It's beginning to look a lot like...

Okay, so I'm a day early. Emma, don't kill me. It's the day before December 1st.



I decorated for Christmas.


I started by bringing out my snowman mugs...





Then more snowmen came out to join...






And then I had to put out my Christmas snowglobe. It was a beautiful gift from the mother of one of my students from internship. She bought it for me because of the musical theme of it.







And then I just couldn't bear to keep these ones in the box. They're so whimsical and they light up. Another gift from a student during internship.




I know. It's a bit early (I actually did it yesterday!), but it seems closer to Christmas than it really is. You can't judge me, unless you have woken up in the last two weeks to this...





or this...




Or this.

When there's this much snow (and it has stuck around, too) it just promotes the feeling of Christmas!

You know you live in a village...

when a box of Christmas oranges costs $9.

What is this world coming to???

Okay, so all of this text talk and internet lingo has been bugging me for quite some time now. LOL drives me crazy...people use it when things are only mildy amusing...for situations where they would not ACTUALLY laugh out loud. This comic expresses my thoughts on that.

Plus, I think it makes people sound immature and stupid. Sorry to be so harsh, but there it is.

There are all kinds of text/typing acronyms that drive me crazy, but LOL is the worst.

Today, though, I saw something in a Facebook comment that blew me away. In the comment, instead of typing OMG, which stands for Oh my God, the girl had typed:

"Ohemgee."

Are you kidding me? Now we're taking abbreviations and making them longer? How stupid are people getting?

Wow.

You know you're a teacher...

When you find yourself in public, talking about the weather and your day is measured in increments of recesses.

I was at the co-op today and it's been a crazy weather day. I found myself talking about how the weather changed from first recess, to lunchtime, to last recess.

I'm a teacher!

Honestly!

So, some of my students have been struggling with honesty. Or more specifically, they have been struggling with lying.

I get that it's common for kids to lie to keep themselves out of trouble. I think for a lot of kids, it`s their first instinct. But, most of my students will admit to the truth when I call them on it. For most of them, all it takes is for me to say I don`t think that`s actually what happened. You need to tell me the whole truth. Because of the relationship we have, most of my students will fess up if I tell them I think they are lying.

Except for a few of them.

Yesterday, I watched Samuel take a piece of paper on his desk and put it on another student`s desk. I picked it up to see it and he immediately said, "I didn't write that."

It said FROM SAMUEL on it.

Not a great thing to lie about. I took him into the hall to chat about it. He stuck to his story.

I brought him back into the room and compared it to his writing in his journal. It totally matched, and he STILL denied writing it.

I took him back out into the hall and we talked yet again. I told him that I saw him take it out of his desk, it was signed by him, and it matched his writing.

Still no luck.

In the end, he ended up admitting to it, but SERIOUSLY...

I'm starting a unit on honesty tomorrow.

Goodbye

This weekend I said goodbye to a wonderful man. He was my best friend's dad, a very special lady's husband, and my boss for 5 years.

Goodbye, Brian. You will be missed by many, as you were admired, respected and loved by those whose lives you touched.