Five for FRIDAY!! December style

Holy cow, is it Christmas break yet? Seriously, this week was rough. I was at school at 7:00 in the morning twice this week, and I left school after 6:00 twice this week.  I made two trips to Wal-Mart, baked (and ate) about twenty five cookies, and made two dozen burritos.

On Friday, we had our giant Christmas program. It's an incredible show. We didn't get out until about 8:30. So naturally, on Saturday morning I was very excited to wake up early to help out at our area Grit Conference. I wasn't alone. After the conference ended at 12:30, I raced home to make cookies for our campus cookie exchange! I made butterscotch & white chocolate chip cookies...they were like candy.  Get the recipe on Google Drive!

   

 I decided to buy all the felt at Wal-Mart and make a felt Christmas tree with ornaments for my niece. My husband keeps walking into the den, looking at the piles of crafting crap all over the table, and turning right back around to watch TV in the bedroom.

 But I don't care! Because this tree is cute and she's going to love it!

Another project I worked on was our Poet-tree! We actually have three: a K-2 tree in English, a K-2 tree in Spanish, and a 3-5 tree in English. Each ornament has a poem printed on it and I decorated them with glitter paint. Our librarian tied on a ribbon and we hang them on our tree! When students visit the library, they can choose an ornament to keep.

And then I made two dozen burritos. At our school, the last twelve days before winter break, we have the 12 Days of Christmas. Each grade level/group is assigned a day. We were the 8th day. We decided to make burritos. This was my idea. At the time, I thought, "Oh, burritos will be a nice change from sweets," which is what most groups bring on their day. But then, the night before I realized that I would have to make 24 burritos... in the morning... before I went to work. I had to get up at 5:30. 5:30, people! I. Do. Not. Get. Up. Before. Six.

But I did. I set my alarm, and I woke up. I dragged myself into an upright position. I sat there for a minute, but then I was afraid I'd fall asleep sitting up. So I pulled myself out of bed and got myself ready. I remember thinking, "This was a stupid idea," but I quickly reminded myself that it was MY stupid idea.

Then I mixed up about 40 eggs and poured them into a pan with butter. I reheated the potatoes I'd cooked the night before, and warmed tortillas. I rolled and rolled and rolled. Until I had 24 burritos. I stuffed them into a tray and raced to work. In all, we'd made 100 burritos for our faculty.

This is my favorite. We hosted a Disguise a Gingerbread Man contest in the library. Students could swing by and pick up a cardstock gingerbread man to decorate, to help him escape. It had to be from a book.

We had a ton of submissions, and some of them were so clever and creative!

Hulk Hogan - something tells me this wasn't a book.

Pancho Villa

Chewbacca

Ruby the Reindeer

Arthur

These entries were from our teachers! The Abominable Snowman, Lily (from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse) and Skippyjon Jones! Are they precious or what?

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Best Advice Ever, according to my mother

My mother is a tough woman. I mean, don't get me wrong. She'll make you whatever you want for your birthday dinner, and water your planets when you're out of town (if you ask nicely). But she is no-nonsense, of the best sort.

With her, there is no such thing as a good excuse. And that's where I learned my best advice ever.

Get ready. It's a big one.
 

You always have time for the thing you do first.

That might sound pretty ridiculous, and pretty obvious, too, and when you're a 14-year-old kid who just wants to hide in the bathroom and read all day instead of completing your mandatory chore list before your mom comes home, you can't even listen to it seriously. She says, "You always have time for the things you do first!" and you hear, "Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah," like Charlie Brown's teacher.

But as I got older, and my time management became my responsibility and mine alone, I thought,

"Hmmm...maybe there's something to that."

I started scheduling my day starting with the most important and essential tasks. I went to sleep thinking about what I was going to do first the next day, and when I woke up, I was ready to get started! I had the right mental attitude, and what's more, I had enough time to do the thing I was supposed to do!

People, it's true. And it works!

It works at home:

You do the chore you are least excited about but must be done. You save the Seinfeld-watching until later (let's just assume this is the best-case scenario).

It works at school:

You teach the subject you are least excited about first! You know you'll get to writing (if you love writing) and you know you'll get to science (if you love science), but if you really don't love math, consider putting it first.

You do not enjoy grading the kids' notebook entries, so instead of putting it off, you do it as soon as they go to PE. You know, first! First in your conference period!

What?! And after you do it, you're done! With that horrible task you didn't want to do! And you have the rest of your conference period to do whatever else you need to do! (I'm pretending the world is perfect, and you don't have 900 meetings during your conference period.) And you don't have to take them home!

 

So the next time you see your day stretching before you, and you think of those tasks you really don't want to do, and the remote calls to you, saying, "Seinfeld is on Hulu!" just say, "I'll get to you later! You always have time for the things you do first!"

 

I know it's pretty duh advice, but really, if you try it, you might feel better about what you accomplish.

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What We Love Link-Up with Primary Powers

 

 

Is there anything better in the world than a link-up? When I'm drooling and I can't think of any of the 100,000 different things I've done in the classroom to write about, I'm like, "Oh, good. They'll just tell me what to do." and then I do that. This is a Classroom Loves link-up hosted about Primary Powers- we're writing about what I, they, we love.  

So, when I was writing this post, I was like, "Oh! I know what I love! I love wine!" and then I realized that wasn't really appropriate. So then I thought, "Oooh, summers off!" But that's not really what this is about. Coffee in the lounge? When they bring me chocolate on Valentine's Day? 

