My Truth Monday

I so need to post, want to post, but don't feel like I have anything valuable to post. And in other words, don't make the time to post. There I said it, feel a tad better, but not really.

I found a linky that I think I might be motivated to blog every Monday about. It's all about getting to know each other better. Denise over at Sunny Days in Second Grade is having a My Truth Monday series. It is 11 weeks of Monday Truths. The sad reality that at the end of the 11 weeks it will be New Year's completely struck me. My how time flies. So here goes......My Truth about fitness:

I would love to look fit rather than skinny. I am blessed that I was able to lose the weight I gained with my pregnancies, but now I have the awful baby pooch. It is typically very difficult for me to discuss this issue, because people look at me like I am crazy. I weigh 102, but am not happy with the fact that I am all bones and now on most any day look pregnant. I have to say that people talking about how skinny you are is just as bad as people who say things about big people (in my opinion). It's not like I starve myself like some people think. I eat more than my fair share on most days.

So since I have been truthful about my fitness feelings, I am going to attempt to make progress in doing something about it. I am intrigued by the new CrossFit programs that I see everywhere. No I don't want to be as fit as those who compete on the tv, but from what I have read, it is a great whole body workout. We have a new Crossfit Facility opened here locally, so I may look into starting there. Time will tell.

So want to link up and join the Truth Party! Click on the link below to find more Fitness truth stories and add your own.

~Heather

Neglectful

Yes I totally feel that my little ole blog has been more than a little bit neglected. I mean come on it's only been three months since I last posted! 

Have I thought about it.........of course.

Have I meant to blog...........of course.

But what have I been up to.......well let's see. 

Finishing the school year......Check! 

I was so not happy to let my little one's leave me. They were the absolutely best class ever!

Taught summer school for upcoming kinders for a month.....Check! 

I LOVE teaching summer school! One I am not a stay at home mommy for a reason. I love my two little ones to death, but mommy doesn't like being at home for two solid months with them. Two I get quickly put back in the beginning of school mode....these kids can't write their name, can't sit and listen to a story, you name it. It makes coming back in August soooo much easier.

Took time off from anything school related......Check!

I took about two weeks off. Didn't really think about school. Yeah right totally not true...when can a teacher truly not think about school. But I didn't act on my thoughts;)

Went on a mini vacation with the family and the brother's family.......Check!

We traveled to Atlanta, GA for a three day weekend. Took the kiddos to Stone Mountain. LOVE that place. The laser light show is always my fav. I was totally bummed that they had gotten rid of the paddle boats. It was also a fav. Riding around the lake paddling your heart out. I was super sad it was gone. Took the kids to LEGOLAND. I honestly don't know who had more fun...the kids or the adults.

So now it's time to into back to school mode. I am ready for it. Once they get my floors waxed, I am off to my room to work. Hoping they finish soon, we start back August 1st and have students on the 6th. 

Well I promise it won't be three months before I decide to post again!

~Heather

Monday after Spring Break

So today was the first day back after Spring Break, and like usual the kids were super calm and very eager to get back into the swing of things! I am saddened to think that I only have  weeks left with this group of kiddos. This has been my best group in my eight years of teaching. I have good parents who actually help the kids, and most of the kids are eager to learn and will put forth effort to do it! I am blessed because this time last year, I was considering quitting due to the exact opposite classroom environment. But we all know you have your good and bad years, just depends on the kid mix and how everything works together. 

I have recently fully implemented Daily 5! I had done a study group in the county two years ago and followed along with the blogger study group over the summer and had worked bits and pieces into my schedule the past few months. We are now on our 3rd week of full implementation. I teach writing first thing in the morning, so we have our mini lesson, followed by 15 minutes of Work on Writing, then I allow a few students to share what they worked on. Then we go into our Reading Time. The students get the choice of Read to Self, Read to Someone, or Listen to reading. They are doing AWESOME with this. We have done Read to Self all year, but just made it to 15 minutes consistently, so I decided to combine them and give them choice! Following Reading Time, we do a Reading mini lesson, then go into Word Work. I have adapted a coworker's Daily 5 Contract to make it work for my room. I love it and the kids are finally getting the hang of it. They have 5 Have To's that they get to chose 1 each day. I allow two students per basket, and it is working so far. The kids have the contract attached to their clipboard that they keep in their book boxes, and they check off where they work each day. Once everyone has chose where they want to work, I can pull groups and work as long or as little as I need to with them. I am only meeting with one or two groups a day, but I feel my guided reading lessons are more beneficial, than trying to rush and meet everyone every day or every other day. My assistant is also pulling groups as needed to work on sight words, or reading during this time. 

I will post pics of Daily 5 later in the week! Maybe if I write this it will help me be more accountable. I struggle trying to remember to take pictures of my kids working in class. I am often too busy working with them, to think about it. We will see if I remember.

A goal this summer is to dig into Daily 5 Math. I love Daily 5 so much, I can't wait to see how it will be for math!

