"Miss Stepp, will you dob me???"

Okay, I have to say that I think it is the funniest thing in the world that these kids have never seen a bingo dobber.  They want me to dob everything!!!!  I use it for checking to see if they have done their planners and journals and occasionally I use it on another assignments too.  Apparently it is the greatest thing they have seen in a long time! 
On to more classroom stuff! My kids are settling into the routine a bit more each day.  They still have trouble standing in line quietly and not making sarcastic remarks/facial expressions. Hence, we spend a lot of our time practicing how to stand in line, come into the room as I expect and work!!  My students got a stern lecture from the other teacher while I was giving them instructions in the hall today.  They earned extra social studies work today! Ouch!! Someone whined about it and I asked them if they would like an extra page for whining or if they would like to sit and do their work without whining.  That got them to work promptly!!  Another thing my kids haven't figured out is how to sit in their chairs properly with all four legs on the floor.  I took away three chairs today and they lost the privilage of using them until the end of the day. My first kiddo lost theirs before morning recess at 10am.  OUCH!!! Needless to say they were very tired of standing or sitting on the floor by the end of the day.  Oh well!!! 
Not much else to talk about other than the fact that my days are going better and I am getting into the swing of things and my days are going better.  I was a bit tired today and so hopefully a good night's rest will fix that up.  I have been putting twelve hours into the classroom these past few days and though it is an enormous amount of time to be spending it doesn't feel that bad.  I love what I do and therefor it is good!!  Oh, and coming up, I have not one, but TWO three day weekends in a row.  The second one is not totally a work free weekend  because I will be in Billings for an inservice day.  Yay!! We have lots and next inservice days I will be headded to Helena for two or three days!!! Yippee!! Unfortunately, Helena is four hours away but hopefully I will have someone to ride with on the way over. Especially since I have never driven to Helena from this side of the state!! Tomorrow is looking to be another wonderful day. Oh yeah, one of my fifth graders told me not to be grumpy pants tomorrow...I told him I wouldn't if he would do his work then I wouldn't have to be grumpy....