Five for Friday (on Saturday!)

WELL...as usual I feel as though I'm always about a day behind.  But nonetheless, here is my Five for Friday (on Saturday!).

#1 - This was an incredibly emotional week for our community.  Last weekend there was a tragic accident in our neighborhood that claimed the lives of 2 young girls from  our high school.  The only survivor was the driver of the vehicle, also a student at the high school.  These two girls taught Vacation Bible School at our church, McKenzie played soccer in my daughter's soccer club and the mom of one of the girls was the counselor at my daughter's middle school.  It was a week filled with tears but also joy.  The community really pulled together and did some great things to honor these two amazing girls.  It's just tragic to see loss of life at such a young age.  It was also an opportunity for me to talk to my girls about being safe and not taking life for granted.  Lots of prayers and love for the families of Josie and McKenzie as well as prayers for healing to Preston and his family.

#2 - We're continuing on with our author study of Chris VanAllsburg in our classroom.  My favorite lesson this week was using Ben's Dream.  I used the book to transition into a geography lesson using the landmarks in the book.  It was a great lesson...but also one that proved my kids need some extra help being able to differentiate between cities, states, countries and continents.  I can't tell you how many times I had to say "No, South Dakota is not a country".  Oy!

#3 - Still very much in love with the Interactive Math Journals packet I purchased from Runde's Room on TPT.  It has been a great way to incorporate some new, interactive activities into our daily lessons.  THANK YOU!

#4 - I was BLESSED this week at school!  Our school began a new program this year that provides parents with an opportunity to "BLESS"  teachers throughout the year.  This week a family blessed me with Starbucks (enough said!), candy and a gift card to one of our favorite restaurants!  After such a difficult week, it was really nice to know others were thinking of me.  Thank you!!

#5 - It's FALL!!  The weather is chilly and the days are getting shorter.  For me this is EXCITING!  I love fall and winter and am probably one of the few people already wishing for snow!!  

Have a great weekend!! 

Ahhh....Sunday!

Normally I would dread Sunday - the day when my focus seems to be on gearing up for the week, catching up on laundry, making a menu of weekly meals, nagging my girls to pick-up so that we can start the week with a clean house....and on and on.  But today I'm actually enjoying my Sunday immensley!  Why?  Because I'm FINALLY getting some planning done!  Woo Hoo!!

I had posted previously about my desire to plan ahead more than one day at a time.  It stresses me out and makes me feel like most days I'm just flying                                                                                       by the seat of my pants.  I seem to never have time.  Today I decided to make the time.  It's cold, windy and rainy here and after spending all day in the rain yesterday watching my girls play soccer, I vowed to not leave the house today unless absolutely necessary!  So here I sit in front of a warm fire while my girls watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original - oh yea!) planning my entire week!

This week will be a week of new ideas and I'm both excited and nervous!  I'm introducing my students to an author study this week.  We're starting with one of my favorite authors, Chris Van Allsburg!  I've mentioned before that I find our reading curriculum a little....dry...so I'm hoping this will jazz it up a bit and get the kids a little more excited about our reading block.  I wasn't really sure where to begin, so I spend some time researching online and found two really great resources (and they are free, too!).  The first came from www.readingrockets.org and the other came from Jennifer Buoy (love her author study units!).  

Geography is the other subject that's getting a makeover!  I wanted to jazz it up a bit, too!  I found a great set of lessons on Teachers Pay Teachers (I'm addicted!) from Meg Anderson.  I think it will work really well in my class and provides them with some fun activities to enhance their map skills!  The bonus is that it incorporates art, which my class will LOVE!

Maybe these new and fun lessons will help take the edge off of the fact that we have 3 tests this week!  :)

I'm BAAACK!

Oh my goodness!  I feel as though I haven't blogged in WEEKS!  Oh...wait...it's probably because I haven't blogged in weeks!  My fellow teachers will understand how this happens.  I feel as though I've been sucked into this crazy place in the universe where time ticks by much more quickly than it should.  I feel as though I need a few more hours in the day in order to just stay above water.  It's probably  also a symptom of being a first year teacher.  The only way I was able to carve out time to blog tonight is because I'm doing it in the car here:

Thank goodness for soccer practice!  ;)

So, here's what I've been up to.  

