"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation." -Glenn Close

Classroom Jobs 1. line leader (#1 in line, alphabetical order, will always be line leader) 2. door holder (#2 in line, alphabetical order, will always be door holder) 3. lunch helper (pass out napkins every day a lunch) 4. lights (turn lights on and off when asked) 5. smartboard (turns smartboard on and off in morning and at end of day) 6. messenger (take messages to other classrooms or the office) 7. safety monitor (get bandaids when teacher needs it, get nurse passes, escort to nurse, etc) 8. clip chart monitor (carries clip chart in the hallways) 9. door closer (closes and locks door when we enter the room) 10. paper passer (passes out papers for the teacher) 11. paper collector (collects papers and puts in alphabetical order for the teacher before putting in basket) 12. pencil collector (collects pencils and erasers at end of day, puts broken pencils in basket) 13. folder checker (checks folders for homework in the morning) 14. folder filler (put homework in folder...

My beautiful and wonderful friend Anna Ayers Looby sent me a link today that really got me thinking. Here's the link: http://sspw.dpi.wi.gov/sspw_physicaled Basically it gave me the flashing reminder that my students NEED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY in their daily lives. Everyone should have a total of 60 minutes of some sort of physical activity every single day. Since my students only get P.E. twice a week, most of them just want to eat their snack instead of run around at recess, and the rest of their 8 hour day is spent sitting....majority of those minutes depend on me. Now, when your school and state have a deathly fear of failing and standards, objectives, mastery, and test scores are at the core of everything you do, it's easy to forget about the importance of educating well-rounded children. If you'd asked me to add physical activity to my classroom during my first year of teaching, I probably would have started crying (ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME I CAN HARDLY GET ALL THE...

One of my main goals for my classroom this year is to teach my students how to communicate their emotions and use productive and healthy coping mechanisms. So, I introduce to Miss Forster's first grade class... ....DRUMROLL PLEASE..... The mood-o-meter!! Here's an example of a mood meter that I found online: Basically, here's how it works/how I want to use it. The colors can represent different types of feelings on the spectrum.  Blue: low energy/unpleasant=sad, depressed, sulky, tired, etc. Green: low energy/pleasant=happy, content, peaceful, calm, etc. Yellow: high energy/pleasant=excited, surprised, enthusiastic, etc. Red: high energy/unpleasant=angry, frustrated, annoyed, etc. In our classroom this year, we are going to start the year off by learning about this spectrum of emotions-->the mood meter. We'll discuss what the different colors represent, what someone looks like when they're feeling each emotion, what you feel like doing whe...

(scratch the making money part, I mean who are we really kidding) I've been thinking a lot about goals for my 24th year. If there's ANYTHING this rough, rough, but rewarding year has taught me, it's the importance of taking care of myself and prioritizing the activities and people that make me the happiest and best me. I was reading one of those buzzfeed blog list things that are always floating around facebook and it was a list of things all women should have before they turn 25. Aside from the usuals (a little black dress in the closet, an idea of what they want from a relationship, a steady income, blah blah blah), it said that every young woman should have a HOBBY. Sounds easy, right? Well here's where it gets hard. A hobby that does NOT INCLUDE: drinking, shopping, working out, or helping other people. Yep. I'm willing to bet that every single one of my friends reading this is going "well what the heck else is there to do??" It sounds SO superfic...

Honey I'm hoooooooommmeeeee (that's me, yelling to all of my loyal followers, because I haven't written on this blog since first semester). Long story short here is my reason: I'm not one for writing about negative things. I usually like to put a positive/goofy twist on it (who wants to reading whining, am I right?). Anyways, this past year turned negative pretty quickly. -crazy, mean, curse-word loving roommate -two of my nearest and dearest quit working at the school and left Mississippi -moving to a new house in a new town -taking more criticism than I could have ever imagined -learning that I do, in fact, have a breaking point and my patience with children is, surprisingly, not infinite -full on panic attacks every time  I had to return to Mississippi. YEP. worst thing EVER So I stopped writing. Nobody needs to hear about that biznasss. Y'all are reading to hear funny stories about my cute and ridiculous little students! But first, a little update. ...