Blog Hoppin: Day 1

Today was our first day back at work - teachers and open house. Whew! What a whirlwind of a day.  I'm thankful to be home and blogging a bit, and doing a fantasy football draft while watching some Bachelor in Paradise.  It was a great first day back and to meet all my little firsties - I think I already remember all their names!

We have the rest of the week filled with meetings and PD and somewhere in there we're suppose to fit planning of the first week.  Wish me luck!

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin for their Teacher Week!

Number One

Ryan and I grew up together when we were little - we went to the same church, same youth group, he was just a few years older than me and definitely in the cool crowd.  We never actually were really close friends until he moved away to college, and then in his final year of high school we got closer.  I started crushing when I was a junior and it's all kind of a high school sweetheart news from there. 

This was actually one of the first pictures we took together when we first started officially dating.  Mind you, our courting (if you want to call it that) process took 3 or so months. I was pretty preoccupied by softball at the time and Ryan had just moved back home from college for the summer.  Mind you, after we started dating I knew pretty quickly that he was the one I'd spend the rest of my life with.  Took some convincing on his part, but we're 3 years in and I think I'll keep him.  I'm so thankful that I really devoted and gave our relationship over to Christ so that we could grow apart first, and then came together at just the right time.

Number Two

I played softball my WHOLE life.  My dad was a coach for almost my whole years of softball playing as well.  I started as a 6 year old in tee-ball and never missed a summer after that. My dad was a pitching coach, but he always told my sister and I to make sure we tried every position before we committed.  My sister ended up being a first basemen and didn't end up enjoying softball as much as I did, but I followed my pops and became a pitcher.  I loved it when I did it.  Lots of pressure, lots of excitement, it was great.  Sometimes I miss those days.

Number Three

I knew I wanted to be a teacher since I was in the 2nd grade.  I even knew I wanted to teach first grade.  I shifted and even argued with God for long hours when I was in middle and high school because I knew of the commitment that I'd be putting on my life by being a teacher.  We were in North Carolina when I felt the true calling again and had to stop arguing with God.  Never changed my mind after that - committed to a Elementary Education degree my first year as a freshman and never strayed from it.  I love going to work everyday and know it's exactly where I'm suppose to be.

Number Four

I have been to Fiji!  The first time I went out of the country was in college with Ryan and we went to Mexico.  Ryan planned the honeymoon and surprised me the day we left for it.  All I knew was that it was tropical - and he let it slip in the hotel room that we were going to Fiji.  

 We took a 10 hour plane ride ( and it was horrible) from LA.  Sleeping in a plane sitting up is not ideal. When we arrived it Fiji it was the next morning - but we basically skipped a day with the timezones. But once we got there it was so beautiful.  The water was crystal clear and our resort had a coral reef all around it.  We snorkeled almost every single day. I'd go back in a heartbeat.  It was the most romantic and relaxing time on the beach.  And it was super warm so even better. :)

Number Five

I'm actually a pretty shy person at first.  In high school I had quite a few friends but in college I started to realize how more introverted I was.  so, I'm way more of a close friend type of person.  Once I really open up to people I really start to trust them, and it's really hard for me to not become quite good friends with them.  I stick my neck out for a lot of people.  I have 3 really close girl friends, and consider myself to have 2 best guy friends - number on including the hubs.

Link up with the people over at Blog Hoppin or each day the rest of the week to learn more about each other! Here's to 2015!

Five for Friday: August 14

With today being a Friday - I only have 2 Fridays left of summer break - EEK!  I'm sure I'm a broken record but what happened to the time. My summer mornings are slowly dwindling away.  This way I had to get decently back into the routine again because I had class all week - but I'll tell you more about that below since I'm linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching for Five for Friday.

This week I was in class for 3 days learning all about Responsive Classroom and how to incorporate it with my plan this year.  I have always built up a classroom culture of respect and kindness but I also know that there are always ways to improve and little things that my kids were doing the past two years were starting to REALLY bug me. Like not keeping their desk organized, how putting the lids on their markers, their lockers being a disaster zone, etc.  So with Guided Discoveries of EVERYTHING in our room I have faith that we can get things done, organized, and hopefully not have to deal with those problems all the time.  At the end of our class I got to dive into the "First Six Weeks of School" book and found it to be really helpful to set up that classroom culture right away. If you don't have this book - even if your NOT doing Responsive Classroom get it anyways.  It's so useful.