So I was very excited to find some new Tennessee Teacher Bloggers yesterday. I can't wait to see if their will be a TN Meetup this summer that will be close enough that I can attend! Had fun at the last one.

So very interesting thing happening tomorrow at school. The assistants are giving our students an evaluation on us! They have to answer 33 questions about the teacher. I am interested in seeing what they ask and will be curious as to how they answer. I mean they are 6, I am not worried about my kids, but I do feel for upper grades teachers as my kids are still little and love me, but big kids don't always like their teacher, so I think it will be interesting. 

Well since Spring Break is over, I am guessing everyone is on countdown mode. I had not officially counted down yet, but my wonderful coworker did and like I said earlier not wanting to see this group go, but ready for Summer. So here it is:

~34 days for me at work (3 days of inservice and 1 personal day already planned off with my coworker to have a girls day!)

~ 31 days for the kids

 ~Heather

Benchmark Literacy

My district is up for a new reading series next year, after careful consideration, the committee chose to go with what they believe will be the best choice for our district over the next six years. 

I have taken the sample my grade level received to dig into. I am LOVING it! It was described to us at a meeting recently as everything we use to back up what we currently use. If you take Comprehension Toolkit for Reading, Words Their Way for word study, and Lucy Calkins Units of Study for writing, you get Benchmark Literacy! 

I am eager to learn more and hopefully, if the board approves, we should have training and receive some of our materials the week after school. So just curious is anyone else familiar with Benchmark Literacy? If so I would LOVE to hear about it. 

~Heather

My 100th Post

Wow I can't believe that I have made 100 posts on my little ole blog. So what a great day to make this post. It's a SNOW DAY here in EAST TN. I was thankful my system called for a two hour delay, before deciding to close. Sadly the system that I live in was not so smart at decision making this morning. This is what I woke up to.

Yes that is a bus with 5-7 students already on it, stopped outside my house. I heard him and had to get up to see what was going on. Luckily I live on a dead end road, he was stopped over 5 minutes. I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then seen on FB where the county was closed! Honestly buses already out picking up students and had to turn around and take them home. So he goes on down the road turns around and heads to take the students back. I am hopeful that all students and buses made it safely back home.

So enough of my crazy morning on to my blog post!

A goal for me is to start taking more pics of things I am doing in my classroom. So this post is going to be pics of a writing activity my students did last week with a sub while I was away at a behavior training two day class. Hence this being left for me to look at gave me a reason to take the pictures. Most of the time I check it and it goes home. So here goes!

We were learning about Dr. Seuss and this writing activity was if I crossed ____ with a ____, I would get a ____. I had no idea how they would do since they were with a sub who is new to subbing and NEVER been in kindergarten before. But they did GREAT!

Here are some of them:

cat and panda bear = catabear

And this is my favorite:

LOL! Too funny!

So do you ever mess with any of your coworkers? I have one who we have a history that I love to get. And a few weeks ago was just another addition to our story!

A quick look at our history:

2006: He was asst principal when I was pregnant with my daughter six years ago. I went into early labor and as he states almost had her on his desk!

2010: I am pregnant with my 2nd daughter and due within 2 weeks. He is now a teacher in  the building, but acting principal when the principal and asst principal are both out of the building. So on this day, he is acting principal. A coworker's daughter had just given birth days ago and brings in her daughter for us all to see. Of course that gives me a great idea. I go to the school nurse and devise a plan. I lay down on the table and cover up with a white sheet. The office calls to him and says he needs to get to the office because Mrs. Shelton is having labor pains. Of course him knowing my history of early birth, he comes running. Around the corner and the nurse has the newborn of the coworker in her arms saying..... your a little late. He is white as a ghost and takes a min to realize that we are messing with him. I thought it was the best prank EVER....he thinks it's the cruelest. 

Fast forward to the week of Valentine's Day. He is acting principal twice during the week. I try and try to think of something to get him with and NOTHING! Until I find out that we are getting two cows hearts to show our kinders. This happens to be the day after Valentine's Day and he is back in his classroom. After we discuss and touch the heart, I with help, place it in a container and find out when he is going to be out of his room. With multiple people helping me get this done. It happens. He returns to class to find this on his desk.

The wrapped cow's heart with note stating...This heart used to beat for you!

He goes next door, asking a coworker did you receive a gift, she says no, what are you talking about. He says come look. She thinks it's hilarious, because she knows all about it. He blames his other coworkers. I was kinda shocked. He knew I was after him all week and it wasn't till later I was a suspect. He questioned numerous people to see if they were involved and they passed his test even though they were in on it too! 

Needless to say the next week he randomly pops into my room to say Hello! Now I am on the lookout because I know payback is coming!

~Heather

Ball Posters!

I made this post last Monday, but my phone wouldn't email all my pictures, so I took the camera to school this week and got the ones I needed to complete the post.


So today makes snow day number 5! Really I am so tired of this. I haven't worked a full week since December, between our crazy East TN weather and being off with my sick girls, not a full week. 

