Room 15 With Ms. B

Okay so this is now November and I have been missing since July.  Yes, I know.  I started a new room at a new school and have been BUSY.  Here are some before and after pictures of my room, prekids and around end of first quarter.

I am teaching special ed and its called an MU room.  MU means the students have more than one major disability.  I would call it more of a functional room, where you are trying to teach kids basic LIFE skills; how to sit in a chair, how to button clothes, wash hands/ bathrooom, feed themselves, or whatever THEY can do on their own we work on.

I knew I had this room, at this new school but I was unable to get into school until August and then had meetings IMMEDIATELY.  It was scary, I had NO information about my seven students.  I had to annoy the HELL out of my boss to get IEPs to know what to expect, how to set up room, what kind of things to plan for lessons, and get information because parents were already calling me.  Imagine that first call from a parent, "Yup, I am your child's new teacher but can you tell me her name?"  AHHH
AND to make matters even better, the students I was getting were mainly kindergartners or first graders that were not from this school before.  Also to make matters better, I had 3 students (once I was allowed to see the IEPs) that required a MAJOR health needs.... THINK G-Tube, seizures, AND one that has PICA.  Pica is an illness that you will eat everything and EVERYTHING!

In the next few stressful months, oh man oh man.  The seven students went down to 5 (one got moved to the higher level of kids and one moved districts), staff has changed over so many times I stopped bothering to label adult lockers, added a dry erase sticker if they wanted to write their names daily... Highs and lows of each kid.  1.  Cute as pie and her parents are super awesome BUT her parents are divorced and mom and dad's new lady hate each other so I have to play mediator.  2. Cute and still tiny BUT he is spoiled rotten and kinda a turd face. 3. OMG he is cutest we have and great personality and has moved mountains with his personal growth AND his mom is super and will always help me BUT his story makes me really sad and I have so many questions that will never be answered and with maybe best mom in class title, it is also hard to understand her.  4. He has most personality in class, best sense of humor, and easily the smartest one we have BUT he can be violent and aggressive and rest of the babes are definitely not able to defend themselves or really even realize that danger is happening and we must physically remove the other students.  5.  Okay she is another real adorable one NOW she won't be for long at the rate she eats and how she acts but as a five year old... she is adorable.  She also has a ton of spunk BUT she has gotten to be extremely non-compliant and well basically the honeymoon is over with her.

 Now, due to student needs at ONE time, our room was full staffed with 5 Paras and myself.  That is not consistent and churning over all the time that does not help form student success or room flow.  And then, it'll got good and smooth for maybe 3 days with staff and student and BOOM the adults get into a crazy fight.  I don't even understand how grown folks are so ridiculous that I have to classroom manage adults more so then the children.  I LOVE a few of the Para's in room 15 so much that I know for a fact I could not survive without them.  A few others, cause a lot of drama..




SO to get along with things I will make a list of the 3 things that are MUSTS for room 15
-Laminator- The building staff asked me, do you think you will continue to laminate as much as you currently do? Uh yes, very likely; I have kids that eat everything and take more than one turn with things to grasp concept so we repeat, repeat, repeat.   I have a personal laminator and I LOVE it.  Boss got me a pack of 200 laminate packets.  IT. WAS. LIKE CHRISTMAS!
-VELCRO- I use it so much after I laminate something.  I only had one kind (male) and would always run outta the female.... When asking for extra apparently NOBODY knew the labels of male and female for the velcro.  Guys I know I didn't come up with this on my own.  lalala female stays home while males go out and roam (SO  female kind STAYS on the whatever and male is the movable part).  If you use velcro a lot you have to come up with staying or you will fudge yourself over and it gets annoying...
-PEOPLE- mentors, paras, my manfriend and momma who spend a lot of time helping me cut/ laminate/ cut AGAIN and then add velcro.... it is a very time consuming process and I need help, friends, fam, bus drivers, everybody that hears me complain, the other teachers that are helpful, the new adm that listen to me and try to help.

(Noted: all these adults in the pictures don't have the same privacy standards I give to my babies.)