To whomever sent Jared a copy of The Hunger Games really for me and for my classroom, thank you. Jared kept your identity a secret as requested.

It reminds me of my amazon wishlist. I had the my Classroom Book Wish List from Amazon up for some time on my blogroll, but never received anything from it for my classroom. I actually took it down a few weeks ago because 1) I didn’t feel like updating it and 2) I figured nobody ever looked at it anyways.

I went ahead and updated it today and put it back because I usually lose around $200-$400 worth of books every year to maintain my classroom library. There are a lot of people who argue that I shouldn’t have that “library” in my classroom, but it’s worth it to me because it helps the kids have books in their hands. As a teacher of writing and reading, isn’t that pretty important? Especially for the kids who can’t go to the real libraries, or even the school libraries for whatever reasons?

So, whoever thought of me and my students. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I truly appreciate it.

I’ll end with a quote from a very wise man:

“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”

-Mark Twain

Today, I shared one of my poems that I wrote over the summer (during my time with CTWP) with my students. I explained to them that this was my promise to them that writing can be meaningful, and that I have done, or will be doing to some extent, the writing process with them.

I then had them glue it to the inside of the front cover of their writer’s notebooks –we’ll be decorating them tomorrow, which is one of my favorite things!– and I told them that I wanted this to be their reminder that I promise to give 100% to them, and I’m asking them to give some of that effort back to me.

Then I read the poem to the students:

And you know what my kiddos did when I was done reading?

They all clapped and cheered. And one class even did poetic finger snaps.

(PS- Copyright of “Write with Me” 2011 belongs to me, and blah blah blah. Please respect the work!)

This was the craziest first day of school I’ve had yet.

My feet hurt. My voice hurts. My head hurts. I’m exhausted.

But I’m still smiling. You know why?

Because I had a handful of students who came by to visit me from last year. And they weren’t all the star students. In fact, one of the boys (he came by twice, because he was super excited to see if I had had his sister yet) I had failed two of the six grading segments last year because he was just being lazy. lol. I guess you never know who you are motivating, even if they are being toots.

So, the fact that I had students coming by to say hi was incredibly sweet. Very endearing. I am so happy to have been a positive enough influence in their lives that they would take the time to drop by and say hi to me the first day of school.

Also, this is the first year for me where I actually have several sibling students. I have about six or seven students whose older brothers/sisters I have taught in previous years since moving to Texas. Crazy! And I have a few sets of twins this year, too! Hopefully that doesn’t throw me off too much.

So despite the doubling of students I have had in the past, some between teacher dramas, and failure of technology, I’m going to remember those good parts of today.

Hold on to your hats, people. It’s going to be a WILD ride this year!