Fire Drills

The Love of Spring Break Continues!!

Having said that, today is my work day.  I am cleaning the house and doing (fingers crossed) all of the school work I brought home.  The plan is to not do any other school work or real house cleaning the rest of the week and weekend.  I'm actually planning a visit to the American Museum of Natural History in New York on Friday.  This is one of my favorite places.  If you haven't been there, you probably know the museum best for the giant blue whale that hangs in one of the enormous displays.

Did you know you can rent that room out for weddings and parties?  You can actually rent out many of the different halls and exhibit spaces for an event. It costs an arm and a leg, but it is a spectacular setting. I'm thinking you really need to be into whales for this one though! 

Anyway, that's the plan for Friday.   It's just a quick train ride into the city, and the weather is supposed to be really nice.  There are so many great exhibits happening right now, I'm really excited to go.

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This warmer spring weather has me thinking of. . . fire drills!   We are required to have two drills every month.  They are a nice little break in the day in the warm weather but beastly when in  the winter.  When we have our drills, we are required to take a class list with us.  Once outside, we count our kids and make sure they are all there.  If any are unaccounted for, it is reported and the search begins.  The kids know if the alarm sounds and you aren't with your class, you report to the nearest teacher.  That teacher takes the child with his/her class and then reports the extra student once we get outside. Sounds complicated, but it's easy and works.

For the longest time, I would always grab my grade book to take out with me.  It had my class list in it, after all.  I can't tell you how long it took me to come up with this.

I 'll bet many of you already have something like this in place, but it was a real "Duh!  Why didn't I think of this before?" moment for me.  I simply looked for some fire drill clip art and created the sign above.  I printed it on card stock and stuck a class list on the back.  I then laminated it and hung it next to the door.  How easy was that? 

Now, when the fire alarm rings, there is no mad dash to my desk to grab my grade book.  No crazed search when I can't find it quickly.  When the alarm bells ring, I just head to the door and grab the list from the hook.   It's also great for substitutes who don't know my friends.  My students know this always goes with us.  I've had friends who are near the door when the alarm goes off immediately grab it and give it to me.  If a sub forgets to grab it, I know one of my friends will.

This particular list is three years old.  You can see the original white list, then the yellow list from last year, and the white list for this year's friends taped on top.  I just use book tape to tape the new class list on top of the old one.  Eventually, I'm going to have to peel them off and start over, but it holds up amazingly well.

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One last thing.  I'm thinking of changing my blog layout and design. It probably won't happen until summer vacation.  I like the crayon theme I have going on, but I think I want something a little lighter and brighter.  Any ideas?