1) I'm struggling with the fact that I find myself planning the night before the next day of school.  I just can't seem to get ahead.  I am such a planner that this daily planning is killing me!  I hope that I can find a way to remedy this.  Any ideas?

2) I REALLY don't like our reading curriculum.  It's pretty dull and the kids think so too!  I'm trying to find some supplemental activities to jazz it up a little.  I really would love to do an author study, but am not really sure how to begin.  Does anyone have any advice?

3) I also need a serious nap!  My class spent two days at a great camp right on the river.  It was loads of fun, but I'm exhausted!!  They did some super activities like this:

They (speaking of the boys!) also woke the girls cabin up at 6am!  Ugh!  Needless to say, I'm tired!  :)  

Until next time....

Happy Fall, Y'All!

I may not live in Texas anymore, but who can resist a chance to use "Y'all"?  It's one of my favorite southern words!  ;)    It may not officially be fall yet, but school has started (for me anyway - 1 more day of summer for my girls!), the weather is gradually cooling and college football once again dominates my television!  :)  In celebration, I'm linking up with Farley for September's Currently - better late than never!

Happy Labor Day!

Wow - what a whirlwind this last week has been!  I survived my first week of school, watched some amazing college football on Saturday and yesterday spend the day at a local water/amusement park with my girls!  Can I tell you how glad I am to have this Monday off to just R*E*L*A*X?!  So, here I sit on the couch with my coffee, laptop and GMA.  It feels good to have no agenda for the day.

I have to share this FUN activity I did with my class on Friday.  I used it as a way to introduce group expectations and to build teamwork.  I got the idea from Science Gal.  I also used it to introduce our science jobs that we will be using each time we do an experiment.  Let me just tell you - it was FUN!  The kids loved it!  I had them work with their table groups for the first run through.   Then I used the Random Student Selector from Barry Fun English to pick new groups.  It was fun to see how different kids worked together.

I would suggest you head on over to Science Gal and check out the details of this activity!

Happy First (Half) Day of School!

Woo Hoo!  We started school today!!  I'm partner teaching and only teaching 3 days per week.  Today was not my day to teach, but my partner and I wanted to both be there on the first day to emphasize that we are a team and share the same rules.  SO...I only had to stay for half of the day.  It was a nice way to ease into the year.  My kiddos are SUPER (all 11 of them!).  I can tell it's going to be a great year.  I have 8 boys and 3 girls, which seems crazy to me after spending a year subbing in public schools where class sizes are MUCH larger.  I think it's going to be fun having a small group.  We are going to be really close I can tell.

Since I don't have to teach until Friday, I have a day to spend prepping.  I need to create a fun intro. science lesson.  Of course, I had the perfect lesson in mind - one that we had done in my science methods class.  I came home and realized that I hadn't kept the notebook it was in.  Oy!  Sometimes my purging comes back to bite me!  So, I'll be doing some internet surfing to try and find a good replacement.

Oh - and one last tidbit...we got this cute little gift today from one of our kiddos.  I had to laugh when he said "My mom got this on Pinterest...she gets everything off of Pinterest!".

Maybe the earth REALLY is flat!

I've been pondering this past week (or two) about the shape of the earth.  I think it could quite possibly be flat.  Now, before you call for my teaching certificate, let me say that I know the earth is round, but honestly when it comes to blogging, it feels as though I've fallen right off the face of the earth - hence my thinking it really could be flat!  :)

In all seriousness, it's just be a CRAZY (or in the words of my daughters - cray cray) couple of weeks.  I had a two day teaching conference at Gonzaga (which was FABULOUS) which led into a crazy busy weekend of barefoot soccer (more on that in a minute), which led into a week of having a painter in the house painting every room upstairs (which meant me - just me - moving EVERY piece of furniture and all of the "goodies" hiding underneath).  As if that weren't already enough, we still had 4 soccer practices a week, some back to school shopping, an end of summer basketball party, piano lessons and a couple of meetings at school.  Whew....this is my life.

