New creations

Check out a few of my new creations in my TPT store!

Transportation Chart (Free!), Writing prompt calendars ($1.50 for three months or $4.00 for an 11 month bundle!)

Guilty Pleasure

My guiltiest pleasure by far is Chef Boyardee Pizza.

I can eat a whole pizza by myself and not even stop for air. THEY ARE SO BAD THAT THEY ARE GOOD!  I have two in the oven right now and if my fiance doesn't get home in the next hour, there may be no evidence left. I think this addiction started when I was little and my mom would leave us at home with my dad and this is literally all he could cook.  It was either eat this pizza or die.  Okay, so it wasn't that serious.  We also had some Ramen noodles that my brother learned to make at the age of 5.

Light bulb moment

You know those days when you CANNOT figure something out and all you can think is "These people aren't any smarter than I am. Why the heck can't I do this?"  I am trying to get my TPT store up and running to earn a little extra cash this year.  I make a lot of things for my classroom anyway so I figure I might as well share them with others. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get a suitable thumbnail to upload.  It was either too large or the wrong format. FINALLY I figured out that if I took a screen shot and pasted it into MS paint that it would work.  Sweet baby Jesus. THEN I found a video on Youtube describing the process which seems to have been made by a 10 year old.  It has been one of those mornings.

On a lighter note, I made a super delicious breakfast this morning.  I have always been a sucker for a bacon, egg, and cheese on an English muffin.  Shout out to my mom for buying me a toaster.

Any who, I have started having panic stricken dreams about school starting.  It isn't even August yet.
I ordered three books yesterday from Amazon.  Why are books so expensive?  I am going to have to start borrowing them from the public library.

However, I am very excited about Daily 5 this year.  Last year I did a modified version that better suited my classroom.  We had the basic stations but instead of listen to reading we had a technology station where the kids could play educational reading games on the computers and Ipad.  I only have one set of headphones in my room so Listen to Reading wasn't very feasible for us.  This year I am kicking it up a notch and incorporating the CAFE part. I am also going to ease into a modified version of Daily 5 for math.  My team mate and I have decided on the following stations that we believe will work best with our space and time: Math by Myself (Accelerated Math,practice/review), Partner Math(games), Math with a Teacher(mini lesson), Write about Math, and Word Problems.  I hope that we can get it all up and running!  As with anything, it will take some time to get used to and it will end up being modified further to work best for each teacher/day.

Catch ya later!

Better late than never...

I promised myself that I would start a blog to document my first year of teaching.  Some things would be funnier to look back on than they actually were at the time. However, people neglect to tell you that during your first year of teaching you will have to add "take a shower" to your already mile long to-do list.  From what I can figure, the first year of teaching can be compared to the first year of motherhood.  Now, I have never been a mother but I was a nanny for a two year old and four year old for a whole summer.  Here are a few things that I believe motherhood and teaching have in common:

• You cannot go to the bathroom by yourself. (They will find you.)
• You spend more time microwaving ravioli and opening milk than you do eating lunch.
• You clean up after everyone. (Including adults.)
• You spend a considerable amount of time asking yourself "What was I thinking?"

In less than a month I will begin my second year of teaching second grade.  I keep telling myself that since I survived the first year, I am pretty much on my way to winning the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.  I have also applied for a job at the local community college teaching remedial English. I figure if I can teach 23 seven year olds the difference between a synonym and an antonym, I can teach  people my age how to write a complete sentence.  In the midst of all the chaos I will be getting married in November.  If someone happens to find my sanity and or dignity laying by the side the road, please keep it in a safe place until June.  

I will be blogging about teaching, food, marriage, and everything else that makes up my world. I would say that I hope you enjoy, but this isn't about you- its about me!