Velco: I love you.

Orientation went well this morning at ADLR. It was the regular run of the mill stuff. Going over the handbooks, standards, other policies and such. The new people seem eager and excited, which is always nice. Johanna was one of the speakers, she went over the Needs Assessment she did for us at the end of last school year and I'm pleased to say that are kids really are improving. This is heartening. Our hard work is starting to show in their test scores.

During one of the insurance presentations (that is most certainly a scam and that I've seen three times already) I started to put my classroom back together. I put up my new calendar system and I got the cursive letters up above the white boards. I love newly laminated things. There's a sense of satisfaction with newly laminated things. It was really just those two things I got done, which doesn't sound like a lot for two hours, but I'm using velcro this year!

The walls of school are cement painted over, which means that tacks don't work, but as the cement isn't smooth tape (of any kind) doesn't work either. Last year, I was coming to school early to re stick things up that had fallen during the night. I figured there had to be a better way and I found it! While I was at Target getting some other things I came across velcro! So after everything was laminated I started putting velcro on everything. All the numbers stick to the calender with velcro, all the candles stick to the birthday cakes with velcro and so on and so forth. At first I was just going to use velcro for those sorts of things, but today while I was sorting things out in the classroom, I realized that I could use it actually put the calendar system up! Light Bulb! It was a fantastic moment.

So here's what I did; I peeling the backing off of the fuzzy side of the velcro and adhered it to the thing that was going on the wall. Then I peeled the backing off of the rough side of the velcro and stuck that onto the fuzzy side. Then I could walk up to the wall and slap it on. Perfection. A little time consuming, but will probably save time in the end because I won't have to constantly re-tape stuff to the walls. Genius. Genius I say.

Here's hoping that all the stuff I put up today will still be hanging tomorrow.