When's our next day off?

OK, how sad is it that we've only been back to school for two days, and I'm already counting down to our next day off. That would be 8 days, by the way, thank you Martin Luther King! Actually, that's going to be a nice week. We are all off Monday, Jan. 21 for MLK, then the kids are off on Friday, Jan 25 for a teacher institute day. Sweet!

Today for reading we read Apple Farmer Annie. We were discussing the pictures on each page, and discussing the vocabulary from the story. Basically, the book is about Annie who grows apples (duh!), then harvests them, and makes applesauce, apple pies, apple cakes, apple muffins and apple cider. Then, she takes all that, and some apples to the market and sells them all. On the page with the market scene, I was asking the babies what they saw in the picture. They tell me some of the things, but then I point to the produce scale in the picture and ask if anyone knows what it is. A couple kids say some goofy things, then one baby says, "A clock!" which wasn't too bad a guess, since it was round, with numbers going around, and a big red "hand." Then another says it's for weighing fruit. Now we're getting somewhere! I keep trying to get the word scale out of one of them, dropping hints, but still having weird answers flying out at me from all over the room. Finally, one yells out, "It's a weigh-clock!" I almost lost it! They are so damn cute!

I realize no one else really gives a hoot, but the babies actually had another wonderful rest time today. I was actually able to get a whole week's worth of lesson plans finished! Once again, they all got an extra treat today. Yay Room 104!

I am going to sign off before I have a chance to write anything negative today. I'm trying to stay positive in the new year! Oo, wait, one more good thing. I signed up today for a workshop I'm supposed to attend for mentors. (Dori's my mentee, of course!) I found out on the way home that two of my friends (women I just graduated with, actually) also received the notice about going, and they're going to sign up for the same day I registered for. It would be nice enough if we were going to get the chance to spend the day together in the same place. But, in a matter of minutes, I was able to convince them to ditch the workshop and just hang out all day together! We'll do lunch, maybe go shopping, who knows. All I know is it'll be fun to see them. Actually, we also made plans to meet Friday night for dinner. What a great way to end our first week back to school.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature. ---Ralph Waldo Emerson