"Ms. H, what do you do on a snow day?"

Greetings, readers!  This question was posed to me in my first week in kindergarten as we had a writing exercise in which students wrote, "On a snow day, I like to..."  Tomorrow will in fact be a snow day, which I am happy/sad about.  I am sad because I feel as if I have been robbed of my last day with my kindergarten peanuts!  I will transition as planned to first grade with Mrs. V on Monday.  BUT, I'm happy for the time off.  On this snow day, Ms. H will...

* Read, read, read!  For class and for pleasure :)
* Attend a board meeting for her theatre org
* Hold a rehearsal with her cast that she would have otherwise missed
* Update her PPA to include all that she accomplished in kindergarten
* Probably sleep in (a whole extra hour to 8:30, woo!) and watch TV
* Drink tons of tea to ease her sore throat (hold out until February break!)

In other news, my supported lead day went fairly well!  The morning was quite smooth until jobs time. I taught a mini-lesson on tricky letters which was really fun, then our first job was "magic c mystery letters."  Children received a sheet with several rows of lower-case c characters.  Their job was to trace the C, then follow my instructions to make a new letter -- a, d, g, o, or q.  HELLO DISASTER.  Getting 21 kids to follow an instruction like this all at once proved nightmarish.  We wound up only doing 28 of them, then leaving the last line blank, which freaked a bunch of kids out.  Then the second job was a worksheet very unlike anything they had done before.  I was so stressed about time that I did a poor job of explaining it.  It was chaos!  We didn't even think about the other two jobs.  But as Mrs. M said as the kids left for lunch, "Welcome to my world...changing plans on the fly."  So, it seems that I coped well.

We spent lunch in the classroom, wolfing down the occasional bite of food and frantically prepping for 100th day and our Chinese New Year party.  During lunch, Mrs. V popped in and told us a snow day had been called...so we proceeded to prep for Monday plans instead!  While the kids were in PE, the Chinese food we ordered should have been delivered...but we waited and waited to no avail.  When the kids returned and we were still food-less, I waited in the office with the money in hand.  35 minutes late, the delivery guy rushed in!  He had been pulled over, so he gave us the food for free :) We ate veggie fried rice, drank apple juice, practiced picking up pom poms with chopsticks, and then went on a dragon parade.  TOO CUTE.

The day wound down with Mrs. M running reading groups and me squeezing in a last few assessments.  As I said goodbye to my kiddos, I failed to remember it was my last day with them!  But fortunately I'll be able to visit, and Mrs. M said they'll be thrilled when they see me around school :) Onward and upward, I suppose.  Trying to mentally switch gears to prepare for what I know will be an entirely different world.  I leave kindergarten surprised at how much I loved it...who knows what this might mean for my future career?

Speaking of career, I will (hopefully, weather allowing) be meeting with my future employer from Korea on Sunday.  Hoping to hear a little more about how and when they do grade level placements -- I'm gunning for half-time in second and third grade classrooms, but I'm open to anything!

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Currently reading:  NOT GEORGE R. R. MARTIN!  I finished last night, just started Educating Esme today
Current high:  a really fun, productive, and challenging choir rehearsal
Current low:  no more kinders, it's really hitting me hard!