Update + Pics

Soooooooo it's been a while, huh? I know everyone's been dying to know where I've been, right? Right? So believe it or not, my first year of teaching has been pretty cah-razy. Hard to believe right? Can't believe it's almost March! As in over halfway through. As in t minus 3 months till the end of the year. Holy cow how did that happen?? So it's definitely been a roller coaster. I went through the honeymoon phase where I would come home every day and relate every detail of my day to my hubby and tell him all about my little ones and all the cute, funny, adorable things they did and said. Then November hit. And pretty soon I didn't notice all the adorable things anymore. I only noticed the unbelievably frustrating things - like the perpetual missing names on papers, the talking in the hallway despite the hundreds of daily reminders., the constant tattling and bombarding me with questions. Let's just say I was over it. I was feeling incompetent, like there was no way I could ever cover everything by testing in March (yes, March) and that I had done everything wrong at the beginning of the year that it would be impossible to fix.
Well I'm happy to say that the roller coaster has finally evened out. I have bad days, I have good days, I have days I want to cry out of frustration and complete overload, and days I want to cry at how sweet my little ones are and how rewarding my job is. I get frustrated with my kids, but I love them. Each and every darn one of them. I'm ready for May and ready to put this year behind me, but I sure will be sad to see these kids go.

Ok, moving on to the pics I promised in the post title.
The first ones are recent one of my classroom library. I. Love. My. Library. I think back to the summer when I spent hours and hours on my library. Organizing the books and putting stickers on every single cover. My mom and I spending hours putting those Walmart bookshelves together and painting those little polka dots on them, then going to 5 different stores in search of the perfect rug. It was daunting but I'm so glad I put that much time and effort into it. I love my library and my kids love our library. It's definitely a favorite spot in the room. I have kids come up to me all the time and say "Mrs. Merrick, I'm done with my assignment. Can I go sit in the library and read?" Be still, my heart. Anyway, these pics are from last week right after I had gotten a whole bunch of brand new free books (I love you, Scholastic) and had put them all up on display. Needless to say, most of them were gone and checked out by the next day (my plan exactly) but it looked really nice and full for a little while!

The next pics are some of the anchor charts I've made with the kids -- the ones that I was particularly proud of. Enjoy! :)