Friday, September 28, 2007

Another one...

Ok, I think we have a "write a letter to the teacher" thing starting up, here. I just got another one from a different girl and apparently I "make the stars shine at night and make every day exciting!" I don't know about that... I didn't realize I had any effect at all on the stars.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Something that made me smile

I got this letter from one of my students today:

Dear Mrs. Gafford,
Thank-you for being my teacher! You are the best teacher in the world! Thank-you for being calm when the class is out of hand. I love your curly hair. You always have a beautiful outfit on. I love you.
Your student,
Jessica

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Probably time for an update

I'm looking at our blog and getting kind of tired of seeing my classroom pictures posted there. (Perhaps it's because I see that view every day). So I'm thinking it's time for another post. I'm not entirely sure what I'll post about; we'll just see where the keyboard takes me.

School continues to go well. I am enjoying 3rd grade as I knew I probably would. And I'm pleased to share that I'm finally feeling on top of my game now. I can see my desk and though I have about 10-12 different sets of papers still waiting to be graded, I'm feeling pretty well caught up and productive at work this week. I think I'm to the point where I can start going home a little earlier and not work so many 11 hour days. (Although it's those evening hours grading papers at home that can really add up!) Today was a good day for getting ahead a little. My kids had Computers for 1/2 hour and Art for 45 min. this afternoon so I was able to get all of next weeks plans written. That's always a good feeling to have that done before Friday.

Church is going well. We kicked off our new campus in Hudson, WI two weeks ago (a video venue meeting in a school). David and I were able to attend last week since he didn't have to lead worship and there must have been 150 or so people there. It's pretty exciting.

Another exciting thing is how many new volunteers David has had for worship arts lately. He held auditions about a month or so ago and brought on I think 8 new people (both instrumental and vocal) and since then has met enough new people that are interested that he will be holding auditions again this coming week. This has all been a real answer to prayer since opening the new campus in Hudson. We now are in need of twice the volunteers every week to staff both campuses.

And in weather news, I guess there was a tornado or two here in Woodbury this evening. All I know is that on my way driving to church for worship practice, I heard the sirens and suddenly it was down to about zero visibility due to the horizontal rain. I was hit by several random pieces of hail and eventually made it the additional 1/2 mile to the church. A little while later some of the band members joined us and mentioned that they'd heard about (and one had even seen) a funnel cloud in the very area that I'd just driven through. I'm glad I made it without any harm done and I was also relieved when I got back home to find our house and all accompanying trees still standing.

Well, for not having anything significant to blog about, I certainly did manage to ramble on, didn't I?

Sunday, September 09, 2007

One week down...

Well, I survived my first week in third grade (for the second time I guess, since I spent a year in third grade back in good old 1986-1987). It was a pretty good week. I have a very small class of only 15 students and being the first week of school, they were all angels. Check back with me in December and we'll see how that changes.... :-)


The following pictures are primarily for my mom who wants to see my new classroom. I had the option of switching rooms, and even though my new room is smaller and has less storage space, it's in a newer part of the building and therefore does not have the musty basement/stale air smell that my previous room had. So far I don't regret my decision one bit. And the high school teachers that are currently using my old room for only an hour at a time don't blame me one bit for wanting to move. So here are a few views of where I spend my days: