My Students are Worth It!

Blue area rug that I lugged into the school while making noises that one usually only hears behind closed doors late at night after *4 shots of tequila- $19

Bins of throw pillows, each carefully picked for plumpness, coziness and all around ‘I want to curl up and read a book with you’ feeling- $64

Number of hours spent painting-16

Wire shelving units that appeared easy to construct but resulted in me cursing so much I would have made a sailor blush and almost resulted in the loss of my pinkie finger- $58

Approximate number of hours it took to sort each book into categories- mystery, adventure, scientific fiction, people & places, space & science, arts & math, comics, do it yourself, reference, animals, research, biographies and make appropriate labels for each group. Complete with pictures of the author so kids have an idea who the face is behind the book they are reading- 6 hours

Approximate number of hours it took to “level” each book in my reading library, ensuring that kids have a better opportunity to pick books that they will feel comfortable reading-9 hours


Cost for the books in our class library, 80% of which were bought at Bank Street Books and Green Valley Book Fair so that I could save some greenbacks and my students could revel in that ‘old, musty thrift store book smell’- $987.43

Amount of times I’ve started thinking of all the shoes I could have bought with $987.43 before stopping and feeding myself some cheap pep talk about children’s literacy being more important than stylish footwear which then resulted in me rolling my eyes at myself and saying ‘tell it to your feet, mama needs a new pair of shoes‘, which then further fueled the moral vs. stylish footwear dilemma I wrestle with on the daily- 483,403,502

Watching my students enjoy our literacy corner- priceless

(Number of times I rolled my eyes while writing this post, fully aware of how cliché ridden and cheesy it was- infinite. BUT I’M STILL EXCITED!)