I'm now trying to savor the last few days of summer.  I go back on Monday and Tuesday for staff meetings and then start school with the kids on Wednesday.  YIKES!  Where did the summer go?!   We have had a nice summer, even though it's buzzed by quickly.  The girls have done some fun things, including a little Barefoot 3-on-3 soccer tournament.  These girls had SO much fun and even won the award for best uniforms!

These are the fun memories we have to hold on to as summer quickly fades into fall.  I'm sad, but really looking forward to crisp days, football games on Saturdays and new fun memories at school!

Teacher Week '13: Let's Talk About Me Monday

I'm excited to link up with some great bloggers for Teacher Week '13 at Blog Hoppin'.  

There is a new topic each day which means an entire week of blogging FUN!

So here are a few things About Me!

1) I'm a wife and mom to 5 girls.  I have two step-daughters who are in their 20's and my three littles are 11, 10 and 8.  WAIT - I guess that means they aren't so little anymore!  My 11 year old will be 12 next month and is entering middle school.  How in the heck did that happen?!  

2) I'm a HUGE (and I mean HUGE) football fan!  I get so excited for the first weekend of college football. I graduated from Texas A&M (Gig 'Em Aggies!) and got my teaching certificate from Washington State University (GO Cougs!) but I will watch any game just to get my fill of football!  I have to constantly remind my husband how lucky he is!

3) This is my first year teaching!  Yes, I got a bit of a late start, but I'm SO excited!  After college I obtained my Masters degree in College Student Personnel Administration and worked in Higher Ed before getting married and starting a family.  It was important for me to be home with my girls when they were little.  In 2010 I decided it was time to go back and get my certification.  I spent last year subbing in several local school districts.

4) I LOVE Pink.  I guess having a house full of girls makes it easy!  Really, pink just makes me happy!

5)We have 2 dogs.  Belle, who was delivered by Santa Claus 5 years ago and Akita who joined our family a few months ago.  I say that Belle is my dog.  She is calm, sweet and loves to nap!  Akita is my husband's dog.  She is wild, strong and loves to play!  As you might guess, they don't get along too well!  

6) I hate to admit it, but I'm a fan of Disney Channel shows.  I often find myself caught up in an episode of Jessie or Good Luck Charlie and then realize my girls aren't even in the room.  

7) I LOVE to travel!  I don't do much anymore, but when I was younger I traveled a lot.  In fact, after I graduate from college I applied for a job as a flight attendant!  I was actually hired by US Airways but before I was able to go to training, the company implemented a hiring freeze so I decided instead of waiting, I'd go back to graduate school!

8) I love coconut cake...but have yet to find one that is as good as my grandmother used to make.

9) I get giddy over school supplies.

10) I'm currently obsessed with School Girl Style.

There you have it!  A few facts about me.  We're off to get 6th grade shots (ouch!) and wade through the bags and bags full of school supplies and new clothes that we shopped for yesterday!  FUN!

Lookie, Lookie!

How sweet!  I've been nominated for a Liebster Award!  Thank you to the oh so sweet Lori from Special Education Love!  I'll admit I was slightly giddy when I first heard the news!

The Liebster Award is for up and coming blogs that have less than 200 followers (that's me!).  So what is a Liebster, you ask?  Liebster is a German word that means sweetest, kindest, dearest, cute, endearing, etc.  Such a thoughtful award!  Here are the rules to accept this award:

1) Link back to the person that nominated you.
2) Answer the questions from your nominator.
3) Share 11 random facts about yourself.
4) Nominate 5 more blogs with less than 200 followers.
5) Pose questions for you nominees.

That's it!

Here we go!

1. When did you decide to become a teacher? I think I always knew deep down.  I went to college and got a degree in Elementary Education, but then chose to work in higher education instead (fraternity & sorority advisor - which at times felt like an elementary school teacher!  HA!).  I thankfully found my way back and this will be my first teaching job after spending a year as a sub.

