Back to School

With Summer rotting in its still-too-damn-hot-for-this-time-of-year grave, it is time once again to dust off my pants and head back to work.

*Queue fanfare*

Pretty much.

Last year, on the very last day of school, our school had what students were crazy enough to show up actually help their first period teachers move into their new classrooms for the upcoming school year.  This was two parts crazy and one part genius, but it worked - I drove my students like a slave driver and successfully did 80% of my usual back-to-school move-in process before kicking off Summer Vacation.

It was absolute Hell on earth, but we did it.

Now, as I move in my countless boxes of books, teaching materials, posters, and what-have-you, there's not nearly as much pressure to track down custodians for elevator keys, handcarts for file cabinets, etc. 

I'm a big fan of this.

Behold Mr. Hough's new and improved classroom for the upcoming 2012 - 2013 school year. . .

This is what we accomplished before the Summer officially kicked off. . .

The door to the far left opens up to a middle room that I share with three other teachers; the middle door opens up to a HUGE walk-in closet; the door to the far right opens up to a hallway with bathrooms AND a drinking fountain.

. . . needless to say this is a far cry from my humble trailer last year.

Still needing to snaz (technical term) the place up with posters and the like, but this room definitely has serious potential. . .

Note TV on rolling cart equipped with Nintendo and stack of cartridges (for planning periods, before school, etc.)

My humongous walk-in closet. . . slightly unorganized.

Wish you were here!

Mr. Hough's room, post-decorating

The Voigts were nice enough to donate five or six large, fake trees for my room - which will surely please/creep out my incoming 6th graders. . .

My SmartBoard is mounted to the wall, which frees up some lecturin' space.  The projector's a bit on the shaky side, so methinks I'm going to have to jerry-rig that secure somehow. . .

Bathroom sign-out center.  Because middle-schoolers resort to chimps when unsupervised.

Not only was Yours Truly heading back to work, but my feminine roommates were as well.

Kris was recently granted full time employment at Sunchild Academy, which coincided perfectly with Alayna starting V.P.K..  The two of them were going to be putting in full 9am - 6pm days, and, with Abby unable to drive herself to school, that meant all three Hough ladies would soon be joining Mr. Hough in going to school all day long. . .

The Cannonball shows off her new backpack. . .

Pumped for the First Day of School

- Brian