Case-of-the-Mondays? Not this week!

Thank goodness for a three day weekend! This past week was crazy. Middle of the year assessing is still throwing off our schedule. DRA testing, Papi's, CogAT, BLAH! On top of all of that, we had a thunderstorm/snowstorm on Tuesday! Snow, or really any precipitation, causes Texans to lose it. Honestly, I'm surprised school didn't get cancelled or at least started late. Our city usually shuts down when we get any kind of winter weather. But no, school started on time and it made everyone's mornings a little more interesting. It made my 40 mile commute much longer than it normally is but I didn't run into any problems on the roads that I took so I was thankful for that. This is the only picture I managed to take of it that day - looking out of the window in the hallway outside of my classroom towards our playground. It further illustrates my classroom's placement between the kinder/first grade and the second/third grade pods.


My goal for tomorrow is to be productive. I'd really love to sleep, work out, shop, etc. but when you're a first year teacher, you can't waste a free day. There is ALWAYS something to do. For example, I have about a million pictures of fish to cut out. (Anybody else out there use Investigations as part of their math instruction?) We're starting our measurement unit in  next week and I need lots of things cut out for my kiddos to measure. I also need to plan our review day for our third Math CBA. That's Curriculum Based Assessment, for the non-teacher-readers out there. I don't feel all that confident going into this CBA. I should since we have worked on word problems so much that my dreams are about different ways to teach them or different problems and wordings to use. It's been rough, though. It is really difficult for sweet little firsties to decide when to add or subtract and where to put the given numbers in a math fact. One of my team members made the anchor chart below, that I will try to reproduce tomorrow as well. With my own little bit of flair, of course. (Side note: I hope to one day create anchor charts as adorable as Mrs. Carroll @TheFirstGradeParade.) I am also hoping that this added visual will help my students decide when to add and when to subtract. (Please ignore the misspelled word. It happens.)

Does anybody have any tips for word problems? Have any non-school oriented plans for tomorrow??
Wish us luck next week! It'll be another long one with a whole day devoted to me administering the CBA to small groups. Yippee!

What's been going on...

My classroom is in a weird spot in our school. I am not in one of the pods with the other first grade classrooms. I am in, what we call, the fishbowl. A room in the middle of the main hallway that everybody walks by everyday. I didn't think I was going to like it at first, but it has grown on me. I feel like we're in our own little bubble away from the very loud kinder babies and classes that might be using the pod computer lab. It does get a little loud outside of our room occasionally but not as often as I originally thought it would.

An  upside to having this classroom, is the great deal of wall space that I have all to myself in the main hallway. I get to put up several different completed projects and everyone gets to see the awesome work that we're doing. If you're having a hard time picturing my room placement, check the picture below. Those two windows with the hallway view make me laugh but that is the wall that I get to use for our work. (FYI: Everything is so bare because this picture was taken back in August.)

 Currently, I've got our 4 seasons dioramas (that I actually need to take down) and our 'shape'ly snowmen on display, as well as our ancestery flags on the classroom door. My favorite display has got to be the snowmen. We spent four long weeks learning about shapes and created snowmen out of shapes for one of our mini-lessons. Then, to integrate writing into this activity, I had my kids work on their description words by describing their snowmen. Let me tell you, descriptions are not easy for first graders. I had so many that wrote in their story, 'my snowman has two eyes.' I tried to explain over and over again that this wasn't specific enough and that they needed to include the shape name, color, and size in the descriptions of the snowman's features. My sarcasm finally got the best of me after I read that same sentence in the 15th story, and I asked everyone that gave their snowman two eyes to raise their hand. To the shock of my students, everyone raised their hands and I finally saw some light bulbs go off. It was definitely a beating but the hard work paid off. When I finally got everyone to finished their descriptions, I put all of them together and stapled them in the middle of our snowman display. Then I printed up a cute "Can you find my snowman" cover to put on top. My hope was that people would walk by and read a few descriptions and try to find the snowmen that are being described. When I take this down, their descriptions will go in their writing journal.

Before Thanksgiving, we learned about the Pilgrims and Native Americans, as I am sure most first graders did. We discussed in detail the fact that all of us come from families that immigrated here, unless we are from Native American descent. Part of their homework that week was drawing/coloring/creating a flag that represented their ancestry. Aside from the US flag and Texas flag that I received (??), I was very happy with the result. I put them up on our classroom door with a sign that says, "Where on (Picture of Earth) are YOU from?"

This past week we discussed New Year's traditions and resolutions. I am hoping to put some of them up either inside my classroom or on the other side of our door. They are so funny! One student said that his resolution was, "to clean his room two times a month." ha! We are also going to be learning about Martin Luther King Jr., Marc Brown books, and how to classify objects. Should be a fun week! Then, a three day weekend!!!!!

All teachers do is color...

 Right?? Uhh, no.

As I suspected, it is really difficult to blog during the week. With it being the first week back, my out of control Teacher-Tired returned in full force! I keep telling myself (and the future Mr.) that next year will be better. That I'm just ALWAYS exhausted because it is my first year and I'm not used to it/have so much to do. I have no idea if that is true but I am hoping that if I say it enough, it'll happen.

