First Day Back

I finally broke down and went into my classroom for the first time since June. I deliberately planned on making it a short visit, just enough time to move around a few desks and make a mental checklist of what to get at the teacher store.

Our closest all-encompassing teacher store, Lakeshore Learning, is less than 10 miles away, but with traffic the commute could take up to an hour each way. Since I was heading that direction to have a yummy, vegetarian lunch with my cousin and aunt (tomorrow's blog perhaps?), I decided to make my once a year pilgrimage to the teacher store. Under normal circumstances the aisles would be crowed (it's a pretty small store), but with less than three weeks before the first official bell of the 2009-2010 school year, the store was like the Atlanta airport the day before Thanksgiving.

During my hour and a half visit to Lakeshore Learning I overheard several fun conversations: teachers talking about buying handheld "Stop" signs and using them in inappropriate ways, others debating which name tags are better "the frogs or the fish," and a couple teachers commenting on not buying too much at the beginning of the year. I almost had a "gag me with a spoon" reaction to two uber cute...I'm talking complimentary, knee-length, subtle floral print skirts and bright-eyed enthusiasm of second year, probably kindergarten, teachers who were discussing which scratch n' sniff stickers to get for the first day of school. Ugh. Just give them another year or two and I bet their apple-scented stickers become a lower priority on their shopping list.

After loading up my cart with several important consumable products (birthday crowns, star student posters, you know, the basics) and a few impulse buys (the writing traits poster pack and the giant "look what we did" bulletin board letters), I made it out of the store for under $100...pretty good by my standards! Now if only I could get someone else to do the rest of my prep for me. Any takers? :)