Lack of Motivation

I have not been so great about updating my blog lately.  The first part of the school year I have worked and worked and worked.  I worked all day at school, then came home and worked some more until it was time for bed.

Then in the last week or so, I've found myself with no motivation whatsoever.  I have done bare minimum amounts of work.  I'm so unmotivated to do anything.  Not even things I like to do.  I sound like I'm depressed, but I don't feel depressed.  Maybe I just needed a break.

One of the teachers I work with made the coolest art thing for Halloween.  I took a picture so I could steal  borrow it for next year.

My kitchen remodel has stalled.  If you're interested in seeing how things are going with that, you can visit my personal blog Joell'w Misc. Musings.

My students are loving the ipod touches we got.  They're such great motivators and really keep the kids engaged.  My room is at its quietest when the ipods come out.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up on us rather quickly, it's time for some gratitude.

I'm thankful for:

An awesome family.

Fabulous friends.

Pretty Good health.

A new Kitchen (well, almost.)

My kitty.

My job including coworkers and students.

All the modern conveniences of our times.

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of things, but my lack of motivation has kicked in and I'm going to finish up now. 

Joell

Halloween Decor

Hi,

I just wanted to share some of the Halloween decorations we've somehow managed to sneak in a few minutes to make.  (Don't get me started on the lack of time for anything but language arts and math especially in title 1 schools these days.)

We made these ghosts.  I inherited the pattern from my team years ago when I first started teaching at my school.

This one is mine.  The pattern is printed on white xerox paper. Then it is glued onto colored butcher paper. This year I let the students choose between orange, black, green and purple backs.

If you do this in your classroom, it's important to have students only put glue where they're not going to cut, or give it plenty of time for the glue to dry before they do the cutting.  I just look on the back and use a pencil to draw a line along the spiral to show them where to put the glue.

Here they are hanging from my lights.  The camera doesn't like shooting into a light. Sorry.

The kids love the spiral tail hanging down.

It's fun to see how they each decide to decorate their ghosts' faces.

You can see the colored backs better in this one.

Ghosts coming and going.  

Another angle.

On a completely different note, I spent some time this weekend playing with one of the ipod touches I got from Donorschoose.org.  I'm so excited to get these into the hands of kids, but first I need to get screen covers and over the ear headphones.  If you give a mouse a cookie....

Joell