2. What is your favorite meal?  Hmmm...that's a tough one as I LOVE food.  I'd have to say anything I eat when I go home to New Mexico.  I love green chile on just about everything!

3. Is this your first blog? No - I tried to blog during my student teaching, but really between that, my classes and my family I just didn't keep up with it.

4. Do you have any pets?  Tell me about them. Yes, we have two dogs - His and Hers dogs!  MY dog is Belle and she's a "cockachon" or a Cocker/Bichon mix.  Santa Claus brought her to us 5 years ago and she truly is my dog.  She goes everywhere I go, sleeps on my bed and most of the time seems to think no one else in our house exists!  My husband decided HE needed a dog, so we also have a Pitt Bull/Boxer mix named Akita.  She's 60 pounds of pure love.  She's super smart and so well trained, but she doesn't know her own strength sometimes, so the girls have to be careful not to get her too hyper!  Sadly, Belle and Akita aren't BFF's.  Belle is older and doesn't put up with Akita's puppy antics.

5. Name a blog you go to for inspiration. I love School Girl Style for classroom inspiration, Fifth In the Middle, Miss Math Dork and The Science Penguin for teaching ideas.  Of course, I have come across some other great blogs, but these are the ones I've spent the most time exploring.

6. What's your favorite Pinterest creation?  I'm more of a pinner with great intentions than an actual crafter, but I did make this!

7. What lesson are you the most proud of?  WELL...I did some fun things during student teaching, but I think I'll save this one for the end of my first year of teaching!  I'm hoping for some great lessons!

8. What do you teach? 5th grade but my kids switch classes for math, so I'll teach 6th grade math.

9. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be? Russia...I've always had a fascination with Russian culture and architecture.  It's been a dream of mine since I was very young and my grandfather shared his adventures in Russia.  I even took a semester of Russian in college!

10. What has been your favorite summer vacation? As a child I would say Disneyland.  With my kids I'd say South Dakota.  It was amazing to see Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. 

11. What is your number one goal for the upcoming school year? To survive!!  And, to have a little fun along the way!

Random Facts:

1) I'm an Aggie - GIG 'EM!  I L*O*V*E Texas, but don't think I could live there again because of the heat.  It will always hold a special place in my heart.

2)I'm also an Alpha Phi.  I love my sorority dearly and wish I had more time to be involved as a volunteer.  One day...

3) I have a bag obsession.  I love tote bags of all kinds.  Several years ago a friend showed me a Thirty-One catalog and I was hooked.  I've been a consultant since 2010.  It feeds my addiction!  :)

4) I LOVE PINK

5) I've attended 6 colleges/universities and have 2 degrees to show for it.  

6) I'm a HUGE sports fan - don't get in front of the television when college football or basketball are on - you might get hurt!  ;) 

7) I'm also a WSU Cougar - GO COUGS!  

8) I drive an Expedition named Daisy

9) I'm a soccer/basketball/softball mom.  My girls are SUPER sporty.  This summer they played all 3 sports at once which led to some crazy busy days/weeks.  I love watching them play!

10) I'm a technology addict...my Iphone and laptop are never very far away

11) I don't know what I would do if I didn't live in the land of coffee stands...there is one on nearly every corner and I appreciate that!  :)

I'm nominating:

1) The Hungry Teacher

2) Rootin For Third Grade

3) The Learning Effect

4) Lights...Camera...Teach!

5) Teacher Talk with Mrs. T

Here are your questions!

1)What is your ideal vacation?

2)If you had an unlimited budget, what would you purchase for your classroom?

3)What is your favorite way to de-stress after a long week?

4)Tell us your most unforgettable student response/comment you've ever had.

5)What is your favorite season and why?

6)What is your favorite way to reward your class for excellent behavior?

7)Sweet or Salty?

8)When you have time to read for pleasure, what do you read?

9) Reality TV - yes or no?

10) Where is your favorite place to buy school clothes?

So this must be what it's like...

