Welcome to Room 104!

Welcom to my room- come in!

Or, view the picasa album here, if you prefer.

So, here are some of the highly sought-after pictures of my new classroom! I really like my new room, especially now that I feel like it's really "mine." Soon I'll have some more realistic pictures to post... that is, some photos with real live seventh graders in them :D.

The First Week

So, I just finished my first week of teaching (hence the large gap in my posting history)... and I love it here! I love my cohorts, I really like the administration, and of course... I'm already really enjoying the students here. Naturally, I was being tested a bit this week... apparently, students in this district have a reputation for running all over 1st-year teachers. I think they're already learning that's not really going to fly with me :P. But, I've also made a decision to start out very "strict," and go from there, because it's almost impossible to go the reverse direction of that and reel them in.

I've been trying all weekend before I posted to think of an anecdote I could tell you to in some way capture the spirit of this school, and I finally just thought of one. This past Thursday night was Back-to-School night, and so from 6-7:30 we did a meet & greet with parents, etc. Before it started, my principal called a meeting at 5:00 for a "celebration." She had called the staff together to celebrate the fact that we are experiencing phenomenal growth in terms of academic achievement and our test scores, and so she poured a glass of sparkling cider for every staff member and opened up the floor for a toast. She gave the first toast, and literally, had me and about half the staff in tears with the amount of passion and excitement she poured over the staff with her words. Following her, another 10 or 12 people toasted the commitment and pride of both the staff and community surrounding this district. The emotion there was truly authentic; there was hardly a dry eye in the room after it was done. The people at this school truly love being a part of it, and love making it an awesome place for our kidd0s. Note: I write kiddos because about half of the staff affectionately refers to our students as "our kiddos" on a regular basis. :D

I will say my favorite teaching moment came this week when my students did their first Read-Around. On the first day of school, they wrote "Where I'm From" poems about exactly that... where they are from. Then on the second day, students read their poems to the class and received some positive feedback on their poems from their classmates. It was very eye opening because many of my students were very open and honest about their poverty-stricken and in some cases even gang-activity filled backgrounds. It was a neat way to start out our year :).

Melchi's + 1 Shaffer Visit Denver, Attend Rockies Game

So the other excitement of the week was the fact that I got to hang out with family!!! It was so awesome to see Michigan faces in Colorado. The Melchi gang- Jenny, Mark, Jacob & Nick- plus my Aunt Pam- all came into town for a laid back week in CO.

One of my favorite moments of the week involved my watching 5-year old stud-muffin cousin, Nicholas, climb into the hotel hot tub with three 16-year olds in bikinis; and then proceed to carry on conversation as though he'd known them for years. This probably went on for at least a half hour. It provided great entertainment for the rest of us sitting nearby, eating dinner.

Later in the week, we all got tickets for the Rockies game of the weekend. So, I attended my second-ever professional baseball game, first ever in Colorado. Rockies vs. San Fransisco at Coors Field in downtown Denver... the Rockies slaughtered them. We got to watch them score 7 runs in a single inning and left after the 7th Inning. Apparently the Rockies are pretty good this year. As good as the Tigers, though??? I doubt it... ;)