Oh finally - a wonderful day. It did not start out that way though! We were playing math games in class and before I could even get the papers passed out, 2 students were already whining "I don't get it!" I exploded.... unusual for me in class anyway, but especially on Monday morning.... unheard of, but somehow - I guess it was what I needed, and what the kids needed. They settled down - listened and then played the games and had a roaring good time!! All day long!! With choruses of "Can we do this again tomorrow?" "I never knew math games were actually fun!" and good natured ribbing about who beat my score, and who was "cheating" and all sorts of 7th grade fun.

If that was not enough for one day, social studies was awesome too! I had taken photos of tons of businesses. I handed out 9 pics per group of 3 students, with double sided tape, markers and instructions to label each pic as public/private, providing goods/services, profit/non-profit, etc. The kids had a great time and were doing an outstanding job. I highly recommend the activity! It matches some economic standard - and the only difficult part was taking the pics, and that is mostly because of community is small and businesses are few and far between. I took ours on my recent visit to my daughter at college - took pics all along the 200 miles there and back. We had a great variety of businesses for the 3 sections of social studies, and the lesson/project went well in all 3 classes. It is one we will definently repeat.

Some days I love my job... and some days I just keep repeating "I love my job, I love my job." over and over trying to convince myself of that fact.

Today.... I love my job! And one last confession: I skipped the union meeting and school board meeting - I just did not want all that negativity tonight. Tomorrow is parent teacher conferences and I need to meet parents with a positive outlook. Wish me luck!