I'M GETTING RID OF MY CLIPCHART.  And I have never been more excited about it.  I came into First Grade not wanting to do anything like that with my little nuggets - and because I didn't stick to expectations, I ended up having to find something for management. First year I used a chip system, and then last year I used a clip chart.  For some people it works really well - and they notice a difference in their kids but for me it was the same kids always at the top and the same kids always at the bottom.  And it really wasn't "fair" by any means. I hated having it out in the open for others to see and that the kids were obsessed with it - and not wit how to just be good because it's the right thing to do.  I felt guilty for making my kids please me with actions when I shouldn't have lowered my expectations and let them get away with it.  So this year I'm sticking to strictly Take A Break - and using Logical Consequences and the Buddy Room. There are always going to be those kiddos that might need something MORE but for the most part, I really learned in my class that if you have high expectations for your kids, and don't let your line slide, your kiddos can live up to their expectations. My goal as a teacher its o help my kids be self managers - and self regulators instead of clones to pleasing me.  I'll do more on Take a Break and how I introduced it when the time comes. If you have any tips let me know!

Tonight at our church we are having a worship experience that is unreal.  This is the third one that we've done as a church, and each one is so powerful and touches you in new ways.  My husband and his team have been working on it so hard - the music, lights, special effects, and I'm so excited to see it come together and to worship a God who is so worth worshiping. 

I am working on and hoping to wrap up a new product in the next few days.  At the start of each month I always like to introduce fun month words and activities to go with it.  I don't know about you by my kids really liked word searches my first two years - and I'm thinking they will this year too.  So I'm making word activities that are centered around a "month" - not sight words necessarily but just fun words that will come up in the month. September is all focused back to school so that's what I'm working on now. It's going to have fun word puzzles, word searches, write the room cards, and a few other printable.  Check back on the blog when I release it and when it goes up in my store!

I'm still working on my BUILD math stations for the first unit of Investigations.  If you have any people that you know have already done this that I could look at to get some ideas I'd be so thankful!  That will also be in my store but don't expect that for a while sadly - I'm still mapping out how to make it all work!  

Link up and share your Five for Friday!  I'm so thankful for a summer to rest and get inspired in our jobs.  Not many jobs get to do that, they don't get to start over every fall so today I'm thankful for work time, rest and relaxation, and time to rethink and be better.

Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday: August 7.

Time for my link up with Doodlebugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky!  I can't believe it's the end of the week already - yikes! These last few weeks of summer are going so quickly!

We had a goodbye, going away dinner for a friend this week as she moves onto a new adventure in another city!  She was a second year teacher in 3rd grade when I started my position at my current school- her and one of my other really good friends from college and I formed a "Teaching Trio" and we really helped each other out throughout that tough first year, and were huge support systems.  She's moving to Minnesota to teach in an inner city school and she is going to so  well there.  While we're sad to see her move away, I'm so excited (and a bit jealous!) for her new team and kiddos that get to have her! 

I added a few new products to my TPT store this week - some writing portfolio covers and some following direction task cards! The writing portfolio covers are pretty simple, but I'm really excited about the task cards!

At the beginning of the year, I am so exhausted and have way more patience to work and help students follow directions with my guidance, but mid year, I get really tired of repeating directions 100 times. Anyone else hear me?  So, I created these following direction picture and task cards to implement at the beginning of the year and help my nuggets become independent direction followers early on.  These are also incredibly helpful for my English Language Learners that come into our school (though rare, they do come through!) to help them feel successful.

I have been creeping on Dragonflies in First and her weekly digital planner for lesson planning and decided this morning at our local coffee shop - after reading countless blogs and looking at other options - to take the plunge.  I really like to handwrite my calendars and yearly plans but my weekly lesson plans I always type.  And usually, I have to custom make my own table with word and it's a nightmare at the beginning of the year, and can I be honest I HATE IT. It's so time consuming. So I downloaded it today and purchased it on her TPT store, and am really excited to use it this year. I like that you can import your standards to easy access, make things clickable for easy viewing, and print it onto a page or two.  I don't usually make my lesson plans really detailed unless it's for a sub (or it's the beginning of the year) so this was perfect - and so versatile!  I'm planning on doing a blog entry about it when I get it up and going and some tricks that I find while I make it happen. Stay tuned!

