I SO want to be back!

I really, really love updating my personal blog. I like being able to look back at our lives and see what changes we have been through and the things Todd and I have done together.

I have found that I have some personal limitations with this blog, and I'm learning to be okay with that. I really do want to keep a record of my teaching. I really want it to be positive. With that being said, I will probably never:

• own a TpT or Teacher's Notebook store
• host a giveaway
• join a million linky parties and comment on every one (there are some link parties that I think are really awesome and I DO follow those!)
• create incredibly darling unit and post them online

In the blog world, I have felt some pressure to "keep up" with all of the amazing things other teachers are doing. However, that stopped me from even posting. I had a really difficult class this year, and when I came home I just wanted to be home and not think about work. I loved my job, but I needed to leave work at work.

I'm hoping I can strike a new balance. Like I said above, recognize my limitations and not feel guilty about it. Post when I can about things that are working!

So, hopefully I can be back on this blog. I have some exciting things coming up in regards to my job and I want to document it!

Cupcake Club

I had made some extra cupcakes over the weekend, and so on Monday when I showed up after having a sub on a Friday, I held a cupcake club. I had received some really nice notes about some of my students from the sub, so they got to join me for cupcake club at the end of the day. I totally feel for substitutes, having been one myself, but I'm grateful for them so I can have a day off every once in a while!

Maybe If I Vent...

...I'll feel better. My four boys were just rotten today. We ran the gamut from "Your momma" comments to kneeing someone in the crotch, to shoving in the classroom, to shouting matches over who tripped who. It was totally miserable. I have 21 other angels in my class. According to several different teachers, they have heard it from administration that I have the "toughest class in the school." Maybe someday that will feel like a compliment, but today it was awful. I just wanted to yank those boys off their seats and haul them to the office. 30 minutes after a talking to, two of the boys were at it again. I have to watch a few of them like hawks at recess to make sure they don't kill each other. They have little to no parent support. I have been told that Kagan will solve it, that Love and Logic will solve it, that community service will solve it, that phone calls home will fix it. Well, it's January, and none of those things have worked so far. I have one student that throws a fit every time he doesn't get what he wants, which is about 10 times a day...and I don't think that's an exaggeration. Sometimes I literally think he is going to drive me insane if he asks me one more time if he can go visit the SPED teacher or the school counselor...knowing that he won't have to do his work. It's a cycle, 5 minutes of class, 1 minute standing around to wait and ask me if he can leave, me saying no, 5 minutes of a tantrum, 10 minutes of scheduled time out of the classroom, he comes back, wants something, I say no, more tantrums and stomping, rinse and repeat.

Sorry to be so "woe is me." Tomorrow is a new day, but I almost had to take a timeout today. Things were going so well before Christmas, and then a few of them came back little monsters. I don't want people to feel sorry for me, I guess I just want this mess to be over, and to have my little angels back.

Pinterest in Action!

So since I had some time over break to think about fun classroom things to do, I implemented two things I saw on Pinterest this week that I want to do weekly.

The first was Homeworkopoly, and Ladybug Teacher Files has a great download for it here. I told the kids about it on Wednesday, and they got to roll for the first time on Friday. They were SO excited :) The great thing is that three kids landed on Chance cards, and two had to answer math review questions...the rest just landed on regular spaces. I had more kids turn in homework this week (although we are STILL battling NAMES on papers!) and so that was great.

We also did "Chicken Fat Friday." If you link here, you'll end up on a teaching blog. I kinda found this idea by accident. I was following through another idea on the same pinterest post, but found this because her video of the kids was just so cute. I found the Robert Preston song on Youtube, and played it yesterday afternoon. The kids were hilarious, and since I did it with them, I was sweating by the time it was over! I think it will be especially great for those Friday afternoons when we don't have PE that day and the younguns are restless!

Pinterest

I think another reason I haven't been blogging is because I have been PINNING!

Seriously, so many great ideas in one place is SO AWESOME!

So follow me on Pinterest, so I can follow you, and we can all share all these great ideas we find!

Twas the day before Christmas break...

And I was determined to do something FUN! Now, I tip my hat to my colleagues that ran reading groups that day, but not I, ladies and gentleman. We Polar Expressed our way into the classroom, courtesy of my train tracks. Oh, and I drew a lovely poster of a train :) Yep, that's about as good as my poster skills get. Thank goodness for Microsoft :)

One of our morning activities was a make your own snowperson. The kids were totally cute. A few of our reading coaches came in and "voted." I thought the kids did a great job working together and using their materials :)

We also did a make your own Polar Express train :) The privacy folders are up because I did NOT want to hear "He's cheating off me!" so I told the kids if they wanted to protect their ideas to put them up. We had some guest judges for this activity as well. Again, they did great, had fun, and got to eat their creations at the end :)

We finished the day after receiving their gift from me (books I order from Scholastic), cleaning up, watching the Polar Express, and going to our all-school sing along.

