"What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation." -Glenn Close

MY CLASSROOM TRANSITION  (it felt like an episode of hoarders/extreme home makeover) this is the classroom i walked into three and a half weeks ago. four days before my students started. yeah. (the vision in pink is my guardian angel, mrs. jones, who literally helps me to survive every single day. her first act of grace was helping me with this room. bless her heart.) chaos. cleaning. i honestly think "hoarders" could hire me to help after this ordeal. just keep enjoying. AND then, after four days of hard work, including help from the amazing and selfless muresuk mena, my room was ready for the students to arrive. it wasn't perfect, but it looked like a classroom. check out that beautiful, brand new SMART board   clean, organized (ish), right? beautiful clean whiteboards! My desk has never looked and will never look this clean ever again.  READY FOR KIDDOS! :) ....................

So I have officially completed three weeks of teaching in my own first grade classroom in Mississippi. It has been many things, including exhausting, busy and chaotic, but it has also already been full of moments that are shaping who I am and who I want to be as a teacher. I'm learning a lot, working a lot, fixing a lot, changing a lot and constantly reminding myself why I'm here. This is basically what my life looks like down here (by the dubs I've been here for almost 3 months now. holy BUCKETS time flies, like WHAT?): 1. I teach first grade writing, language and science/social studies (mostly writing/language). There are 46 students in the first grade, 15-16 in each of three classes, and they rotate from classroom to classroom for the different subjects. Yes, they are so young for that. No, I've never heard of it anywhere else. But YES, they CAN handle it, they are BRILLIANT little children, resilient and flexible. We're all working together and doing everyth