Get ready, get set...

I spent yet another night at school last night, now that back-to-school night is quickly approaching I've been feeling the pressure and need to really get things in order and ready to go. Although my physical space is coming along really well, I'm starting to feel a little bit of anxiety about the actual teaching side of things. Everything looks good on paper, everything works well in your head, but when you've got 20 little ones sitting in front of you, staring at you, 20 bodies with their own thoughts, actions and ideas- what looks good on paper doesn't necessary compute to what works well in the classroom.

So I'm starting to plan, and pray, and tell myself that I've done this before and that I will be okay. And I know in the end, when that first day comes and goes, I-in fact- will be okay.

Now that I have the names- have labeled the desks, the lockers, the mailboxes with this list of 15 different names, I'm excited to put a face to them. A personality. A story. A life. And to start to build relationships with my little ones.

I know that nothing will be quite like my first year of teaching, and that I will never forget these kiddos, because they were my first. And I'm excited to embark on a monumental year with them!

Current teacher joys:

• Color-coded everything! Nothing is better than organizing with colors, and I have had such a fun time color-coding the smallest of details in my classroom
• Calendars. It seems as though I can't have enough calendars around my room. I have the large calendar that we will be working with as a class, A calendar hanging next to my desk to keep my life in order, and a calendar hanging outside our classroom door to inform parents of important dates. They make me feel like there is some order to the chaos, and I love it.
• Buying new school supplies. I love buying new colored pens, and new markers, and cute notebooks, and post-it notes. It still makes me happy to have a bag full of brand-new school supplies ready to unload into my (now much larger) desk.
• A brand-new planner! Planners are my life, and I love getting a brand-spanking-new blank planner and beginning to process of adding the birthdays, "no school days", special days, teacher workshop days. It's part of my calendar obsession, and must also contribute to me feeling like there is some order in the madness. 

Current teacher frustrations:

• Figuring out how to print double-sided on a printer that doesn't do it automatically, spending 2 hours figuring it out, finally getting it to work, only to have it ruined by the binding machine. I gave up after that.
• Having no school e-mail address to put on all my parent documents I'm making, and not staying in the loop with the pre-school faculty communication. Thank goodness for all my teacher-friends at the school who help me stay informed.
• Laminators that break and take 2.5 hours to fix, while constantly burning and cutting your finger in the process.
• E.x.t.r.e.m.e.l.y. s----l-----o-----w--- computers. They make my nights longer. At least Pandora presses on through the slowness.

Speaking of planners, I'm looking for a new one to buy currently. Any suggestions?

9 days and I will be welcoming those little ones and their families for the reveal of the all-new-fresh-carpet-fresh-paint maddess I call my classroom. Uff-da.