It's been awhile, Blogger

The life of a first year teacher. It's pretty crazy. Thank goodness it's not as crazy as grad school. I actually have time to have some resemblance of a social life on Saturdays. If I didn't have that, I would probably go insane. Don't get me wrong ... I love every piece of it... well almost everything (I could do without the mountains of grading that I don't get to look at until the weekend because of exhaustion during the week.) I love finding new lessons that will hopefully inspire most of my students. I love seeing them get 100 % on their spelling tests. But, mostly I love when my low level boy readers shout "YES!" when we start reading to self. Seriously, this makes my day, everyday. Finding those just right books really makes a world of difference. They are learning to love to read, to read for fun, to be inspired by new characters, and to be taken to new places. It's amazing, when they come up to me and retell the exciting parts of a story because they are in love with the book that they are reading. They read their books in the car on the way to soccer practice, they read it on the bus ride home, and they read it, willingly, in class. They love daily 5 so much, and it makes me excited for that hour and a half we spend each day without textbooks. That's why I created a donor's choose project to help build my library ... I am a first year teacher, and while I have shopped extensively for cheap books at bargain stores and yard sales, I don't nearly have as many books as I need to keep my students inspired all year long ... so here's my selfish plug for some money ...

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=645486

I think that the love for reading is something that we can teach our students, and through that love for reading, they will be inspired to be better learners. Hopefully, I can reach my students through just right books with your help.

I'm going to regret staying up "this late" in the morning

4:45 am. That's the time my alarm goes off for the first time every morning. Eventually, I press snooze and (I'm down to only once!) fall back completely asleep for 10 more minutes. By the time 4:55 comes around I am up and out of bed and ready for my first cup of coffee. Mornings are NOT my thing, and in the past I would press the alarm until the last minute possible, roll out of bed, put my hair in a ponytail and head to work. Now, even before the sun comes up, it's a lot easier to be awake. Mostly because my kids are pretty stinkin awesome. Yeah, they still cannot line up like a fourth grade class should, but really... they aren't being on graded on that. They are being graded on their writer's notebooks, which I can see them falling in love with everyday. They are getting graded on reading comprehension, and when I ask them what they are reading and how they are feeling about it and see them get excited; I know that letting them read something NOT in a basal is the right thing to do. They are getting graded on number sense, so why not let them try their hand at Sudoku, think that they are just playing a game, and in return learn more than they ever expected. As teachers, it's a lot easier for us to roll out of bed before the sun is up in the morning when we see our kids succeeding, even if they have a long way to go. It's early in the year, but little successes and smiling kids are what should drive us as teachers... and when I come home at night, after being up since 4:55 a.m. I think back to that one kid that looked at me in the eye and said "Oh... now I get it" and remember why I chose to do this.

I've been too busy to post!

Okay, so it's been an awfully long time since I've posted, but seriously 12 hour days for teaching is killer. By the time I get home all I want is my jammies and How I Met Your Mother (which Rachel Ray and I have been watching religiously since we found it at Walmart for $15 a season!) However, I have been having a great time in class- my kids are great, they are rocking at Writer's Workshop (I can't wait to share some of their stories!), and I got them to fall in love with Pete the Cat! Getting 4th graders to love Pete the Cat is quite the accomplishment in my opinion! We started our Wild Weather Unit, and I can't wait to get to the experiment stage - I mean who doesn't want to have a tornado in their classroom at some point?!?! Anyway, I finally took pictures of the finished product, but apparently I didn't look at them before I brought my camera back home (looks like I will take some more on Monday!)- I will add house pictures after I spend some time cleaning this weekend (like I said, 12 hour days!) I have a professional development class on integrated lessons on Saturday, and am excited to at least sleep in until 7!!! (What's happening to me?!!?)

I made it through the first day!