I worked a little in my classroom this week, and created these cute lap desks for my writers this year with leftover, unused ones from my mother-in-law.  You can check out my blog post on them over here. They turned out great and I think my students are going to love them for writing workshop.

One of the many things I discovered after starting to date my husband was that Ace Hardware sells amazing and bomb Colorado Peaches.  Ace Hardware - I KNOW!  But, they are really good and they have them come in in different shipments when they are fresher than fresh.  Last week the hubs was getting frustrated with me because I kept forgetting to get over there to order some - and if I'm being honest, there is no excuse for me not getting over there because we live literally a mile away from one but I digress - I headed over there earlier this week, got some ordered, and they arrived for pick up today.  Guys, I've already had 3.  And one cut up in my water infuser bottle. Call me crazy but they are the peaches of heaven. 

Link up and tell us 5 things about your week! Until next time.

Repurposed Lap Desks

  I've been getting really crafty on my days at home - lots of the things I want to buy for my classroom, I'm realizing that I can just make instead or at least do something different for way less money.  Besides the laminating cutting, bookmark making, and TPT projects today, I got to work on some cute little lap desks.

  Thanks to my mother in law last weekend - and my nieces that didn't like them - she brought me three pretty girly lap desk that she was willing to let me have for my classroom if I wanted.  I really don't like turning stuff away if it's practical so I hopped on board and took them.  At first I was going to just leave them as is, but let's be honest, they're quite girly and I think the boys in my room would panic if they were asked to use them. With the purple and the hearts, I could just see most of my boys saying "no way" to these lap desks.

  So, a drive in the car on the way home last weekend from dinner with the husband and mother in law, brought me a brilliant (and really random) idea to repurpose them with some simple materials so that they boys would want to use them too!  Last year with my Daily 5 - I always drew sticks for kids to sit in "special spots" in our library - which is covered with pillows and lounge places and the kids really liked that area.  As I was playing around with my classroom this year I decided to make a similar "special spot" area for writing - and when we were at IKEA a few weekends ago, I snagged this table that I thought I'd be able to use.  My idea was to have some special gel pens at the table that they could use if they got drawn to sit at the special writing spot - and also, use these lap tables if they wanted.  I usually only draw 2 people for special spots with Daily 5, but figure I could probably do 4 with this little writing table and the lap desks.

I went to hobby lobby and looked for some theme matching wrapping paper that wouldn't be too girly.  I knew I couldn't change the color of the bottom of the lap desks - they are bright purple - but the tops I knew it could.  I got some black and white chevron wrapping paper for the tops.  I was going to modge podge them onto the top of the desks but as I was looking for a paintbrush in my house - and dreading the messiness that would occur - I came across some clear contact paper in our closet that I thought might work even better and be WAY less messy.

I outlined the tables upside down on the wrapping paper - a little bigger than I needed - and then cut it out. I sprayed a little spray adhesive onto the lap table and very carefully placed the wrapping paper down onto the table.  And lets me honest - if you aren't careful and mess up, spray adhesive is TERRIBLE to redo because it's so sticky.  If I were to mess up, it'd be really hard to get it back to where I wanted it. I then measured out the contact paper, cut it out, and placed it very carefully on the top as well.  I was going to just use a scissors to cut around it but realized pretty quickly that wasn't going to work so I went and dug in the husbands toolbox to find an Xacto knife or something similar, and found one that worked perfect.  I just cut around the outside of the desks to get rid of the excess paper and contact paper. After the first one got finished I did a little happy dance because I loved them, and everything in my mind worked out.  Don't you just love when you create something in your brain, execute it without instructions (or Pinterest) and it comes out perfectly?  I felt like I deserved a big thing of ice cream afterwards.  Now I have three cute little lap desks that my writers can use during writing workshop - and they're not too girly and will be super durable to withstand some first grader hands.

