Teacher=Hoarder

Today after our staff meeting, the gym teacher mentions that she still needs the gym cleared out and people should come down and take a look at what is there. Christina (my fellow intern) and I decide we should go look. We will be teachers next year. We will be starting from scratch. It's a good thing to build up our resources. Down to the basement gym we go.

SCORE!

I have been really missing the individual white-boards that my students had when I was in Australia. It was such a good way for quick formative assessments. Also, white-boards allowed every student to share an answer. Guess what I found in the basement? Heck yes! Mini white-boards. And not only are they mini white-boards, on one side there is handwriting lines. I can use the boards for quick answers in all subject areas, but even in teaching handwriting (if I have 4th grade and under).

And like that wasn't enough to make my day, I found a bunch of math games. But not just ANY math games...I found Challenge 24!!! You probably don't even care, but let me tell you, when I was in elementary school Challenge 24 was the bomb-digity. I am very excited to be able to use this game in my future classrooms.

Overall, I found some things that will be helpful, and probably some things that I'll want to get rid of eventually, but for now, I am an inspiring teacher WITH resources. Believe me, it feels good. ...except for the fact that now I am becoming something that I never was... Here are some pictures of my car:

This is one of the saddest things. My car has always been clean (because I was so traumatized by the abundant storage space that my mom's car has become). And now...now it's full of an aspiring teacher's resources. Someone give me a classroom quick!

On another note, today I was very amused by one of my students. My teacher wrote on the board numbers for fact families (3,9,12; 4, 2, 6; 5, 6, 11....etc.) She asked the students what was in a fact family. One student said three numbers. Good answer. The next student that she called on said commas. Also, good answer. Yes, there are commas in fact families....but actually, wrong answer. Hmm. How can we make that more clear?