Phew! We made it to Christmas (and as I write this on Dec. 30th...the break is going by TOO fast!)

Layers of the Earth

In our most recent Lead21 unit, we've been learning about "the story of the Earth." Crazy brain led me to wanting to do this fun edible layers of the Earth activity with the kids. After a fight in the bathroom was sort of resolved (oh little boys), we got to work. They really enjoyed it, and I made it as educational as possible by having them draw a diagram of their layers :) We talked about plates shifting, and they got to use their graham crackers to make plates as the crust :)

Harvest Festival

This year, our school had a harvest festival, where our AWESOME PE teachers round up lots of help and put on a 90 minute party for our kids. This year, we teachers were encouraged to go hang out with them, so hang out we did :)

Yes, I did the Thriller dance with them, and no, there is no evidence :)

I got some tips from 3rd graders on how to throw a football :)

I think I got most of my "street cred" from this activity below. It was an obstacle course, and the kids thought it was so hilarious as another student and I raced. Needless to say, I lost, and was quite out of breath afterwards :)

I tried to do "Mystery Readers" at the beginning of the year. The kids loved it, and were always so well-behaved for a Friday afternoon. Eventually, I ran out of parent recruits and teacher recruits, but it was fun while it lasted!

On Halloween, we made spiders, but tied it into math by turning them into name-collection boxes. It had to be a number the kids could draw an array for, since we were doing multiplication in Everyday Math. They turned out really cute, and decorated our door during Halloween.

Yes, I am still teaching!

So after a long hiatus, here I am during break. Don't know when I will get back to regular posting, but here are some things we've been up to!


This year we have been using Lead21 as our reading curriculum....It's been interesting. It's great for our benchmark and advanced kids, but not great at all for our struggling readers.

Anyway, they do a project each unit. This unit, they wrote their own plays and acted them out. Even with tons of guidance (and I'm new at this too!), I'm always nervous about the final project. I need to give the kids credit, most of the groups were able to pull it off, adding in props and actions :) They even chose their own backgrounds on our smartboard :)

P/T Conferences

There is a light at the end of the tunnel...and usually when I say that, I have a really rough week with the kids. But last week they bounced back, and it ended on a positive note...which I love!

We just had conferences, and the one thing I like about conferences is the insight into the students' lives that I get. I don't see most of their parents until conferences...and a lot of them, not even then. That part is just sad. But the other good part I get to hear from their parents, is their interests. I know quite a few of their interests from building a relationship with them, but it is still fun to hear who really likes to dance, or who gets really embarassed when their mom comes to school :)

It's also a really good reminder that these kids are someone's children. I know it sounds like DUH but when those kids are really grating your very last nerve, it's so hard to remember that someone at homes loves them and wants you to treat them like their own. That's one of the things I love about elementary, that even when the kids bring on big attitudes or big conflicts, they are still really small people who need to be constantly reminded of how we do act, or handle conflicts, especially when we are mad! I think being 8 must be really hard, because you are not a baby anymore, and you want to be more grown up, but you're not yet!

Anyway, P/T conferences were great, and I got a lot of planning done (but its neverrrrrr enough!) Our first field trip is Monday, so I am VERY curious to see how that's going to go!

And double yay for a real post!

Look Different??

I love to bargain shop...I don't know, I just love wearing new things and keeping up with trends without breaking my very small piggy bank...oh, the salary of a teacher! (But it sure beats the 10 bucks an hour in college!)

It was time I gave some TLC to my blog too, so I enlisted the help of Leslie from Kindergarten Works. Doesn't it look great! It's cute but simple and much more bright and happy. So hopefully I will feel more bright and happy when I look at it!

Thanks Leslie!

Alive

Oh my, this year is eating me alive. With a handful of interesting kiddos, plus a new reading curriculum (which is a GIANT GIANT BEAST), I have had little motivation to think about blogging or work when I get home. Yep, it's one of those years!

I wish I could say things are settling down or getting easier, but it's October, and there are still days I come home and cry. This seems to be a theme with my teammates and podmates (and many of them are FIRST year teachers, poor things!)

Anyway, I read some classroom blogs for the first time in a while tonight, so maybe that's a good sign? I'm hoping by Christmas I'll be ready to jump back in full force to blogging again. Really, I love teaching and I love building relationships with kids...it's been a struggle this year since I have two or three students that totally suck the life out of me each day...each of them can be sweet but they have so.many.issues. Meanwhile, there are 20 other kiddoes in the classroom that need some attention too! I am figuring out the balance...I will get there!

Anyway, thanks for reading. And since it's been a while, what are some great new blogs I can read???