January...already?!

Yes, I know, I've been slacking. Honestly, I have no excuse other than December is a crazy time for a teacher. This year it  entailed a new student the day before an important field trip, an important field trip, being told at the last minute that we were to perform a song at our school's holiday show, 3 IEPs, my yearly formal observation (the final week before vacation!), and Polar Express Week...crazy, right?

Every year our district participates in Signing Santa. The adults (or at least I do) calls it controlled chaos. Imagine 50ish kids of varying ages (3-14ish) thrown into a school cafeteria with carnival like games scattered all around and basically left to socialize and play as they see fit <insert cringe face here>. Each year it's a big production and each year the kids love it! They get to talk to Santa, perform a song, play games, earn prizes, and take home presents. To them it's a huge success. To me it's draining, but I'm ecstatic that they have so much fun.

The day we got back from this field trip I was informed that we were to perform a song at our school's holiday show the following week... luckily we had just performed a song at Signing Santa and so we made our lives easy and recycled the song. :) Seriously, these kids are troopers- one of them literally learned the song in less than a day seeing as he started the day before this field trip. For your enjoyment here's a link to view the video of them performing at the Holiday Show (the end is the best part): Holiday Show

*For those of you that know sign language, don't judge the glossing too harshly, we were on limited time and it had to be kept simple for the little ones :)

**Michelle, we had the principal in tears over this and Jeanne approved, so the glossing is perfect in my opinion ;)

Whew...I Can't Believe It's December Already!

Wow, so first let me apologize for not posting a blog in quite some time. Time has gotten away from us! I was on vacation the entire week of Thanksgiving so I was not here to participate in our Thanksgiving activities. :( As far as I know, the kiddies had tons of fun making butter and whipped cream for pumpkin pie. :)

I spent my Thanksgiving week camping in Ocala National Forest (something we do every year). This year wasn't much fun for the most part- I got bit by red ants (to which I'm allergic), I ended up with the flu, it down-poured for a straight 24 hours (which soaked through our tent while I was sick), and then just when I started feeling better I ended up with ash in my eye from the campfire (so I spent Thanksgiving blind because it hurt too much to open either eye).  But the last 56 hours were absolutely gorgeous! Temps. in the 50s/60s during the day and 30s at night!

Needless to say, I was looking forward to getting back into the groove since vacation wasn't as relaxing as it should have been. Once December rolled around, we really got down to work with practicing our performance for our annual Signing Santa field trip. Every year all the elementary, preschool, and middle school D/HH students get together for some winter/holiday fun. The kiddos had a blast and did a great job performing. I wish I could show you their performance, but the file is too large and I can't figure out how to compress it... :( (Don't worry, their parents have all signed media release forms!)