I am a teacher of a functioning classroom-2nd week in!

Whoop, whoop! I am surviving and keeping level-headed...so far, so good. My students are awesome. I have three classes that are diverse and have a mix of students that I absolutely love. While these first couple weeks have been filled with benchmarks, boring orientation-style introductions, and procedure practices, we are now ready to move forward into a routine on Monday. The first ELA unit for 5th is a little iffy in my opinion, but I am working with it. I'm still not completely sure how I am going to get everything that I want accomplished, but I am certain I will be putting forth enough effort and hard work that my students WILL BE SUCCESSFUL by the end of the year.

Here's my class website.

Here are classroom pictures:

Progress & Projects

I've been working on my classroom a bit at a time over the last couple weeks. I still have quite a few projects and my room is not complete but I feel like I am making progress. I've completed a couple of projects too. I finished my organizer (drawers) and my rug. 

Here are my projects:

Beginning:

As of today:

I still have a few bucket chairs to cover, a table to spray paint, some desks to trade in, bulletin boards to decorate, a ton of labeling, and a big project in the works...other than that, I'm almost ready to start planning and working on my class website. 

Whoa to time! Whoa to change! Whoa to blogging!

Guess it's been...a ridiculously long time since I showed some love to my blog. 

Fast forward from October 2012 to June 2013...

Work:

I will be teaching fifth grade reading/language arts/writing in Georgia! Yay for employment and yay for a great school family!!

School:

I am almost done with the first semester of graduate school. One practically down, three more to go! 

Home:

I have yet to master working the weed eater but overall I am holding down the fort. I would be useless without support from my Moomar-she is amazing. Both of my girls are growing up fast and will be at the same school this year. They are still crazy nuggets who never cease to amaze me!

Me:

Thanks to Pinterest and this overwhelming summer semester, I have been able to keep in-touch with the digital world. I want to use this blog as a way to reflect, share, and track my adventures in fifth grade. 

Anyway...

I'll be ready to share with the next post. I have a paper and a few posts due tomorrow-then it's blogging time!

Vowel Games

Short Vowel Nonsense Words


Long Vowel Words


Both made with fonts from www.kevinandamanda.com

Number Work

Fonts from Word and www.kevinandamanda.com

Just wanted to share some number work I put together. Hope someone finds these useful!

More pronouns

With a pack of Lisa Frank clearance stickers, index cards, some paper, and a couple markers I made two simple activities for one of my first grade teachers.I typed up the sentences I used for the Pronoun or Noun activity so it could be shared with all. Enjoy!

Click here for Pronoun or Noun sorting activity.

Pronoun or Noun Sort on index cards

Money Activity

Pronouns

I'm hoping that I gave credit where it was due (border is from Graphics From the Pond) with this pronoun activity.

Click here or on the pics to download (from Google Docs). 

Pics from Sept-Dec

made our monthly zoo trip

saw a huge dead spider

celebrated turning 3

celebrated turning 25

finished another season of soccer

dressed like a scarecrow

dressed like a witch & a bumble bee

carved pumpkins

made flags w/kindergarten

waved in the parade

played cowgirls pilgrims and indians

went camping on the beach

made happy feet w/kindergarten  (thank you pinterest.com)

celebrated the holidays

squeezed in one last zoo visit for the year

had a swinging good time

hung around

 

went fishing

caught a big one

I'm back!

So the last few months have been...life changing? yeah,that's a good way to put things. 

Work:

I was picked up for contract services at my child's school and I have been working there since October. I love working with kindergarten and first grade and the school is AWESOME! I love what I'm doing and I love my kiddos-love,love,love!

School:

I made it as far as the beginning of September and decided it would be better to put it on the back burner. I'm still saddened at the thought of not going for my degree right now but it's all good. One day-just not today and not tomorrow.

Home:

I have entered into the world of divorce and I think I'm headed into the direction of being a true single mother. Eww. It is what it is though and the show must go on! My girls and I are happier and that's what matters.

Me:

Things are totally crazy! Busy is an understatement. Whew!! I missed blogging and stalking blogs and reading awesome teachery things and laughing at daily classroom life and well,everything really.

Anyway...

I've been working on a few things for one of the first grade classes I'm in. The teacher is fabulous-she really is. I'm glad I was able to pull from my many resources as well as make some new things that could be of use to her in her room. I'm becoming an -I have,Who has- making champ! I can't wait to see what this month's ventures will be. 

My child's teacher has also taken me in and let's me do a craft each week. Kindergarten is sooooo fun!! Thanks to Pinterest and my handy dandy imagination my crafts have been engaging, yummy, and the kids totally heart me!

I can't wait to share what I've been up to!

Graduate courses and PTO

Last week I started my classes and they've been keeping me quite busy. My online course has made me step up my game and forced me to get my big girl pants on for real! 

So yeah, school work and I have been volunteering at my child's school lately too-busy,busy. I did manage to finish some activities though. The domino activities and math tile activities go along with the dominoes and tiles I found at Dollar Tree.

Hope these can be of some use to you!

Dominoes includes fractions, addition, multiplication

Math Tiles includes addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division

Blank Math Tiles 

Garage sale find project

This weekend has been muy productive! So far I: bagged my magnet sets, finished some incomplete file folders (finding and making replacement parts for those things can be rough on a girl), made magnet numbers for a garage sale find, made a dominoes activity, created a couple math tile worksheets, and still managed to get the house cleaned up and have quality time with the kiddos. I'm tired just reading that last sentence back to myself!!!

Since my classes start tomorrow I better get back to my checklist of to-dos but wanted to share my garage sale find (well my mother's find anyway).

Most of the sets included all ten cards (double sided) and I got 4 sets. While some of the material is outdated (I think the date on the game is...1990) I think that these would still be great in the classroom. 

Today's the first day of the school year!

I officially have a kindergartener! Time flew by way too quickly. I hope she has a great first day of an awesomely great school year. Now if I can get hired on within the next week or so that would be real super. Employment is always fun.

In the meantime though I'm going to be substitute teaching, volunteering when I can, working on graduate studies, and continuing to work on projects for my future students and my girls.

I think I'll really enjoy Al's naptime today and tomorrow-project completions here I come!! 

It's been C-R-A-Z-Y!

We finished pretend school (boo) and I'm happy that I had the opportunity to really work w/my girls these last few weeks. 

I also had a chance to help setup a friend's wall space-not sure where she got the idea but her whole setup looks awesome!

Last weekend we attended a graduation for my brother's lady! She's so amazing. Seeing the degrees (masters and doctorate) given out made me super excited about starting my graduate studies next week. Yippie!

So that's about all I've got right now. I've been working on a few projects but can't seem to actually complete a project. Might need to do that this week before my crazy life takes off next week...yeah.