Anyway, my team leader, Brittany, gave us new desktop calendars for Christmas and I snuck in some time this week to write down some of my important dates and reminders. As you can see, I have no scheduled coloring time and we are NOT easing back into our school routine.

Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go directly to CRAY!

Of course, I know that it could always be worse. My sweet friends that teach 3rd - 5th grade had their worlds turned upside down this week (and for the rest of the semester) in preparation for STAAR. So, here is where my whining stops because the bottom line is this: I love my job. I love my sweet kids. I love seeing them grow.

On to the point of this post: Another plate that we spin at our school (more on that reference later) is our grade level bulletin board. These are the bulletin boards in our main hallway that showcase a "big idea" for our grade level and we're required to change them out every nine weeks. Naturally, we finished it at the very last minute; Friday afternoon at 3:30pm.

It's simple. It's handmade. It's adorable.

We decided to do a math strategies board this time since we've already done reading strategies and writing components. Also because we talk about math strategies ALL. THE. TIME. Since we were down to the wire, we decided to make our own strategies instead of finding something to print. Our team just set aside some time in our weekly meeting for each person to solve a simple math fact using a different strategy on white paper. The fun part came when we put our strategies up and added some decoration. Here's the back story: When I got my job, my future sister-in-law gifted me an awesome Cricut Machine. (MUST HAVE for a teacher/scrapbooker.) Well, I've used it for several of my classroom needs and when explaining to someone how I made the wordle of my kids names and what a cricut machine was, I saw a light bulb go off. As it turns out, our pod (or school?) owns a cricut machine and at least 25 font cartridges. Here's the kicker - NOBODY was using the machine or even knew what it was! Needless to say, we use it a lot more now and decided to use the adorable winter font cartridge to cut out the words for this bulletin board. We (team leader - Brittany and I) cut out the words on white paper and then colored them in during our planning time. Here's what we had when we were done coloring:

If you can't tell, it says, "Math Strategies" in snowman, scarf, mitten, and gingerbread house letters. Aren't they cute? It might just be the teacher in me, but I love them. We put them on black paper and laminated them (so we can use it again next year) and then added some snowflakes to our board. This is what it looked like when I left yesterday.

See? Simple. Handmade. Cute. Very first grade!

Anybody else use a Cricut? Or know of a cartridge that I MUST get? Or create an awesomely cute bulletin board lately? I'd love to change up the work I have in our hallway but there just isn't time right now.

Craft Day

Craft day was a success! Here is my inspiration (via Brassy Apple), found from the amazing time-waster that is Pinterest. Brassy Apple took a canvas, covered it in fabric, placed sticker letters on the fabric, painted the canvas, and then peeled off the stickers. Here is her end result:

I originally planned to do this same thing but in wedding colors and with a different quote. So, after rummaging through my craft box, (I found grey paint and brushes) I headed to Jo-Anns, Hobby Lobby, and Hancock Fabrics to get the rest of my supplies. I checked Jo-Anns first but none of their fabric really caught my eye. I went to Hancock Fabrics next and found some really great chevron fabric. Then I went to Hobby Lobby to get a canvas and some letters. (Only had to spend $10 thanks to a gift card I got from one of my sweet students for Christmas!) I was not impressed with the sticky letters that Hobby Lobby had so I bought stencils, which took this idea from a 2 hour project to an almost 5 hour project. More on that later.

First, I laid my fabric out and placed the canvas on top of it. I then cut around the canvas, leaving about 2 inches of fabric on each side. I tried to center it up and make it as straight as possible but it still ended up a little crooked. (A fun little fact about me: I can't draw a straight line to save my life. Even with a ruler and double and triple checking, my lines are still really, really crooked. So, a little bit of crookedness didn't bother me.) After centering up the fabric, I staple-gunned the heck out of it and cut off the excess fabric.

Now it was time for the fun part. The verse I decided on is, 'And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13.' If I followed Brassy Apple's tutorial, this would have been when I would put the sticky letters on the fabric and then painted over the entire thing in grey. Then when the letters are pulled off, the chevron would show though. However, I was worried the grey would be too dark, didn't have sticky letters, and wanted more of the chevron to show. After discussing with Megan, I decided to do the opposite, which meant placing, taping, and painting each letter grey and leaving the chevron fabric showing. Oftentimes this meant stopping and waiting for the paint to dry before placing the next letter. It was painful! I had four inch stencils in brush font for the word Love and two inch stencils in a different font for the rest of the verse. This is what I had completed after an hour due to the stencils overlapping:

After another two hours and lots of tiny pieces of tape, I was pretty much done for the day. I still need to clean up a few spots where my unsteady hand and tiny pieces of tape failed. It isn't absolutely perfect but I really like it.

I'm thinking about searching some thrift stores to find an over-sized frame to put around this canvas and hang somewhere in my house. Similar to the photo below via Melissa Darst Photo.

Thoughts? Anybody know where I can find a cheap over-sized frame? Done any crafting lately? 

Have a good weekend! I'm hoping the next two days C-R-A-W-L by. 5am Monday morning is going to be rough! 

