Happy New Year and Currently

 

Come join the fun!

I can't believe how quick 2012 flew by!  I am ending the year feeling very BLESSED and thanking God daily for having such a role in my life.  As I enter 2013, I pray that God will lead, guide, and direct me in my daily walk.  I pray that He watches over me and the precious 19 children that I am given the opportunity to teach each day.  

Happy New Year!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

 

 

12 in 12

I am excited to join in this Linky Party!  

 

12. Favorite movie you watched: 

I really don't see many movies.  I need to see more movies this next year.

 

11. Favorite TV series:

I only have a few TV series that I watch, but I must say that my favorite is 

 

10. Favorite restaurant:

I LOVE Mexican!  My favorite place is a little Mexican restaurant in Knoxville called Monterrey's.  My hubby takes me there at least twice a month. 

  

9. Favorite new thing you tried:

Blogging!  I am blessed to be among so many awesome blogger/teachers!

 

8. Favorite gift you got:

The best gift that I have gotten is that both biological parents of my nephew signed adoption papers within the past week.  One more step closer to making him ours.

 

7. Favorite thing you pinned:

 

 

6. Favorite blog post:

 

 

This would be the post that I made an introduction to my classroom at the beginning of the school year.  My room was so neat and clean.

5. Best accomplishment:

 Finally getting adoption papers drawn up and signed by all parties to adopt my nephew, who I have had custody of since he was 18 months...he is now 8.  We have our fingers crossed that this will be finalized by the end of the year.

4. Favorite picture:

My happy family this past summer at the beach.  I wish we had more family time to relax.  I look forward to more time like this!

 

3. Favorite memory:

Our family vacation to the beach.  We don't go on vacation very often, but we made it happen this past summer!

 

2. Goal for 2013:

Get my diabetes under control and loose at least 25 more pounds.

1. One Little Word:

BLESSED

I am very blessed with family, friends, coworkers, and 18 wonderful students that remind me daily of the reasons I became a teacher.

 

Have a great remainder of the week!

TpT Sale and Freebie

Tomorrow is the big day!  I am so excited and have so many items on my TpT Wish List.

Are you ready?  If you would like to visit my store, please click here.

Thanks for the cute image, Amy!

 

So, my observation is coming up next week and I have been stressing over it during my Thanksgiving Break.  I have a good idea on what skills to cover and how to do my lesson, but I need to get it down on paper.  I am such a procrastinator.  Here is a freebie that I have created that I might possibly use.  I am thinking on teaching summarizing.

I have seen these on different blogs and thought I would create a few different ones on my own.  Please click on the photos if you would like to download them.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Blessed Beyond Imaginable, Photo Dump and New TpT Unit

As Thanksgiving is approaching, I find myself pondering the many things that I am thankful for.  I am blessed beyond anything imaginable.  I have a wonderful, supporting family; I LOVE my job (most days) and the people that I work with; I am healthy; and, I am blessed to be able to find so many wonderful ideas to use in my classroom through the many teachers that take the time to share things through their blogs.  THANK YOU!

I would like to also say how thankful I am to Teachers Pay Teachers.  Being able to sell things that I make has allowed me and my husband to being the adoption process to adopt our nephew.  We have had custody of him since he was 18 months old and he recently turned 8.  I do not know what our life would be like without him.  Our son, Joe, is 19 and adapted so gracefully when we gained custody.  I just pray daily that my sister (his birth mother) will not put up a fight and agree to it.  God has truly blessed us!

Let me share a few pictures of what my class has been up to the past few weeks.

 My class being Synonym Chefs - they really enjoyed it.  You can find this unit at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Synonym-Rolls-Center-Activities

 Our Veteran's Day Program - the color guard entering

 A few of the Veterans that were in attendance.  Very blessed to have them come.

 On Friday, we had our school AR kick-off.  Our theme is Super Heroes so the teachers dressed up and we asked our kids to wear super hero t-shirts and several classes made hats to wear.  This is a kindergarten teacher on the left and our principal on the right.

 Here are our 1st grade teachers - notice the 4th one..the one with the tutu...well I think it is adorable....