What have you been crafting for your classroom this summer?  What have you done yourself that your super proud of?  Share and let me know! I'm off to drink some lemonade and relax - and pretend I'm eating ice cream. ;)

Until next time.

BTS: Meet the Teacher

  I've been spending the day relaxing, watching lots of Greys Anatomy (such a guilty pleasure) and catching up on reading all of the fabulous blog posts that are out there.  In between my product making, instagram stalking, and TPT buying - there's a sale going on for another 7 hours so hop on over to MY STORE to get your buying on and use the promo code: BTS15 for an extra bit of saving!

Even though I don't go back to school until the end of August and students start on the first week in September my mind is definitely in school mode to get things done and organized.

Thanks to Mrs. D's corner for hosting this linky and for letting us not so huge named bloggers get out there and meet more people and get our blog looked at!

I haven't thought much about Meet the Teacher night, and since our school does it different than others in our district, it'll be something that I work on closer to school starting.  In my school, we do 3 short little presentations throughout the day that tells parents about our classroom, ourselves, and things to keep in mind when they come to school the following week.  Last year I made these cute little flip books that I found on Pinterest and thanks to Chalk & Apples and her inspiration I was able to make them to fit my kiddos and parents needs.

I had lots of parents follow along as I was giving my presentation last year, and they were so so cute and pretty that I'll do them again this year.  I also had parents fill out a 3-2-1 form to give me more information about their kiddo so I was ready for the school year and getting to know them. I ended up reading through them the next day during some downtime and loved reading the parents wishes for their kiddos.  I often came back to them as well throughout the year when the frustration was coming in (and we all have those times, right teachers?) I'm not sure where this form came from but if you know PLEASE tell me so I can give some credit.

I like to have a "wishlist" that parents can look at and choose to bring and give to our class if they want.  Last year I did it electronically and think this year I'll make a poster board with some little cardstock shapes that the parents can take with them when they want (or not), with our wishlist items on them.  Sometimes a real "something" in a hand can be a better reminder than an email.

Those are just a few of my Meet the Teacher tips for back to school - link up and share yours and meet some GREAT teachers long the way.

Currently: August

WHAT?!!?  How in the world is it already August?!  This summer has flown by like I always knew it would but I'm still so shocked with how fast the days and time go!  Feels like just a few weeks ago we were lounging around in Mexico! It's already time for the monthly link up with Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade!

Listening:  Sundays (when it's NOT football season) usually consists of golf in our house.  It's a nice little background noise that is quiet and calm while we got some house cleaning and organizing done.  The squeak toy is courtesy of my sweet puppy and her love for balls that squeak - and loudly I might add.

Loving: I've been really plugging along on my TPT store - you can check it out here - mind you I'm still in the beginning stages but this summer I'm actually taking the time to make them TPT worthy so that after I'm done printing them off and readying them for my classroom I can make sure other people have the opportunity to buy it as well.  And can I just say, that TPT is such a great community because people really DO buy your stuff - even when your a beginning like me!

Thinking: I've been in my classroom last week for a few days, and stuff was all over that I had to just walk out with it being a mess.  There is still so much to do and everytime I think I'm going to accomplish something and get something off my list - I end up adding 4 more things.  Teachers understand. I know it.

Wanting: Although I am a nerd and get really excited for the beginning of the school year, I am going to miss my summer days.  Waking up and working out, sitting outside and reading with a cup of coffee, getting things checked off my to-do list on TIME and fire pits with friends at night.  Summertime is my favorite season.  Seriously, it's the best.

Needing: Like any teacher, I need to work in my room.  Luckily we don't go back until August 31 and students start September 8, but I have some classes and meetings sprinkled in before then and so my days of being able to just work in my classroom will be numbered.  I also need to start dinner for my little family soon! :)

Back 2 School RAK:  I'm making some teacher gifts for some friends (shhh! You'll hear more about them on a blog post later after I hand them out!) and I'm planning on leaving little notes that first week back to encourage each other.  I also leave little notes for my kids on their desk that first week with an EXPO marker to help them feel welcomed and more relaxed.

Link up and tell us what your CURRENTLY doing for the month! :)