So, first of all, we finally have internet!!! That means I don't have to spend my weekends at Starbucks sipping on $5 caramel frappuccino's anymore! I am excited to be able to sit at home, planning, with Project Runway playing in the background... this weekend has been good :)

So, Thursday was the first day, and it went really well! My class is gonna be AWESOME! I currently have 17 kids (so tiny!!) and they are all good kids! I was very impressed... We did some getting to know you activities, I talked a lot about rules/procedures/expectations, and they did really well... The worst part is the dang snake checks! UGH if I ever see a snake, I WILL SCREAM SO LOUD THE WHOLE CITY will hear me!

Best story of the day... One of my boys has autism, and is very literal - but he made me laugh so stinkin hard when he turned in his classroom job application - we discussed the jobs and what they entailed and I had the kids fill them out, if they wanted to. He turned his in and his job selections were - 1. vet, 2. ninja, and 3. hero! I just loved it :)

It's gonna be a good year :)

No Internet = A lot of time spent at Starbucks on a Saturday

So, the utilities people in Kingman, Az. are so slow! We had to wait until Friday to have the gas turned on (which meant cold showers at 5:30 am. most of the week) and we have to wait until next Saturday for internet! Good thing for lots of Friday Night Lights episodes :)

However, the classroom and house are coming along ...I was super thankful to have Friday off! I got a bunch done around the house and got things ready for the classroom, too :)

And apparently, I am becoming  a morning person ... which is a good thing because I will have to leave for the van to get to school at 6:15 every morning... Long, 4 day weeks are ahead!

Hey Look! I have my very own classroom!

Today I drove out to my school in Dolan Springs - a tiny town with not too much to do... but the school is absolutely beautiful! It's pretty new, big, and everyone is super friendly and helpful. I met my principal, vice- principal (she's a vandal; but I won't hold it against her!) and the coach as well as the Kindergarten, 1st, and 3rd grade teacher. Mt Tipton is a k-12 school and there is only one teacher per grade level, so it will be really nice to be able to do my own thing!

My classroom was much bigger and had wayyyyyyy more storage than I anticipated. I unloaded all my things and set to work... I can get a lot accomplished when I am left alone and really motivated!

Here's what it looked like at the beginning of the day  ...

 So many textbooks!

 I have a lot of storage space :)

 One of my previous tenants allowed the kids to graffiti the bulletin board :(

 Here's the middle of the day ...

 It doesn't look too much different!

 Books got put away though!

 And by the end of the day I accomplished a lot! There's still a lot to do, though! I love my desk area, I need some more organization though!

 Birthday board and Student of the Week

 Social Studies, Science and Tired Words boards

 That's the front of the classroom ... I only have 20 desks!!!!!

 The classroom library will go along the shelf, eventually and the kids will get to put their things in the cubbies.

 Back here I will put the kidney table for small groups.

Tomorrow, we're having a "swap meet" at school, I'm excited!

I still have a lot to do, and I will probably change some things around still... but it's good to have this much done already!

I made it to Kingman!

The last few days have been really, really, really insanely crazy! My mom, younger brother, and myself drove to Kingman over two days earlier this week - we had two cars loaded to the max and no place to live. So, number one priority when we arrived was to find a house ... and we did, after a lot of driving around, figuring out the town and the good places to live ... I found Rachel and myself an AWESOME house... minus the seafoam green carpet! Next, we unloaded the car and drove around to the minimal amount of stores Kingman has to offer (it's really not that bad of a town - there's a Panda Express so I will survive!!!) and shopped for furniture - we scored big time at a local furniture and consignment store and found a pretty great table, for a great price! Here's the first set of pictures - more will follow, after my camera charges :)

My mom wanted to forgo a UHAUL so we stuffed all of my belongings into two cars - it was quite a challenge with all the teaching stuff I have collected, but we did it! 

 Mt Shasta is so pretty :)

 Our GPS got us lost in Vegas ...

 Our very large living room! Complete with Dining Area

 My bathroom

 My Bedroom - getting rid of those lacy curtains ASAP!

 Our official "dining room" which will really be our office :)

 Kitchen

 More Living Room ...

 We have a courtyard!

 Yup, our house is PINK!

 Rachel's bathroom

 More kitchen ...

 Even more Kitchen ...