 Here is all the staff

 Remember the adorable tutu from above...well she and i had a idea that we would make them and wear them.  They were a great hit!  The kids that they was awesome!  I normally do not like doing things like this, but I have decided that being silly sometimes is a great thing.

I hope everyone is enjoying their Thanksgiving Break - I have two days left before mine.  At this point the kids need a break from one another and we are surviving.

Last thing, sorry this post is so long, but here is my new TpT unit.  It is 8 literacy centers. 

  

Busy Busy Busy

Last week I had three meetings, parent conferences, Pumpkin Book Reports were due, and we had a PTA sponsored Karaoke and Cookout.  This week I have a meeting, an event called Reach Them to Teach Them (Ron Clark is the motivational speaker), Halloween, and one parent teacher conference for a parent that could not come last week.  I also have to plan our school wide Math Night that is scheduled for the end of November.  I know what we are going to do, but need to get everything organized and ordered this week.

WARNING:  PICTURE OVERLOAD AHEAD

Here is a picture from our Bat unit two weeks ago.  We really loved this unit!

Now here are some pictures of our Pumpkin Book Reports

 

Now, let me add some pictures of our staff doing Karaoke.  It was a great night and enjoyed by all!

 Our 1st Grade Teachers singing These Boots Are Made For Walking

 Our Pre-K Teachers singing YMCA - this was hilarious!

 Now, this was great for everyone.  This is our current principal on the right and our former principal on the left.  It was great that he came out and joined us for our event.  All of the kids loved seeing him.

I have been trying to lesson plan off and on all weekend.  I'm not too motivated, lol.  The skills that I have to cover this week are:  making inferences, synonyms, contractions, possessive nouns, and long i spelled with y, igh, ie.  I want to use the wonderful Mystery Box, make Synonym Rolls, the Candy Corn Bandit, and have a Contraction Surgery.  I hope I have enough energy to do all these activities this week on top of the kids' excitement about Halloween.  

I hope everyone has a great week!

MIA and Overwhelmed

It has been almost 2 months since I've blogged.  My question to all you (if I have any followers left) is - how do you all find the time to do school stuff, be a mom, and a blogger?  I stay at school until 5ish, come home to cook dinner and help my youngest with homework, then I sit down to grade papers and do other things to get ready for the next day.  It seems that I am never going to get ahead...ugh!

This week is a three day week for me!  FALL BREAK is only 2 days, but it is better than none.  I really need a few days off!  Since it a short week, we are not doing our normal weekly reading story and activities.  I am really excited because I have several fun things planned to do this week on bats.  This includes reading Stellaluna and Bats by Gail Gibbons.  I will try to remember to take pictures this week and post them on here. 

 

This past week at school, a local farm came to school and put on a short program about the making of their ice cream and what it was like to work on the farm.  They even brought a calf.  The kids adored it.  The best part at the end of the program, they gave each student a mini ice cream cone and a glass of the best chocolate milk ever!  I was one happy teacher because they gave me a half-gallon.  If you are ever in Knoxville, TN in October, you must check out Cruze Farms!  Here are some pictures from the program.

Have a great week!

Welcome To My Classroom

It is hard to believe that we have been in school for two weeks already!   I haven't had time to post because there have been so many meetings and other things that I have had to focus on.  I thought I would take a few minutes and show you pictures of my classroom.

My classroom from the front door.

Room looking from my reading table.

My Monsterous Math Board and my What We Are Learning Board

What we did on the first day of school.  I really learned a lot about the kids with this.

Classroom Expectations Board

Flowers that a teammate gave me 2 weeks ago.  I can't believe they lasted this long.  BEAUTIFUL!!

Word Wall Board

This is a board that I use to place our anchor charts for the week on.  

 

 

I am linking up with Courtney over at Swimming Into Second (a little late)

So, I am about to begin my Sunday ritual of lesson planning for the upcoming week.  I am a little tired because I went to my 20-year high school reunion last night and was out past my bedtime.  We had a blast!

Have a great week.  I hope to be back in a few days with a freebie or two.