Happy 1st Anniversary!

I can't believe a year has already gone by since I started my teacher blog. I started off very excited to meet new people and find new inspiration...I was not disappointed. Thank you to those of you who have followed my blog and helped me jump into the blogging world!

I went MIA in September because I found out that I was expecting my 2nd baby! I had planned on continuing to blog but the pregnancy was much more tiring than my first. I gave birth to my adorable son on December 15th and I am now getting back on my feet in the real and blogging world - which is a little easier since I am on maternity leave and have some time to think about what I really want from my blog without worrying about my classroom. (Although I am almost always thinking about how to improve my practice in the classroom!)

So here I go with the start of another year! Thanks for your support and I look forward to getting to know y'all much, much better!

Linking up with my favorite linky party at Oh Boy Fourth Grade! Check it out and join the fun!

My One Little Word for this year is Faith. I have spent the last couple years relying on myself and my own plans WAY too much. I need to back off and let things be what they may. I hope this will help me to see things as they really are and stop worrying so much about every little thing. I am a constant worrier and it's just too exhausting! I have enough to deal with without the things I choose to obsess over with worry. I cannot control everything I want to and that's okay. So I will go forward in faith that all things will work out for my good and be happy because that's what we're here for!

"I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse." -Phillip Yancey

"Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right." -Max Lucado

A Big Thank You!

Recently I have been awarded several times for my blog and I am finally getting the chance to send out a huge thank you! I feel very blessed to be noticed and hope that my blog will be an inspiration to many and live up to these awards!

Thank You to Julie at The Hip Teacher & Mrs. Slocum Teacher's Don't Steal, They Share! for the One Lovely Blog Award:

There are only 3 rules to follow once you've received this award :)
1. Follow the person who gave you the award
2. Link back to the person that gave you the award
3. Pass the award on to 15 new bloggers.



Thank you to Antoinette and Emily at 4321...Teach for The Versatile Blogger award!

There are seven rules for this award.

1)  Thank the blogger who nominated you!
2)  Include a link to their site.  (See above)

3)  Include the award image in your post.

4)  Give 7 random facts about yourself.
   #1 - I love spicy food. The spicier, the better.
   #2 - I have been teaching in the same classroom for 10 years now at the same elementary school I attended.
   #3 - I am scared to death of horror films unless they are about zombies...I find zombies to be hilarious!
   #4 - I am a Disney fanatic but sadly this will be my last year with a season pass (I've had one since I was 18) with the outrageous price increases they have made. Just can't afford it anymore and can't justify the expense. :(
   #5 - My husband and I were married 6 months after we met and are celebrating 8 years of marriage in November!
   #6 - I hated math in school but I love teaching it.
   #7 - I love to scrapbook and am a consultant for Close to My Heart. They have the coolest (and easiest) online scrapbooking around and you can play with all of it for free! (I know that sounds like an ad...and it is...but I only share it because I love it soooo much! I'm not much of a sales person. I just like to share what makes my life easier. If you're interested in more info let me know!)
   
5)  Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.

6)  When nominating, include a link to their site.

7)  Let other bloggers know they've been nominated.


And last but not least Thank You to Lisa at Super Pig and Tyrant King for the Liebster Blog award!

The Liebster award is for blogs with less than 200 followers who need to get the attention they deserve--the rules are as follows:


1. Copy and paste the award onto your blog

2. Thank the giver and link back to them. (See above)
3. Nominate 5 other bloggers and let them know by commenting on their blogs.

So I am really a terrible person because I am not following all the rules for these awards. It is just so overwhelming! So I am not nominating anyone today because I have already taken so much time to thank the award givers and I want everyone to know that I really do appreciate the thought and I don't want to wait any longer. So thank you and I promise to show the love by visiting and commenting on all the wonderful blogs I follow and will follow in the future!

My Classroom 2012

 As you look at these pictures you may be saying to yourself, "Self, where's all the awesome, cool, cute (insert adjective here) decorations? Where's the coordinating fabrics and papers? This room doesn't look like anyone lives here!" ...and you would be right on point! I decided this room needed to belong to my students just as much as it does to me. So I decorated in a very minimalist style for the beginning of the year. Usually I put up tons of posters and such. I go overboard making sure that the kiddos are visually stimulated when they walk in the room on the first day. This year I have decided to give them the responsibility! We have been creating anchors charts in the first week that have already started to grace the walls and I couldn't be happier about it. Yea for taking some of the work off my plate and giving my students ownership!

The first week went great and I am enjoying the changes I have been making in my physical surroundings and my way of doing things. I feel very confident with all the simplifications I have made. I do not feel overwhelmed at the end of the day and I sure hope that feeling lasts.

 

I have been starting to implement Daily 5 and will hopefully move into teaching the CAFE menu soon. My CAFE board is one of the only boards that had anything on it the first day of school. I made the marble magnets below to write the kids names on for the magnetic white boards. I am excited to see how it works out!

 

A Brand New Year

One of the awesome things about August is that I get to recreate my classroom! We have to pack up everything in June so I get to start from scratch. I used to think this was extremely annoying but I realized I love analyzing my classroom usage each year and making it better plus I love change! For example I have had my desk in every corner of the room since I started teaching. (It does drive my DH a little crazy that I always want the big furniture moved...every year...) This year I have decided the big stuff is going to stay put but I am going to use the smaller spaces in some very different ways.

I was finally able to get into my room this morning and took some "before" pictures. Enjoy! The final reveal will be on the first day of school - August 29th!

