First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. Last night I was a basket case worrying about how today would go. This morning I woke up at 4:30am on my own and figured why not go to the gym if I'm up. So I got to work out, shower, get dressed, and even enjoy a cup of tea before heading out the door. That was actually pretty nice, except that I was anxious the whole time.

At the end of the day I texted Tony and said, "I survived day 1!". His response cracked me up, "excellent news. I'm sure most teacher's did, but probably not all" I went on to explain that I didn't just survive, I had the most amazingly wonderful first day ever!

I wish that there were words to describe just how wonderful today was, but I seriously don't think I can even put it into words. I had 22 kids on my class roster, but had 5 no shows! I've never even had 1 no show, so this was insane! If you do the math, that's only 17 kids!! 17!!! And they are 17 of the most perfect children I have ever met!! We knew this group coming up was a group of angels because we heard it every day last year, but I had no idea what they would actually be like in the classroom. Seriously, they are amazingly perfect. They were so sweet and quiet and helpful and respectful and silly and I could just go on and on. I freaking love them already!!

At lunchtime, my team met together and we stood back and just watched the group for a second. They were quiet, and well behaved, and all doing the right things. Coleen looked at us and started to ask if ours were as good as hers and we all responded that we had almost cried first thing when we saw how great they were. Seriously, this is SUCH a change from last year's group I actually wanted to cry.

This might be the most telling of how great our day was (if you're a teacher, you'll understand). We did everything on the lesson plans, in every single subject, and even did them during our normally scheduled times. This is completely unheard of for the first day of school. You usually just watch the clock, see how much time there is, and grab something to fill that time. There was no time filling today, we just learned. It was so great!

I have a feeling it's going to be a very good year! :)

Last Day With the Boys

A couple weeks ago was my last day watching the boys for the summer and boy was I sad about it! I have had SO much fun with those sweet kids this summer and I have so been dreading going back to my real job. We had a wonderful last day together. It started with swim lessons where Quinn passed the final round of his float test and earned his bell. He was SO excited it made my heart smile to see him so proud of himself! Poor sweet Quinn has been trying to master floating for 18 months, so this was a MAJOR accomplishment for him! After swim lessons we spent the rest of the morning at the neighborhood pool swimming. Now that he is able to float, he is finally able to go on the big slides with Wade. Such a fun time!

At the end of the day, when it was time for me to go, Jennifer had the boys give me a card to say thank you. This is hands down the best card I have ever received!!!  She made the boys have a photo shoot in the front yard to get the perfect shot for the front of the card. Apparently there were MANY takes and some bribes involved but it turned out perfect! I almost cried when I opened the envelope and saw this:

Is that not the sweetest thing ever?!? She had them pose in the capes I made them and ordered a card with the picture as the cover; LOVE it!! :)

I love that sweet family so much! It was a little sad leaving them, but at least this time I know I'll see them again soon. We already have plans to meet up for dinner after school starts and things settle down a little.

Best summer job ever!

I Spy Bags

A couple years ago I got a great gift from a student that I had completely forgotten about in all the classroom moves. This parent made me an I Spy bag to use as one of my centers. An I Spy bag is simply a fabric pocket with a clear plastic window sewn in the front, that you fill with a random assortment of items for the student to find and then fill the rest of the way with poly pellets. As I was setting up my room this year I was really trying to think of some new fun things I could have available for kids to work on if they finish their work early. I found my I Spy bag and knew it would be perfect, so I whipped up a few more today to have a variety.

These are really simple to make, and I think the kids will really enjoy them. In case anyone else wants to make one, here's what to do:

1. Cut two 7 squares of fabric.
2. In one of those squares cut out a window (mine was a 5 1/2" square)
3. Cut plastic vinyl into a 6" square
4. Using a zig zag stich, sew the clear vinyl into the window of your fabric square.
5. Place right sides together and stitch around 3 1/2 sides of the square using a 1/4 seam.
6. Pull the bag through the hole to turn it right side up
7. Fill the bag with whatever items you want (make sure to either make a list or take a picture so kids will know what to look for) then fill until it's about 3/4 full of poly beads.
8. CAREFULLY sew up the remaining half side to close up the pocket.

That's it, you're done! You now have a super fun hands on i spy game kids can play quietly at their seat. This would also be a great thing to keep in the car if you had kids because it's simple, quiet, and takes time and concentration. Love these!

Christmas in August

This year I told myself I was not going to spend a ridiculous amount of unnecessary money on my classroom. By this, I meant I would not go to the teacher store and buy new borders, posters, letters etc just because they looked cute. I have all that stuff, and what I have is fine, so I was going to just make it work.

While I have in fact stuck to that goal in the sense that I have not spent any unnecessary money at the teacher supply store (all I bought were two sticker charts, desk name tags, and a set of library pocket charts), I may have ended up spending quite a bit of money on reusable supplies for my classroom. I justify these purchases by reminding myself these are things I do not currently have, and can use year after year.

That being said, Amazon and Paypal have made it WAY too easy for me to purchase things without guilt! Seriously, Amazon is the lazy man's mall. You don't have to leave the couch, and you can buy just about anything! In conjunction with PayPal, you don't even have to stand up to get your wallet, just click, and it's yours!

