Back to School

Well, my lack of blogging these past few weeks can only mean one thing: school is back in session.  I've set up the classroom, attended the new teacher meetings, planned some lessons, and welcomed the little 6th graders to middle school.  The first day was like trying to herd 200+ cats as they made it to their lockers and tried (and tried...and tried) to open them.  I could barely step out my classroom door during passing period before at least three wide-eyed kids would be asking for help.  The best part would be when you'd watch them try multiple times, then see them look up at the locker number, and proceed to move over to the next locker that was actually theirs.  They really are good kids.  They ask the funniest questions and want to please you so much.  Despite all the change and being back in the "just be a day ahead of them" stage, I'm really loving it.  And you wanna know a really great thing?? Sixth graders eat first lunch, which makes Miss Sauder very happy :)

Before the busyness of life set in, I made a trip to KC to see Jana and the crew.

Cade loves playing "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" 

Little blondies

My sweet Grandmama and Papa had a plant delivered to my new classroom!

All in all it's been a great start to the 2013-2014 school year!  And some exciting news--I will be completely finished with my master's degree as of this Sunday! Woo hoo!!

Good bye summer....until we meet again.

New Classroom Pics

Please forgive me for my lack of creativity with my title, but thanks to blogger you can see how many page views each post gets (confession, I'm a tad obsessed with that) and I've noticed lately that titles that include the word "new" or "change" had sky-rocket amounts of views!  Apparently people like to look at change going on in someone else's life.  My Operation Beach Bod also received a crazy amount of views...interesting.  I'm sorry to have created any disappointment when it was really just more of a title and less of anything regarding a beach or a bod.  What? You weren't expecting a fully clothed Gentry sporting a YMCA Changing Lives folder?! :)

Anyway...my awesome mom continued our tradition of helping me out in my classroom to start the school year.  View this post and this post if you'd like to travel down memory lane of previous years in my classroom. Despite the fact that I haven't really come to terms with the fact that I return to school THIS WEEK, I have really enjoyed setting up a new classroom.  Thanks to my mom's sewing skills and willingness to work into the wee hours of the night (because let's be real, she does the majority of the work and I do the majority of the watching), I got a bit more crafty in this classroom with a valence in the windows and cute throw pillows in my widely expanded class library.  Enjoy some pics!

Couldn't seem to get rid of the red eye...

 

Mom sewed some cute cases for some throw pillows.  Complete with Velcro to remove & wash!

Bulletin board has since been completed, but forgot to snap a finished pic. 

A before and after.  And actually before this before the wall was covered in shelves that I took down.

So there's a brief tour of the place!  Wish me luck as I head off to new teacher training (again) and try to make friends and adjust to a new place.  I'm looking forward to it!