Mrs. Myers' Fifth Grade Class

As promised, here is a real post all about my new life as Mrs. Myers the teacher. Ok, so it's not really a "new life," but it seems like it is my life sometimes. But we're getting into a routineand it's a whole lot less time consuming. I still put in some long hours, but I'm glad to say that I'm home on time more often than not.

July and August were spent cleaning, organizing, sorting,

sanitizing, cleaning, organizing, and cleaning my classroom, with a little organizing on the side. I was overjoyed to recieve a classroom FULL of free stuff. However, not one bit of it was organized or clean...two things I can't function without! The man whose classroom I inherited went into administration and is now an assistant principal at our school. Thus, he won't be teaching anymore and has no need for all the classroom supplies that took him years to collect. He gave it ALL to me, which I will ever be grateful for. I have tons of cool science and math stuff (like a constellation projector and clear geometric solids), class sets of glue, crayons, colored pencils, scissors, tape, rulers, markers.........and all that sort of good stuff. I even have a gross of pencil top erasers! (Yes, a real gross. 144.) But most of all, I HAVE BOOKS!!!! BEAUTIFUL, GLORIOUS BOOKS!!!!! A good classroom library is something that takes years and years to build up. But somehow I was lucky enough to inherit possibly the largest classroom library in the entire school of about 50 teachers. I have....drumroll please......over 2,000 books! Books, books, books! I have over 80 titles in my class/group sets collection. There are books of all types, so it's good for all the interests of my kids. I could not be more thankful! There is no way I could ever build up something like that on my own. Let's do some math: 2,000 books times at least $7 per book equals at least $14,000 worth of books. That's almost half of my salary for crying out loud! When I leave that classroom, I'm leaving those books for the next person, but first I'm going to go through them and keep some for myself!

Ok, one last thing about the books. The 800+ that are in the main part of my library were in no sort of order at all. They were all shoved in random spots on the bookcases. There is no way I could leave them like that and not go crazy. So over the summer, I enlisted the help of Todd, Mom, and Dad to organize them. We put them all in the computer, put a library pocket in the front of each, and a library card in each pocket. Then, we alphabetized them by author's last name. They're not 100% alphabetized, because that would have been a nightmare. All the A's are in the A section, the B's with the B's and so on. That's good enough for me. Besides, by the end of the year they'd be all mixed up anyhow. Alright, enough about the books...

My class is wonderful! I have a great group of kids, and I feel very lucky to have all of them. I keep trying to remember what life was like as a fifth grader, and I can see myself in them so much. When I look at my kids, I know exactly who is the Jimmy Walp, the Sammy Dinsmore, and the Justin Phelps. (Heather will appreciate that probably more than anyone.) And then there's the Abby and Jessica pair, except with less fighting. It's so similar sometimes that it's scary. Fifth grade was probably my favorite year out of all my public education. And now I get to make it memorable for my little group!

We vote on things all the time in my class. I let them decide little things every day so it gives them some ownership. Our first official vote was on the first day of school when we named our classroom pets. They are three little fish that live on the counter by the sink. There were many lively suggestions for names such as Volcano, Cheese Face, and Uncle Buck, but luckily those names didn't win the vote. The winning names: white fish=Snowball, yellow fish=Bubbles, and the orange fish=Rusty. I like those names much better, and so far they've been alive and well. Sometimes I worry about them dying in the middle of class, but I do my best to keep them healthy so I don't have to stop my lesson plans for an emergency funeral.

This first month has been really stressful, but a lot of fun. We're still working on some basics like raising your hand and not talking while I'm talking, but that's a fight all teachers fight at the start of the year. If only those skills would last through the summer.... We have a lot of fun and work hard at the same time. I'm so glad I have this job. I always thought I'd only want to teach the little kids. But I have found that it's a lot more fun to teach kids who can read, right, and get my jokes! I think it's funny when they think I'm funny. I never knew I was such a comedian, but they bring out my witty side and we all have a good laugh. What good is school if you can't have fun?

If you're ever in Rexburg, feel free to stop by Madison Middle School and come see me in room 101! But no calling me Kaila, it's Mrs. Myers--they still haven't figured out my first name, and I would hate to spoil it for them. :)

My teacher's area before, and my teacher's area now...nice and clean!