Just about every day when I come home it is like Christmas in August. I have literally had a package come in the mail every day for the past week haha! So, while I didn't spend money at the teacher store, and I didn't buy any junk I didn't need, I did buy:

- my own copy of SSPTU because I'm tired of having to borrow it every single day (plus I found it used for only $6!)
- 3 Draw Write Now books - these are an awesome for those early finishers!
- 120 piece magnetic letters set - I have lots of plastic letters, but none are magnetic
- 24 drawer organizer for SSPTU letters - this was just necessary for organization purposes
- USA state puzzle - I'm going to teach my kids the state song during calendar this year. This way we can add a state each day until we have learned them all.
- Have you FIlled a Bucket Today book - going to do this with my class this year, so the book was necessary. Plus, I LOVE books!
- I may have been lazy and purchased the black line for journaling prompts for tongue depressors because I was too lazy to make them myself hehe
- materials to make I spy bags - um, because these are fun and awesome for early finishers! Plus, I'm crafty like that!
- materials to make my own mind jar - I'm still debating buying the book. It's a little more than I want to spend, and I think I can just explain what the mind jar is just fine for the kids that might need it.

hmm that's all I can think of right now.  See how Amazon is the death of me?!? I can't stop buying things! haha At least everything I've bought so far are things I have a real purpose for and can be used year after year, but still. The most unfortunate part of this is the shipping. Had I purchased all this at once, I would have had free shipping, but no, I buy things as soon as I think of them so I have paid for shipping on every single one of these purchases. boo. I need to plan better to avoid having this happen again. Oh well, I THINK I am done buying things for now ... guess we'll see!

Classroom Tour

Since I'm still being lazy and haven't edited Colorado pictures yet (there are just so many to go through!), I thought I would give you a photo tour of my classroom this year.

 View from the door

(Moving counterclockwise around the room) Calendar and read aloud area

CAFE board, math tubs, and part of the classroom library

Other half the classroom library, computers, and student work bulletin board

Student cubbies

Guided reading table, teacher desk, student book box bookshelf

Close up of my new shelves which house all the word work materials, work on writing materials, choices for when you are done with work, and chapter books (ran out of room in the library haha)

Look at the new rug Kristine gave me! I LOVE it!!

Daily 5 choice board. SO excited to be doing daily 5 again this year. Missed it so much last year!

I love my classroom library. So organized and so many books! :)

My cute frogs! The student desk nameplates match these. Too cute!

That's about it. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Bright, colorful, and spacious. This makes me excited for a new year.

Random Thoughts

I need to blog about Colorado (because it's a really great funny story, just wait), but before I can do that I need to edit pictures.

I need to blog about my last day with the boys, but before I can do that I need to take and upload one last picture.

So, rest assured, those two posts are coming soon ... well, maybe not that soon, but sometime at least.

For today, just some random thoughts:

1. I LOVE pinterest. It is my newest addiction. Seriously, I cannot stop once I get started. So many cute projects and ideas! I've already made three of the things I saw on there for my classroom. hehe

2. Today I went to the gym. I walked out behind this man who walked to his car, pulled out an analog scale, weighed himself in the parking lot, then got in his car and left. Why would you carry your scale with you? Why wouldn't you use the scale in the gym which is of much better quality? Weird, right??

3. I drove up to the ATM today to deposit my last summer check. As I was waiting in line, a man WALKED up to the line, cut in front of my car, and used the ATM. I'm sorry sir, but that was just lazy. There was a walk up ATM not 10 yards away from us, and plus, you don't get to cut in front of me just because you're on foot and I'm in a car! Annoying!

4. The teacher center is closing for good, which is so so sad. They are only open a few more weeks so I decided to brave the crowd this morning and get some things made. Guess what? There were only 3 people there!! Apparently Saturday morning is the time to go because everyone is spending time sleeping in or hanging out with their families. Score! Also, I wanted to steal some of their paper. We have a paper crisis in first grade this year and they just had SO much. Seems unfair.

5. I think the entire city is sold out of clothespins. I went to 5 stores today looking for some and they were all sold out. I guess I might try Walmart later tonight, but if they don't have any I don't know where else to look!

6. I have worked out every day since T left for China. Go me! I know this sounds weird, but I swear my body had been craving exercise for the last month or so. I felt this urge to work out all the time, but was pretty much just too lazy to actually do it. Turns out, I feel great and have much more energy. Who knew hahaha :-P

And, that's all for today.

World Record?

This morning (at 4:30am to be exact) Tony left to spend the next two weeks in China. I have found that having a roommate makes me much more lazy because at the end of the day I'd rather sit around the house with a friend than do something productive. Since I knew he would be leaving today, I already had a plan for how I was going to spend my time being productive over the next couple weeks.

Starting today I am going to the gym every. single. day. no exceptions. I have been HORRIBLE about going to the gym this past year so I'm going to kick start what I hope to be a regular routine once school starts by going every day while he is gone. So, this morning I got up and went to the gym. Good start.

I had planned to spend my time this week working on my classroom up at school. Next week I have a bunch of inservice, and the week after that we start out campus staff development days so I knew I had to get my room ready by the end of the week. After I hit the gym this morning I headed up to school. Michelle was there, so I wasted a bit of time chatting with her, then dove right in.

I'm not sure if there is a world record for the amount of time it takes to set up an entire classroom from boxes and stacks of furniture to finish, but I may have just set the record. I was at school for 6 hours today. An hour of that time I took a lunch break with Michelle (and quite honestly I spent some random time talking to her as well I'm not even accounting for). In 5 hours I got my room COMPLETELY set up. I'm talking every single thing is done. All my furniture is arranged, supplies are out (including book boxes filled on table groups), bulletin boards are set up, and even my hallway display is done. This is quite an accomplishment! Guess moving rooms at the last minute for the past 4 years taught me to be efficient with my time. YAY me!

Now I'm not quite sure what to do with the rest of my week though, as working in my room was pretty much the only thing on my to do list.  Tomorrow I think I'm going to go up for a few hours and organize some files and things I've been wanting to tackle, so that should be productive, but then, until I get my class list, I'm done. Amazing!

Oh, and I LOVE the way my room looks. :) I may be getting a little excited for this year, but shhh don't tell anyone hehe