I live in the county next to where I teach, today they had to go on a regular schedule and we didn't go at all. I  am telling you it doesn't make sense, but I know the county I teach in did get more snow than I did, so not complaining too much.

Anyways I have a little rule that I like to go by, IF I can safely get my two year old to daycare, then she is going! I can get soooo much more done with just the six year old. And my feeling is if I am paying for it, I can send her and not feel too bad about it. I keep her home when she is sick and on some snow days, but I need a break. So off to school she went this morning. I talked the six year old into picking where she wanted to eat, IF we could go to school and I could work a few hours this morning. It worked and she did great. 

So off to school I go on a snow day. LOVE these days, I can get soooo much more done, when I am alone at school. The majority of things I accomplished this morning was hanging up stuff that should have been up awhile, but just haven't. I am sure you have those days too!?!?!?

Up first was the rest of my ball posters that my wonderful art teacher drew for me, I took home and colored, and they just got laminated last week. The kids have been looking forward to getting the rest of them up. I have one student who is one his last list. It makes me sad, cause now I have to find him more words, but I think I am going to start him reading a chapter book and see where that goes. He is bilingual and most of the time refuses to talk to me, although he is extremely smart. 

Here is a closer view of the ball posters!

Baseball and Soccer ball

Basketball and Football

Volleyball, Golf, and Tennis

Bowling, Ping Pong, and Hockey

Beach Ball

So got those babies hung up and placed the student balls on. And boy are my kids going to be excited tomorrow morning when they see them! BTW the ball words are from Marsha over at A Differentiated Kindergarten! I LOVE this. My kids are reading so much better this year, because I am introducing them to sooooo many more words! Each set of balls have 20 words! And each ball on the poster represents that student passed the ball word test. I have students all over the place and I LOVE it!

Here is a picture of the ball list on rings that I hung up, so they could have easy access to them. They are constantly working on their words. It's so nice to see. And working together!

Next on my list was to finish putting up my number wall. I am so different from most people, I only put up numbers as we learn them in class. It makes it relevant to them, and after doing the number sheet I put it on the wall. I am awesome at the beginning when I put up the numbers but as we get to the teen numbers, not so much.

The last thing I did was finish putting up my words on my word wall. We have a Pathways to Common Core study group that myself and two other teachers are hosting at the end of the month, so other teachers from around the county will be there, and I of course want my room to look GREAT!!!! BTW this study groups is the hardest I have ever participated in. The book is great, but the words are big and so hard to understand. I think I would do better if I had a thesaurus with me as I read it! No joke, my kindergarten brain does not understand those big words. 

Oh and I have to share our read to self time during January! I am super proud of my kiddos. We started Read to Self on day 1 of kindergarten and this month even though it has been very chaotic, they are doing great! We read for 133 minutes! 

Anyways so there is a few pics from my room and I will leave you with a few pics of our snow!

Sydney and Bree playing in the snow!

Target's parking lot @ 7:00 on a Saturday night!

 And yes I know some of you get a ton more snow than this and don't get out and for that I am sorry! But it is a perk of living in East TN.

~Heather

Currently

It's that time again! Time for Farley's Currently. I may not always blog as much as I would like to and share what I am doing in my classroom which I honestly hope to do MORE of this year, but I try to always link up with Farley. So here goes:

Of course I am listening to the Super Bowl, but watching the commercials. So far I have loved the 1st M &M one and been absolutely disgusted by the Go Daddy one! GROSS!!!! So just seen the Taco Bell elderly commercial. LOVED IT!

Since today was the TPT SUPER Sale, I cleaned my cart out. I spent extremely TOO much money last year on TPT things, that I use most of, but not all of. So I carefully went through my cart and removed or bought what I needed. I removed WAY more than I bought. Since I have purchased for more than a year. I have most if not all the themes that I use! One thing I WISH all sellers would do would be to put I CAN cards with the activities, it's so difficult to try to make your own because you don't own the clipart to make it easy!

This month has been hard on me due to the fact that on January 4th, my six year old daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Thankfully she is a trooper and is doing great with her pricks and shots and everything. We have had to learn how to count carbs and measure food. But we are all doing great with it!

We are hoping to plan a trip back to Tybee Island, Georgia this summer. I LOVED it when we went two years ago. My only problem is we want someone to go with us, so we can enjoy a bike ride across the island a few times. So if I can get that ironed out, I can schedule the trip!

I am needing a 5 day work week. I think I calculated my actual work days in January and came up with 10. That's it. Between being off with my daughter for the Diabetes and when she got sick with RSV a week later, and the CRAZY East Tennessee weather. We have been out one day for flooding, one day for ice, and tomorrow will be day 3 for snow! Not to mention one 2 hr delay, and two early dismissals. And we were out for Martin Luther King Day. I really feel like I haven't done anything with my kiddos. We haven't had a full week since December. 

My biggest pet peeve is people who ALWAYS have something to say. It doesn't matter if they are not in the beginning of the conversation, they always have to put in their two cents. It drives me CRAZY! 

So I am heading back to Farley's page to do my Rule of 3! 

~Heather