPK position a lot closer to home.  By a lot closer I mean a 5 minute drive as opposed to a 35 minute drive.  This has really helped considering my commute to Grad School in Queens and my time management skills, but it has definitely been an adjustment.  I spent three years in my first school and now that I am not there, it feels as if a piece of me is missing and I miss seeing my my former students pass in the hallway and I know that I would have had a handful of siblings in my class this year.  However, I'm in a terrific placement at my new school and I know that it is still early in the year and that this will be a new chapter in my teaching career.  

Another great change that happened was for my fiance.  After three years of hard work as a perm sub and a TA, he finally landed a teaching job in Brooklyn at a charter school.  He couldn't be happier working there and I am so proud of him.  We also see a lot less of each other and we've been trying to deal with that change.  However, good changes are on the way...we've begun apartment searching and we are definitely planning on moving in somewhere before the wedding.  

This weekend, I had a lot of emotional ups and downs thinking about all these changes, especially with my job placement.  I really formed a close bond with my students and their families there as well as the building staff and now I'm the new girl.  I've always been hard on myself and I've felt that I have been trying so hard to make my new class the perfect environment for my new students.  Today was our 4th official day with the students and I felt myself getting lost into a whirlwind of worry.  I have a few new situations that I have yet to deal with as an educator and I am trying to formulate plans that will provide them with what they need and how to get through to them in an individual way.  



After all that rambling, I'll now get to the purpose of the next few posts.  To eliminate my perfectionism, worry, and criticism of what I do, I am going to focus on the positive occurrences that happen each day.  

Day 1: 

• After kissing her daughter goodbye and sending her off through my door, a mother of one of my students let out a sigh of relief and told me, "I can't tell you how happy ------ is to go to school.  It wasn't like this last year.  Thank you so much."

• While reading through notes and paperwork on my desk today, I found my first set of pictures that a student drew for me over the weekend.  I also found a note from a parents ending with, "Thank you for everything you've done to start the year.  ----- adores you!"

• One of the students that I have been trying to work on behaviors with showed terrific improvement today at clean up time.  I feel like I may be starting to get through to him!

• A little boy in my afternoon class that has been struggling with separating from his Nanny came in today and didn't cry for the first time this year.  He was so happy and talkative today.

• A girl in my afternoon class followed me around all day today and every time  I was low to the ground, she would latch on to me and at one point, started playing with my hair.  It was the sweetest thing.

• I watched a student of mine today who does not exhibit many verbal skills imitate a block model during his assessment.  Now I feel motivated to create activities and lessons where I incorporate more visual directions.  I'm hoping this helps him.

Motivation.

I have been trying to motivate myself for a while to get back into working out.  It's really hard to pull myself away from my classroom.  I'm going to try to stop devoting endless hours at/of work and start devoting some important time for myself at the gym.  I definitely need it for my health!  I know that once I get into a routine of working out, it makes me a happier, more energetic person!  I'm hoping it well help to ease stress, improve my health, and decrease lazy habits.

Ready....set....go!

A little reminder to myself

A reminder to myself that productivity = happiness. Here's a list of the things I've accomplished this break... 1) Started a classroom blog with photos of activities. 2) Created an OLAS account. District position, here I come! (One day...) 3) Started going meatless (For Lent, but maybe longer) 4) Deactivated my Facebook account (again...for Lent, but maybe longer) 5) Visited my mother's childhood development classes at the high school and spoke about my teaching experience 6) Opened a joint savings account with Matt for our wedding/future 7) Cleaned my room 8) Started eating healthier 9) Thinking about starting a workout routine to start ASAP before school every morning 10) Got a few more yeses (sp?) for my wedding party 11) Finally figured out how to access my online banking Hope I can keep adding to this list!

Tomorrow, I still start my biggest Lent-giving-up-task. AKA sacrifice? Like last year, I am giving up meat. However, this year I've decided to also give up Facebook. I think it's going to be a very good thing because I spend an immense amount of time on it and most of the time, I'm not even realizing! On a side note, I have another goal I need to set for myself: I need to manage my time and planning better. I feel like I'm constantly planning and prepping for my classroom and not devoting enough time for other things. I hope to start a new resolution for this year starting soon. As for happy news, tomorrow I'm headed to see the Knicks with my brother and fiancee. Then the day after that is Valentine's Day. Then starting Friday afternoon, I will be off for February Break! Time for bed.