Aaaack! Creativity! Aaaack!

Looking ahead at the calendar for April and May this afternoon, I got very overwhelmed. I need to plan activities for 12 2nd graders who will be with my IA next week while I give the 3rd graders the AIMS. We have staff appreciation week in April, Earth Day, cinco de mayo is a mere month plus away, mother's day is coming, and curriculum night is looming... Why is this overwhelming? Because all of these things involve and require a level of creativity and craftiness that I do not possess. Mentor teacher did some amazing things last year creating homemade crafts as presents and curriculum night was a success for our class because of her creativity. That kind of creativity does not come naturally to me, and in fact takes a lot out of me. It's stressful. I'm more a "buy a card at Walgreens and have the kids sign it and stick a Starbucks card in it" kind of person. That's going to have to be okay, because I just can't do it all.

I'm definitely not at the point where planning is a breeze, and I can do a lesson off the top of my head. Making sure I teach everything I'm supposed to between now and the end of the year is going to take all my efforts. I'm seriously nervous about accomplishing everything I think we're supposed to accomplish - even if there weren't all sorts of extra curriculars going on!

So, given a choice I'd focus only on the display our class needs to create for curriculum night to showcase what we've been doing in class and not on crafty activities. This makes me feel guilty for the kids. Primary kids should get to do all sorts of artsy stuff, and they don't have that kind of teacher. It's the same guilt I'd feel if I was a mom and my kids had to wear sheets every year on Halloween because their mom isn't creative enough to do anything beyond "go as a ghost, here's a sheet." But that's who I am and who I'm not.

I'm not sure I do have the choice, though. There are expectations, and I need to meet them. It's stressful.

One last thing, I got a note from one of my kids yesterday. "Ms. Grumperini is so beautiful that when she looks in the mirror it smiles." That made my day.