Hi Friends!
Ahhh...Christmas break...finally!
There's a blizzard warning today in my neck of the woods...and plenty of Christmas cookies to survive on while I'm snowed in!
Too many cookies, to be honest.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas!
The school shooting threw me for a serious loop during our last week of school. Beside the fact of just being completely sick to my stomach about it and the constant thoughts of "the how's" and "why's" of it all, I found myself becoming paranoid about everything around me...at school and home. I kind of felt like a lot of people at school were like, "It will never happen here" and were able to continue school life as it always was, while there were a few of us questioning our safety procedures...maybe a little more than what our administration expected, but I kind of feel that our concerns needed to be heard and validated. E-mails were sent telling us that we were safe, etc. but I just needed a little more that week. So, I taught more with my door closed and locked that week than I have in probably my whole teaching career. I left school immediately and came home to do my work. I was uneasy the whole week. Then to top it all off, our district received a threat which was later reported as not credible on Thursday. Apparently there were several schools that received threats in our area. School went on as normal on Friday but several families kept their children at home and I don't blame them a bit. There were a few teachers who were appalled that parents kept their children home, but how can you blame them? Many of the classrooms were missing anywhere from 8-10 children because their families kept them home. I was pretty much only there because I didn't want my kiddos with a substitute teacher who didn't know them or our classroom. Some may say I'm over-reacting, but it's kind of a big deal and I was and probably still am in need of a little reassurance. Our district had extra security in our buildings that day, although I didn't see any...probably because I was locked in my room with my kids. One of our officers announced on our PA that Santa was in the building...my heart sunk/sank(?)...was that a code for something? Any other time, I would know that he was just trying to be silly with the kids on their last day of school before Christmas break...but it just didn't set well with me.
I knew I just needed to make it to the end of the day so we did a few "Polar Express" activities and then spent the rest of the morning having fun with our friends because Christmas is all about spending time with friends and family. Yep...we turned on some Christmas music, read and played games with our friends, and just hung out together...no structure, no expectations. We spent the afternoon watching
The Polar Express and I decided to take down our Christmas tree. I have never taken down my Christmas tree with the kids in the room. I usually spend a full day over Christmas break in my classroom getting things ready for the new year but this year is different. I feel like I need to spend time with my family this Christmas...and that's what I'm doing.
Well, except today because we're in the midst of a blizzard right now so it's just me and a few piles of work that need my attention...and I just don't feel like working on them today. :)
My family has this weird habit of taking pictures of what our yards look like during snowstorms. Especially during snow days...so here's a view of our blizzard from my front door.
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| There's a highway behind those trees believe it or not! |
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| This is the field in my front yard...brrr! |
Onto some fun! I'm helping a new friend celebrate her 1st year as a blogger! Check out her blog and make sure you enter her give-away...I mean, give-aways!! A bunch of bloggers have donated things to her give-away...it's a biggie!
Keep warm and take care!
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