Since this is my first year with a teaching contract, this is also my first summer experiencing the end of summer blues. I'll admit - I've never been a "summer mom". I go crazy trying to keep my girls busy, trying to stop the fighting that usually starts week 1 and trying to stay out of the heat (how in the HECK did I ever live in Texas?!). Yes, I enjoy the sleeping in and staying up late, but really I could do without much of the rest of what comes with summer. This year, however, I have enjoyed summer more than I ever have . Maybe it's because my girls are older now (gasp...I have a MIDDLE SCHOOLER!) or maybe it's because I've known since June that I would be teaching in August! SO - now instead of making paper chains to count down the days until school starts I'm instead trying to squeeze in a lot more of this and this and frankly, some of this . But, alas, today I had my reality check in the form of an email from my principal listing the required dates for reporting to school. SO, I guess I have to pack it all in before that time comes! Oh, and by the way, I'm SUPER excited to be teaching so while I may be sad to say good-bye to lazy summer days, I'm also ready to say hello to a classroom full of fifth grade kiddos!

My First "Currently"!

I feel like I'm now officially a blogger with this first Currently post! I'm linking up with Oh Boy, Fourth Grade to do my first post! Woo Hoo! Enjoy! For some reason my links got a little messed up (newbie error, I'm sure!). I have to share the link to the Math About Me project. I'll be teaching 5th grade, but 6th grade math (don't ask!). This looks like THE perfect way to start the year!! Not only will I get to know my students, but I can get a feel for where there are academically. Woo Hoo!! Also - A bit of shameless self promotion! I am in LOVE with Thirty-One's Organizing Utility Tote! It's THE best teacher bag...hands down! I'm doing a Back to School Blitz now and giving away $600 in Thirty-One products. If you want more info, I'd be happy to share!

Summer Bloggin'...

It's hard to believe that July is nearly over (yikes!).  I feel as though our summer has consisted of a non-stop series of softball games, soccer tournaments and basketball tournaments.  Yes, my girls are SUPER sporty!  I love watching them play...BUT...I'm also happy when we get a small break.  This weekend is the last tournament until the end of August, so we'll get a little bit of time to relax and enjoy the summer sun.  (WHEW!)

While we've been busy, I have had some time to do some blog surfing!  As I enter my first year with my own classroom (woo hoo!), I have found some great inspiration though my blog surfing!  I've also come across some great giveaways - and who doesn't love a giveaway?!  There is a great giveaway now at Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade blog.  She's celebrating her 3rd year of blogging in a big way!  Head over to her blog now and enter to win one of 6 TPT gift cards or a gift card to Starbucks or the Loft (my fav!).  Don't delay - you only have one more day!!  :)

My New Blog!

Yippee!!!  I am LOVIN' my new blog design!!    I can't wait to get started sharing my thoughts and ideas as I navigate through my first year as a teacher!  But, a little background first.  I completed my degree in Elementary Education many (many) years ago.  BUT...after graduation, I was given an opportunity to head back to graduate school and work in student affairs.  At the time, it was such a passion of mine and I couldn't say no.  Skip ahead a few years.  I married my husband (and his two daughters) and we started a family.  We decided that my primary role would be to stay home with our daughter.

A few years later and we had a full house!  We have 5 girls (ages 23-8) and a crazy hectic daily schedule.  Even through all of the craziness at home, I still felt the pull back to the classroom.  I decided to head back to school in 2011 and completed the Master In Teaching program at Washington State University (Go Cougs!)

I spend the last year subbing in a few local districts.  While I learned a great deal, I missed being able to form relationships with the kids like a regular classroom teacher would be able to do.  I made it my mission not to sub again next year!  I feel so blessed that I was offered a teaching job at a local Christian school.  So, now my adventure in 5th grade begins!  I have an amazing teaching partner who will be teaching 2 days a week while I teach 3 days a week.  It will be a great way to ease into teaching (while hopefully keeping up with our girls' crazy schedules!).   So, I'm spending my summer reading through curriculum, making plans for my new classroom and trying to wade through my hundreds of teaching pins on Pinterest!