Last year my school did a ton of fundraising for my trip. I feel bad asking them to do that again-- partially cause I just did and partially because this year, we are no longer allowed to ask our students for field trip money... so we are constantly fundraising so they can still go on field trips(that's another long bureaucratic mess I could rant about).
But without my asking, my librarian decided to hold a raffle during Book Fair at school. So we have the Scholastic books brought in and the kids can buy them during their media period and P/T conferences. She decided that the raffle would be to raise money to buy books for Ethiopia Reads!! My librarian, Debbie told the kids that for any amount of a donation, they would get a raffle ticket for a pizza lunch with her and me and more during ISAT testing week. I think she plans to give them each a book and we are going to talk about Ethiopia Reads and we even found a book called My Library is a Camel that I'm going to read to the kids. Each child could only have one raffle ticket. Well, last Friday, she told me that they had raised $185, which is way more than I ever thought.
Now, the only downside to this is that -- I need to use the money to buy books at the fair(cause then our school gets more $$). And dragging books several continents is not the easiest manner, but it was so great of her to do--so I used my $$ and bought 35 books, mostly leveled readers, which are paperback, are written simply, most about Science topics and they were one of the types of books that Ethiopia Reads suggested if you were going to buy books and not just donate money. Plus these books are the easiest to pack in my suitcases. I was excited at how many leveled readers there were in non-fiction topics but my librarian said it is cause all the kids want the pencils, posters and books about famous people, movies and Disney characters-- something wrong with that, don't you think??
Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!! My sister sent me Carnivale Cake coffee that is made by Community Coffee, which is sort of like their Caribou coffee shop-- it is super yummy and supposed to be made to taste like a King Cake(see picture above). She also sent me these super cute Mardi Gras cookies that are yellow, purple and green with smiley faces.. I've tasted them and am taking the rest to school today to share with my Tuesday kids. Even though I just did Valentine's crafts last week, I'm thinking of making masks with the kids. With lots of glitter(though I get slightly nauseous at the thought of all the glitter all over my floor, table and chairs) and Popsicle sticks to hold them up with. If I do, I'll take pictures and post them tonight.
There are a lot of stressors at my job.. and in education in general... but one of the things that we do right are holidays!! Every holiday is more fun when it is spent with kids. So, Valentine's Day is a super big deal in elementary school-- with as much candy as Halloween, fun crafts and lots of festivities. As a single person.. heck even when I'm dating someone I don't think much of this holiday.. I've insisted that boyfriends not make plans, I will usually invite them over, order a pizza, have a yummy dessert and call it a night. The whole day seems kind of forced with adults.. but with kids, it's just plain fun.
