oh where, oh where has my phonics book gone?

so today . . . i lost a book. well, as it turns out, i didn't lose the book, but i certainly couldn't find it.

this year because my class is so small (only three students) i am sharing a classroom with another teacher. we had to rearrange her classroom to make room for my little group. so back in my corner, i have to keep things organized because my space is limited. i tend to keep my things ordered even when i am in my own classroom, because when you have a room full of wiggly 5 year olds, you have to be able to move quickly from one activity to another. and if you leave them with nothing to do while you are looking for materials, chaos will ensue!

so in my space, everything has a place and i try to keep everything put away. but somehow, over the weekend, one of my activity books was moved. it wasn't where it belonged. i looked in my cabinets. i looked in the cabinets in my old room. i looked in the other teacher's cabinets. i even went to the office to see if there was an extra book lying around. i looked off and on all week, but couldn't find the missing book.

and i need the book by monday. if i can't find it, i will have to make a copy of the worksheets i already have. and then the kids will complain because nobody wants the black and white copy--they all want the full colored sheets. and i really don't want to listen to my little dumplings complain for the next four months-- i need that book!

so before i left school today, out of desperation i took one last look around--and there it was--on the bookshelf with the other books--but not where it belonged! it was at the end of the row of books, with the spine partly obscured by a notebook that was sticking out just a bit. there were 10 or 12 books between where it was and where it belonged. no wonder i couldn't find it!

this reminds me of something that happened to me several years ago. i had a beautiful orange silk blouse which i loved, but suddenly i couldn't find it (and this was before diandra was the right size to "borrow" my clothes, so i couldn't blame her!) i looked everywhere, but it was just gone. a couple of years later when we moved, i found the blouse--it was in my closet, but again, not where it belonged. the clothes in my closet are in rainbow colored order, so the orange blouse should have been between the red blouses and the yellow blouses. but somehow it had been put away in the wrong place in the closet and i just didn't see it until i moved and had to take everything out.

this behavior may sound a little bit obsessive/compulsive, but usually it works for me. really. just not this week.

but today, i found the missing book! my world is back on it's axis, and on monday no one will have to use a black and white copy . . .