Testing is Over!! But My Allergies Aren't.

That's it!  I'm completely done with MAP testing for the year.  Fin. Finished.  Finito.  It really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  For four days, we spent the first couple of hours each morning testing.  Everyone in the school was finished by lunch time, so our schedule really wasn't affected at all.

The only thing I really hated about it was...well...

Do you ACHOO know ACHOO how hard it ACHOO is to ACHOO read portions of a ACHOO test, when ACHOO all ACHOO you keep doing ACHOO is sne... ACHOO ezing?

Not easy at all.  I'm trying to read the instructions and give information about the test, when every other word I'm sneezing or blowing my nose.  It was terrible.  My sweet kids were very forgiving, and even thought it was pretty comical... but it was driving me nuts!

My allergies seem to be really bad this year.  I'm not surprised.  It rains and rains for days and days, then gets up to 80 degrees one day then drops 2" of snow the next.  The weather is crazy, which is doing crazy stuff with the pollen and the barometric pressure...all of which play havoc on my sinuses.

I've blown my nose so much this past week or so that I've actually rubbed blisters on the poor thing.  I've gone through the last box of Kleenex I had in my room.  And my chest feels like someone is sitting on it and just won't get up.

I had to get up at midnight last night and do a breathing treatment because I was having such a hard time breathing.  It is no bueno!

The sad part is, it's only going to get worse.  I have to start cleaning up my classroom and preparing for the summer next week.  Do you know how much dust has gathered in my room?  Once I start wafting it around everywhere I'll be having sneezing fits constantly.

Oh well, that's enough whining about it.  I've had allergies my whole life, it's not like I'm dealing with them for the first time.  Once the sun comes out enough to burn everything to a crisp, I won't have to worry about it again until the fall.

This week, I get to enjoy going back to regularly scheduled programming of teaching math and reading.  And the best part is, I can teach some of the fun stuff we didn't really have to worry too much about for the test.  There's still eleven days left of school, and it's going to be tough to try and make the kids focus too much.  I figured it was best to bring out some more fun activities with math and reading.

For the last eleven days, we'll be learning about decimals and fractions in math.  I know that most people don't find that stuff very fun... but it can be.  Think about all the stuff we can cut up in to equal pieces.  And decimals works great with money.

In reading, I'm dusting off a poetry unit I made in college.  I've been waiting and waiting to teach this unit - because poetry is one of my favorite subjects to teach.  We'll be exploring different types of poetry, and the kids will be writing lots of it.  Everything from acrostics to limericks to free verse.  Most of my kids don't really care that much for poetry, and that's because they haven't really been exposed to much of it.  My goal is to show them that poetry can be fun to read, fun to write, and that there's a lot more to poetry than meets the eye.

Whatever happens, I know that these next 11 days are going to fly by in the blink of an eye.  I really need to take each day at a time... because I want to make the most of the time I have left with my little darlings.  On top of my already jam packed schedule, I want to try and make a digital photo collage to share with the kids on the last day.

So much to do.  So little time.

But, that's the life of a teacher...and something I've gotten very accustomed to.