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There is nothing I hate more than calling people I don't know. So the fact that I couldn't reach eight of the sixteen parents I just tried to call could be viewed as a mixed blessing, I suppose. ;P I'll ask the kids for updated phone numbers on Monday, but who knows how much good it will do. If the kids got picked up by their parents like they do when they're younger, that would be one thing. (It would also be one thing if I knew all the big siblings and cousins who are in the upper grades.) But as it is, argh!

Especially argh because of the discipline system I want to use. I'm a big fan of the card system - the kids each get an index card, with green and yellow stickers on one side and orange and red stickers on the other. If the green sticker is showing, that means behavior is good. Yellow is a warning, orange is a consequence (loss of recess, for example) and red is supposed to be a phone call home. Keeps discipline insular (ie, not involving the administration, who are likely busy anyway), clean slate every day, etc. etc. etc. But if I can't reach the parents? Blah. Maybe I could write notes home. I need to get me some of those "from the teacher" postcards one of my co-op teachers had.

Have basically spent the last 36 hours setting up my classroom. I was in the building by 7am yesterday and didn't leave until 7pm. Today was shopping, tomorrow will be making charts and other fun things, and Monday is it. O_o I'm so tired I can't see straight. There will be early bedtimes for the foreseeable future, I think.