5 Pennies - Day 67

1. Made brownies for coworkers who chose to work on their day off.
                  Today was election day so technically schools were closed. However, my school was open because they were using the facility to manage the town's election. So since my school was open, there were several of us staff members that decided that it was just a normal work day - but without the students. Personally, I was able to get a lot of copies made, files situation for my next teaching unit, and several aspects of my room cleaned - all things that I would not have been able to do if I had my regular classes. So to treat those that came in on their time - they got a brownie. Sometimes, food feeds more than just stomach - it feeds the heart & soul too.

2. Returned laminated materials to the art teacher
                So while I was making copies, I noticed that there were some materials that were laminated of the art teacher's. She has this really cool activity where the students draw a portrait of themselves, then they make a design out of it, and then they make that into a box. Anyway, several of them turned out nice enough to keep for future use. They were laminated, but not returned yet to the teacher. Sometimes in my school if you do not pick up your laminated materials quickly, within a day they sprout feet and go off walking never to be heard from again. Knowing that the art teacher wouldn't want this of her students' work, I had some extra time while the machines were copying, so I walked the materials down to the art room and placed it on the work table. Simple.

3. Returned abandoned materials from copier to Social Studies teacher
              I didn't know exactly who these originals & copies were from, but knew that they would probably be important to have. So I just put everything into the teacher mailbox of the head of the Social Studies Department.

4. Bought a special candy bar for a teacher that just returned from a surgery
            Although I don't know this teacher that well, I was glad to see her back in the school and that she was recovering nicely. She decided to return today without the students to get caught up on paperwork that she missed while she was out. I know that when I returned from my Maternity Leave a few years ago, it felt like it took me a good 3 months to get caught up on various paperwork. Don't get me wrong, I loved my long term sub and she did a super job, but just me getting back into the swing of things to a really long time. It was very hard to come back to school because I wasn't that close to anyone. Somedays I even questioned why I returned at all - there were two really close teachers that helped me along and a few chosen students that made life brighter. I was very thankful for them. Anyway, for this particular teacher - the candy was just my dorky way in welcoming her back.

By the way - it was a 'Kit Kat' bar - you know, reminding her to "take a break" every once and awhile.

5. Re-hung up student artwork in the hallway
             With all of the traffic of the hustle and bustle of the election voters, some of the hallway artwork was knocked down. Simple thing to do - hang it back up.