miss forrssttaaaahhhhhh

If you haven't heard me say it, then you can't understand how funny it is. My kids, in their cute little accents, call me MISS FORSTAAHHH...or, if I'm lucky, just MISS FOOORRR (drop the STER...seriously it's too much effort).....it's actually just the highlight of my life sometimes. And sometimes the most annoying thing in the entire world. I'm sure any teacher will tell you sometimes you get so freaking sick of hearing your own name that you want to go to the town hall (or whatever) and have it legally changed....but I also just love it. Especially when I hear it down the hall and it comes along with a beaming child running to give me a hug. Or when  cool high-schooler says it while passing me in the hall even though I don't know who they are...#popularity.

But anyways here's the update of Miss Forstah's first grade adventure in the Mississippi Delta (lately I've been referring to it mostly as "this godforsaken land"....#oopsies...but it's growing on me):

This is how everyone in my house felt for, like, all of October. Alicia's just the only one who got caught on camera, passed out mid lesson planning, upside down in her bed. Typical Saturday afternoon.

Glimpses of Room 10.

Showing off our knowledge about nouns (and our excellent fine motor skills...aka cutting and pasting).

I definitely loved this desk set-up for the first two months of school. It kept everyone within my reach. But it's the second quarter now and I'm SO OVER IT. Pictures of the new set-up to come later this week.

Our marble jars are filling quickly (kind of...because Miss Forster forgets...oops)!

This WAS my desk area....

Until I got rid of my desk. It was taking up WAY too much space, and let's be real, I never sat at it...I only piled things on top of it. So Mary Margaret and I snuck it out of my room and hid it in a closet after school one day, total sneak-mode past the janitor. It was quite the rush.

And pieces finally started to come together in our little room!

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AND NOW FOR A RANT.

Okay so this picture is actually seriously crucial to how I survive in my classroom. So I'm, like, SUPER ANAL about things being organized in a way that makes sense to me. And in a classroom that can be almost freaking impossible because I cannot control every single thing that each of the 49 small people want to do as they come in and out of it every day. If I don't make things work for me, I literally go crazy and end up with piles and piles of things on any counter space possible and have to spend like 45 minutes cleaning and finding things after my kids leave every day. You'd think it really wouldn't be that hard to keep track of my FREAKING tea mug but I swear I set it down somewhere and it becomes invisible for like twenty minutes until I realize I have no idea where I left it. But it all works out because my students know me by now and I just say "Where did I put my tea?" and within seconds three of my little boys will be able to pinpoint exactly where I left it. They are SO OBSERVANT.  AND THEY REMEMBER EVERYTHING. God forbid I turn the lights off or on instead of letting Quindale do it, because it's HIS JOB. Seriously, if I turn the lights out, he'll stand up, walk over, turn them back on and then turn them off again. Simply because it's supposed to be his job. And I can't get mad. Because I gave him that job. So I let it happen. AND MY GOODNESS IF I DON'T REMEMBER TO HAVE SHARIAH HOLD THE CLIPBOARD ON THE WAY TO LUNCH. That homegirl takes her job SO SERIOUSLY.

But anyways, the pencil boxes full of crayons. This is what I did. Since we're departmentalized in first grade, we keep all of our supplies in the classroom. This means that each classroom has just one class set of crayons/scissors/etc...so our students don't each have their own. Well, I got SICK of passing out crayons every time we needed them, and then watching the annoying fights and whining happen about which colors each student needed and why they needed PINK not RED because it HAAAAAADDD TO BE PINK. I was so annoyed at first, until I remembered what it felt like to be a six year old girl and want to color a picture with pink when you only had red. I realized I had to do something about it. SO, IPSO FACTO, the "kits." I compiled every crayon pack I had/could find/was given by the Ayers Looby family, and I sorted it into colors. Then, I bought 17 supply boxes (pictured above). I counted out and placed two of EVERY COLOR into EACH supply box. That's right. EVERY CHILD HAS TWO OF EVERY COLOR (complaining for the correct color crayon problem=solved). I also put a scissor, a glue, and a big pink eraser in each "kit." I introduced them to the students a month ago. AND I MADE A HUGE FREAKING DEAL ABOUT IT. 

These are SPECIAL KITS that MISS FORSTER MADE for us to SHARE and USE and TAKE CARE of, but you have to EARN the kits, because they are a PRIVILEGE and you need to show me how RESPONSIBLE and RESPECTFUL you can be if you want the opportunity to use my SPECIAL kits.

And by golly, it WORKED.

Here are the "kit" rules (to keep me sane):

1. One kit per person. You only get to use the kit if you are being a respectful listener.

2. You do not take anything out of the kit unless I tell you to.

3. You only take one thing out of the kit at a time. If you take something out, you put it back into the kit before you take the next thing out. 

4. You do not trade colors or supplies with anyone (because everyone has EVERYTHING they need).

It may sound totally neurotic (it is), but IT WORKS. If I have a student misbehaving, all I have to do is threaten to take their "kit" away that day. Like really, the world could be ending if you saw the way these kids react to having to use a PENCIL instead of CRAYONS on "kit" days. I mean, hey, if it works and keeps them from throwing a fit/hurting other students/disrupting the entire class and therefore ending up in the office.... I'll take it. Thus, the kits. One of my proudest creations. 

It's the little things.

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And more things that don't really matter to anyone but me, but I'm still posting them because otherwise I'll lose the pictures forever and not remember how to teach when October comes of next year.

So then I went home to Minnesota for three days and took 2 1/2 days off. Needless to say, with all of the effort I have put into gaining control over my classroom, I was SO nervous to leave it in someone else's hands. So this is what my table looked like, full of detailed sub plans, labeled EVERYTHING, and way too many post it notes (poor sub).

Better to be over-prepared, right?

We've got Gustavus pride here in Mississippi.

HOMECOMING. Vanessa made the float, I rode in the truck in front of the float with her and waved to all of my kids. I sort of felt like a PRINCESS, and my kids still haven't stopped talking about how they saw Ms. Forster in the homecoming parade (which went through the whole town)....even though I was in a truck pulling a float...hahaha. But seriously those types of things are what make a difference between feeling like this is a temporary job and feeling invested in this community and its future.

ANNND my door for October. 

End of first quarter=having my students moving all of the desks to the side for a dance party. And also so that I could do an entirely new set-up and seating chart without having to do all of the labor myself.

We survived the first quarter! AND my students ROCKED their 1st 9 Weeks Exam (aka the quarter 1 exam). We've got SUCH SMART FIRST GRADERS.

I love them. (I don't always love their CHOICES...but I love THEM....I am becoming my mother already.)