~Holly

Three More Days

Two weeks ago, I was counting down the seconds to winter break and silently cursing my district for making us go to school through December 21st. Fast forward to today, and I am SO happy to have three more days off due to that incredibly long week.

That being said, Newly had to go back to work today (and he's sick) so we went to bed earlier than we have for most of Christmas break and big surprise; I couldn't fall asleep. No matter how hard I tried, my mine would not shut off. So, I made a list of things that I need (or want) to do to be prepared for next week. Here goes:

• Make/prepare documents for report card assessing. (Due to the craziness of pre-winter break, I totally forgot that the nine weeks was ending and that report cards go home on January 10th. I have some serious assessing to do Monday and Tuesday.)
• Inspired by Sherry Petersick at Young House Love, I have several "Dude, get on that already" ideas/projects that I've been putting off.  Here are a few:

 
Sources (or what I could find as sources)
 "I'm done" Ideas, Word Family Sliders, Library Bucket, and Class Sized Schema Bubble. 
Most importantly, I want to get the "I'm done" cup started and finished. I have been blessed with amazing students. They are so smart and are lightning fast when I give them work to do. This usually causes problems once they're done thought because they either all want to show me that they're finished or they are raising their hand asking what they should do now. This cup will take care of that so I can focus on my Teacher Table without 15 different interruptions. 
• Plan and prepare meals. All teachers know that your "30 minute" lunch break is more like a 13 minute rush to finish your food. The easier the meal, the better. Unfortunately, easy usually means something like microwaveable mac and cheese or leftover pizza. Neither one of those items is filling or part of my wedding tone-up plan. I got an awesome insulated (and monogrammed) lunch bag and new Tupperware for Christmas that I need to put to good use!
• New Clothes: More specifically, I need some new black slacks. I'm not much of a skirt wearing teacher - my teacher wardrobe consists of slacks, tops, cardigans, and flats. I bought new cardigans at Target's after Christmas sale and now I need to find some new pants. I haven't bought any since being hired and the ones that I have been wearing need some serious updating. 

If there is any leftover time, or if I feel like procrastinating some more, I also need to clean up my pinterest and buy the materials I need for craft day coming up. Which also means that I need to decide on a craft! 

Gol' Darn Gone and Done It

Well, I've done it. I finally decided to join the blogging world. Cue the crowd applause! I have debated starting a blog for quite a while - I just wasn't sure if I'd have time to keep up with it or if I'd have anything to blog about. I'm not much of a seamstress or creative genius, I don't have kids, and I don't have my own house. What else is there to talk about in blogland if you're not posting about your children, latest craft, or decorating tips?

What I've come up with so far is:

~ School: I began my first year of teaching in August and it has completely consumed my life. I have known for my entire life that I belong in the classroom. There was never a plan B. It has always been teaching. After I graduated in May, I spent the entire month of June sending emails and filling out applications. (200+ emails and applications, actually!) It was tiring and incredibly discouraging at times, but it paid off and I finally found the job that I know God prepared for me - First Grade!! Blogging about things that I've learned about the profession so far, activities we've done, and some of the hilarious things that my kiddos do and say will probably take up a good bit of this blog.

Classroom as I found in in August:

 Meet the Teacher Night: Things look VERY different now. We've got anchor charts all over the wall and lots of words on our word wall. Will update soon.

~ Wedding Planning: During that aforementioned rough month of June, one big happening brought my spirits up: after three years with my sweet Newly (yes, that is his real name), I got engaged! We have set our wedding date for November of 2013 and while I have been slow to start making the millions of decisions that come along with a wedding, we have gotten a few of the "big" things taken care of; engagement pictures (see below), wedding date, dress!!!, wedding band, venue, and caterer.

Did I mention that we are HUGE Texas Ranger fans?? 

We did take some "normal" engagement pictures too. These are just a few of our baseball themed save-the-dates. Big thanks to Emma Goode Photography!

~ The occasional craft: Sadly, I haven't had much time to craft since I was hired in July. Even when I am at home and technically "off," my computer is open and I am searching pinterest for new ideas, working on lesson plans, or cutting out and laminating math station games. However, I foresee more time for crafts in the future. I would assume that they'll be wedding decor crafts but I am sure I can squeeze in the occasional home and school craft here and there too. In fact, to finish off my two week long CHRISTMAS break, I have a craft day date on Friday with a fellow first year teacher at my school, Megan. She's an awesome fifth grade teacher and she's starting her own Teacher's Pay Teacher's account. Check it out and follow HERE!

~Lastly, and certainly guaranteed to be the most boring of my ideas, The Great Wedding Tone-Up: I've never been a big exercise person. I do get some exercise and most people would consider me skinny (I'm tall and clothes hide a lot!) but I'd like to tone up and take care of some of the "jelly" that I've got going on. I need to get over my gym intimidation and wimpy tendencies and Just (stinkin') Do It! I am not sure where I will find the time, but it is mandatory that I do.

That's all I've got to share for now. Any blogs that I absolutely must follow? Or blogging advice?

Happy New Year, Y'all!