My brain is mush!

My brain is starting to feel like mush from working all day today! I have so many new ideas and have come across so many wonderful and new activities that instead of crossing things off of my work to-do list I have added even more things to it!

In the process I was able to plan out the first few weeks of school and think I may have finally found a great set of stuff to do for the first day of school.

Even though this is my seventh year teaching (holy crap I feel old!) I still find the first day of school to be incredibly difficult to plan for. I think it’s because when I was in grad school I was under the illusion that the first day of school is the day that you delve right into who you are, what your students should expect from you, what your classroom rules are, setting up their notebooks etc. which is really not the case. Sure the students should feel welcomed and understand that they can’t run ramshod in the classroom but sometimes their schedules change and then end up in different class periods and sometimes even different teachers for the first week, and even two, of school. I don’t want to go over important stuff too soon and have to continually do it as students are moving in and out.

In my quest of doing some research on interactive notebooks (save yourself some time and just go right here if you’re a teacher and want to know more about them) I came across some sites on what to do for the first day of school. One of the sites suggested reading a story to them and I thought it was a great idea! I know what you’re thinking, my students are in 7th grade and aren’t in elementary school anymore but trust me, they love being read to! I decided on Hooray for Diffendoofer Day because it sounds like a really cute book. I’ve never read it but it got some great reviews and should be arriving at my door sometime later this week – thank you Amazon!

I did have some fun today when my new camera strap showed up in the mail! After seeing the cute strap that Tina blogged about a few weeks ago I was going back and forth between ordering one from August Blossoms and decided to go for it.

In the package

It was even more pretty than the picture on the site and exactly what I was looking for. Once we got it all attached to the camera I was able to play around with it a little bit and loved how thick and soft the strap is. It’s so much more comfortable around my neck compared to the itchy Nikon one. I also liked that it’s a bit longer so I can wear it around my body without looking like a fool.

I think my favorite part of the strap is the nifty little pocket for the lens cap. Love it! Now I won’t be walking around with it in my hand or stuffing it in my pocket and wondering where it went. Although I have it partially out in the picture it goes in all the way and is snug enough that it won’t fall out if the strap is turned upside down. Yes, I tested it.

After sitting at the computer all day long I’m completely wiped out! Clearly I need to get used to the grind of working daily and I’m thankful that I’m slowly easing myself back into it by working this week. Tomorrow I’m going in to school and will hopefully have my classroom set up by the end of the day. Fingers crossed!

Do you ever feel like looking into something that you’re interested in leads you to looking up even more things? I do!