When they clean the carpets everything gets pushed to one side...and I have to move it all back but at least the carpets are clean!

My major goal in the next two weeks - get the top of this cabinet clean!

I'm going with bright and colorful this year! I think I'm going to have the kids do an opening week activity where they pick a color that describes them and talk about how colors affect us...it's in the works.

I got these magnetic white boards to go with my CAFE bulletin board...only $3 each! I'm going to make magnets with the kids names to go with them!

 

August Currently

Linking with Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

I can't believe it's August. I guess I'm lucky I still have three weeks to go before school starts but most of that will be spent getting ready for school so summer is pretty much over. (Nobody told the weather that, by the way! It's been in the hundreds this week! Yuck!) 

So currently I am looking for new shoes that will allow my ever expanding prego feet to be comfortable while standing at work all day and still have some style to them. Any suggestions?

I really, really need a new CD player for my classroom, especially since I want to implement Daily 5 this year. My current player is cracked and pretty picky about which CDs it will play and which it will not play. I also need to get printing, laminating and organizing with all the awesome online resources I have found for Daily 5 and CAFE!

My plug for this Currently Linky is not actually part of TPT because I don't have my own store...yet! What I am plugging is the Cricut cartridges from Close to My Heart. They have so many awesome images and cuts that you almost don't need any other cartridges! Since I bought the Art Philosophy cartridge I have barely taken out my other cartridges. It has every shape and size (up to 12x12) that you could possibly imagine and they just released a second cartridge that has more seasonal and 3D images. I can't wait to get mine! 

Check it out here: desoleary.ctmh.com 

*If you would like the PDF of the booklet for the Artiste collection (to check out all the images), leave me your email address!

So my plug for someone else is the Clutter-free Classroom! It is my favorite teaching/organizing blog and the whole reason I was inspired to start my own blog. The products on TPT are top quality as well. Check it out!

So here's to August and all of the teachers who have already started their year! Cheers and best wishes for the best year ever!

What a Deal! - White Boards

As we all know budgets are terrible right now so it's great to be able to find a way to go about business as usual but spend less money. A couple years back my partner teacher and I started to use the Mad Minutes program with our 6th graders who were lacking in basic computation skills but making copies of them was  killing our allotted amount for the year! So we started using page protectors! The kids can slip their Mad Minutes in (or any worksheet for that matter) and write on the outside with a dry erase marker. It works perfectly! We then added a sheet of white cardstock and presto! the back works as an individual white board! The kids can even store them in their binders. Yay! Less stuff for me to store and keep track of!

Cost
Box of Page Protectors (50): $16.00 (Use the shiny ones, not the non-glare! They erase better.)

Ream of White Cardstock (250): $12.00

Dry Erase Markers (50): $15.00 (bought at back-to-school sales)

Total per Student:  approx. $0.75

Price @
Lakeshore - $1.40 each
School Outfitters - $1.45 each
Amazon - $2.93 each

The cardstock lasts forever and I'm sure there are even better deals on sheet protectors. The key to keeping the cost down is stocking up on markers when they are on sale. I can usually get them 3-5 for a $1.00!

The downside is that the kids take their boards home at the end of the year so there they are not reusable but I have found that to be a very small downside. If they get wrecked or lost I charge them a dollar to replace it.

Welcome to July!

Yes, I have neglected my blog since May. I'm not even sure how it got to be July so quickly! May was testing and open house (crazy!), then June was all the 6th grade end-of-the-year activities and after that I just fell into a stupor. Okay, that's not totally true. I have been taking mommy & me swimming lessons with my daughter and family field trips to the aquarium and Disneyland so I have just been busy in the best ways possible!

Now I am back on the train and ready to rock! I started reading The Daily 5 by "the sisters" and am joining in on a book study at We Read, We Blog, We Teach and am loving it. I am starting to plan out my new classroom organization that I started back in January (see post here). So I have a lot going on and am feeling rejuvenated. 

 

 

So I mentioned in the currently that I tire very quickly and in May I said I had a secret to share...any guesses? 

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I'm Pregnant!

I found out during spring break in April (Friday the 13th, to be exact) and kept in a secret from my staff until the end of May. (I did tell my partner teacher and principal, just in case!) I told my students on the last day of school. I told my kids that I would not be back next year...for part of the year. They all got upset (we have been talking about teacher receiving pink slips) and then I told them why and they were very excited. 

I am due December 18th, which means I will be on leave from December until March. I plan on taking the entire 2nd school trimester off. So I am feeling very pressured with the time crunch to get my kiddos set up for a long term sub in a very short amount of time. I am also hoping that I can get the sub I trust. She was my sub when I had my daughter and did a fabulous job!

Now on to my favorite reads. 

Holes is a wonderful book and it's old enough now that most of my kiddos have not read it or seen the movie. There are so many amazing elements to the book and it is so accessible to all levels of readers. It has adventure, mystery, friendship, gross boy stuff (which all 6th graders love), icky love stuff, and is just an awesome story all around. Even though it is a long book it goes pretty quickly and has some great cliff-hangers for stopping points. I have had kids begging me to keep reading. Isn't that what every teacher wants in a read aloud?

The Book Whisperer is very dear to my heart. I am a book nerd and have a hard time when kids tell me they just don't like reading. I tell them admitting it is the first step and then we work from there. This book gives great ideas and tips for finding the reader in every child. I just wish my district would allow me to run my classroom the same way that Donalyn Miller does! What a difference it would make!

Whew...so for being so long winded today! I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th and God Bless America! 

July 4th 2010