Adventures in the first day back to school after Thanksgiving Break!

Despite having a long, relaxing Thanksgiving Break, I was quite apprehensive about going back to school. I had been putting off some work that needed to be done within a day or two of coming back (my fault) and I have a chorus concert coming up. The concert isn't hard to plan for, it's just time consuming and requires focus. All this stuff looming over me was making me stressed.

I got good enough sleep on Monday night, ran 6 chilly miles (that will wake ya up!) and headed out the door with a spiffy new haircut and a coffee. I spilled some of my coffee on the way out the door but luckily Paul cleaned it up and I made it to work only one minute late.

When I got to my classroom, I started right in on my to do list. If I crossed a couple things off before the students arrived, I knew I would feel better about the day.

This week, our elementary school building is celebrating 25 years of being open. There are several festivities going on throughout the week, including a popular song from 1993 being played over the loudspeaker each morning. I can't tell you how excited I was that they played Michael Jackson's Will You Be There this morning! I was obsessed with this song when I was in middle school, and the album was my very first CD!! 

I also learned that Thursday would be dress like the 90s day. The funny thing is, I kind of looked like I was dressed from the 90s today!!!!

Every morning, I teach an instrumental lesson. Today was flutes. For some reason, none of my flute students were showing up. I practiced my flute (gotta stay at least one step ahead of my students!) but as the minutes ticked by, I figured I'd better go look for my kiddos.

All alone with my flute...

I found them. They all had their flutes, they just didn't come to their lesson. Okay then... Sometimes I feel like I know how 10 year olds think and then sometimes I have no clue!

At the end of the flute lesson, I realized I went two minutes over and was late for my second grade class! So I rushed over to my classroom, which is right around the corner. I apologized to my class's teacher for being late (I'm NEVER late and RESPECT my colleague's time) but she wasn't worried about it.

A couple minutes later, I realized I left my keys and my phone in the band room and the door was LOCKED! All of my music for my classes is on my phone (I play it via blue tooth through a speaker) so I needed my phone. I had to send two students to the office to ask if I could either borrow a master key to open the band room or if someone could come down and open the door for me.

My principal ended up coming down to open the door for me. How embarrassing! When he came, the kids cheered. Music class was saved! (It's all how you re-frame things, right!?)

Luckily, that was all the craziness for the day. Everything else went smoothly. One of the middle school music teachers even came down and taught 10 of my trumpet students a lesson all by himself so I could have my lunch! I worked through my lunch (chorus stuff) but as any teacher will attest, doing "work" during lunch is way different from teaching during your lunch. Oh, and there were free Diet Cokes in the lunch room. SCORE!!!!!

I survived my first day back! Woohoo! Eighteen school days until Winter Break...

When was the last time you put off a lot of work at work?
Do you like Diet Coke?
When was the last time a colleague really helped you out?