Take a Deep Breath

This blog post is more for me personally than about the kids.

If the days could slow down, I would sure appreciate it.

In my fifth year of teaching, I can't say that I have ever experienced such a busy time; that includes activities in and out of the classroom. I won't bore you with all of the details of my personal life, but I will share one.

Many of you are aware that I am involved in a play through the Yorkshire Playhouse. I have really enjoyed the acting experience, but it has made for some long nights. The play opens this week, so we have been running the entire show every rehearsal for the past week. Last night was the first night for make-up (can't say I'm very good at putting eye liner on). Including all of the things we had going on after the show, I didn't get home until around 11:00. Thankfully, I have downtime during the show and can get some work done, but still had some work to do.

Today, the kids saw leftover make-up on my face. Evidently, I am just as good at taking the make-up off as I am at putting it on. The kids knew that I was involved in play, but today I had a great opportunity to share about it. The newspaper ran a story about it so I was able to show the kids pictures from the set. This isn't a kids show. I have told them that it is scary and probably not the ideal show for them to see. I didn't really know what the story was about until after being cast. I am glad to be doing this and hope to do another play some time. Maybe the kids will get to see me next time.

In the classroom we seem to go from even to event. Here's the rundown since Christmas.

- Martin Luther King Jr. holiday (I spoke at a conference that day so didn't really have the day off.)

- The 100th Day of School - due to weather, the 100th day of school was going to conflict with Catholic Schools Week. I rearranged thing a bit and had a 99th day of school mystery. This was a lot of work, but I think that the kids enjoyed it.

- Catholic Schools Week - What a fun week!

- Parent Teacher Conferences - short week of school.

================ Current Week ==============

- Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday on the same day, so all of our Valentine's Day activities happened on Tuesday instead

- Stations of the Cross starts this Friday.

- Field Trip to the Science Museum - Next Friday we are gone for most of the school day. I love taking this trip.

- Kindergarten Round-up - Time to welcome in next years kids.

- Nim's Island Party - when we finally finish the book, we will have an island party and watch the movie. This book is a lot of fun to read to the kids.

- Spring Break

After that things cool off for about 2 weeks. Then we have Pot of Gold and Easter!

I didn't mention in that list that we will begin our end of the school countdown. Yes, first grade is around the corner. These kids will be ready, but I am not ready to give them up yet.

Excuse my short little rant about how fast time is going by. I think that it is pretty normal, but it seems even crazier this year than others. What do you think?