Apparently, I am a very simple person with simple pleasures.

Anyway, I finally settled on something appropriate-ish, I think. I LOVE office supplies! Post-its, pens (preferably felt-tip), a special notebook to write in and white tape for mistakes. For Christmas, my sister-in-law gave me a big box full of supplies she bought at an Office Depot going out of business sale. Be still, my heart.

These are my favorite things and they make me happy, when I'm not allowed to drink wine...which is really just when I'm at work.

My students have always loved sorts. Whether they're in reading, math, science, or whatever, they love picking up little cards and figuring out where they go. 

 This sort required students to sort characteristics, examples, and questions into different genres.

They get such a sense of accomplishment from figuring out which categories everything goes in and having everything "in the right place". They love to talk to their partners and disagree and make decisions. Because of this, even though sorts require a little preparation, it's something I like to integrate whenever possible.

This one was easy. We. Love. Harry. Potter. My Harry Potter Book Club meets once a week, after school on Wednesdays for an hour. 

 Making bookmarks with another thing they love: glitter paint.

We read, take online quizzes to get sorted into houses, make charts and graphic organizers and crafts. We laugh at Dudley, are very impressed by McGonnegal, and are very nervous for Ron. The kids who come to the club are so much fun and I love to plan special activities for them!

 

Chocolate frog boxes!

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Five for Friday

This week was chaos. Between early release happening unexpectedly on Thursday (we saw snowflakes. We live in the desert. We apparently don't know what to do about that) and late start on Friday (it was cold), it was hard to get much accomplished! 

 I did try, though. So here is some evidence that things did happen this week at school...or wherever.

I am so excited about this room! We've been working on making a reading lounge; a room full of cozy spots to read! We have the rugs, we have the furniture, and we're working on the lighting. It's almost ready for students!

This picture is so cool because our second graders did such a great job this week on their interesting people museum projects! They researched an interesting person, created a presentation board and presentation and presented them to each others' classes. 

 

 

 I worked with my fifth grade group this week on making meaning out of informational text. We worked on pulling out important ideas and using the text features to gather information.

 

In my Potter Fans Book Club, we started some fun character maps. Each student chose a character they were interested in and started to use the book to record details that help us understand the character. 

 

I modeled expository writing in a fourth grade class this week.We each had to choose a career we would love, so of course, I chose being a writer! Then we had to brainstrom reasons we would love that career. Not surprisingly, the first reason I thought of was... notebooks! I love office supplies.

That's my Five for Friday! Head over to Doodle Bugs to check out other pictures from this week!

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A Real Teacher of Blog County

So, I'm a real teacher of blog county. How can you tell? I drink coffee in the morning and wine all night. I wear comfy shoes that allow me to walk (and run when necessary) all day. I take my lunch because school lunch is yucky. My guided reading table is clean 90% of the time. And I haunt the Target Dollar Spot.
All of these things make me a real teacher.  But there's one more thing.  A dark secret. Something no one should ever see or know. Something...awful. It's dun Dun DUNN my closet. This, seriously, might be the worst closet you've ever seen. It's so bad there could be a child living in there and I would never know. There could actually be a whole Lord of the Flies situation in here and I'd never know. 

I'm really just a secret slob. Honestly, I like a neat desk and a neat guided reading table. I like my pens and pencils in separate cups and I have one notebook and calendar I use ALL THE TIME. But when it comes to out of sight, out of mind, I am the worst offender. There should be most wanted posters with my name on it that say, WANTED: HORRIBLE SLOB. Because my closet, where I stuff and shove all things someday useful but not today, is horrendous.

This is why it got so bad. I run a lot of school events. So I house the materials for those events along with my other personal junk. So I bought these handy storage drawers.

I filled them up with the supplies for the school programs I ran last year. And then I ran out of space. Syrup, goldfish, crayons, and scissors were stuffed in here.

So then I filled up this tub with other stuff from the schoolwide programs. Bags, yarn, pencils, glue, and more found their way to this tub. And when this tub was full, I made stacks and stacks and stacks. I can't seem to make the time to clean it! Something else is always more important.

This might be the best part. I had a bag of plastic spider rings for Halloween and one fell out and landed right inside the door. Every time I open the closet, my heart leaps and I think, "EEK!" and then I remember it's only plastic. But do I pick it up? No. I'm too busy for that. 

So now you know my dark secret. You should share yours! Or, if you don't have one, just check out everyone else's and be smug about how tidy and perfect you are. Visit Second Grade is Out of this World to check out the link-up!

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Five for Friday Link-Up, holiday style!

This week has been insane. I think I've overestimated how much I can fit into a day. Apparently, it's only about 16 hours worth of stuff, not the 28 hours I'm trying to squeeze in. It turns out, I am an ordinary human, like you. I'm not Wonder Woman. I'm kind of depressed to find this out.

Anyway, these pictures represent some of the things I've actually managed to accomplish this week. As you can see, Christmas is kind of a big priority.

This is our little library book tree! My librarian buddy and I made it out of boring reference books :)

 

And these are our Poet-Trees! We typed up poems on ornaments and copies them onto construction paper. Then we decorated each ornament with glitter paint and hung it out the tree. We made three trees: Grades 3 - 5, English for grades K - 2, and Spanish for grades K - 2. When the kids come to the library, they can choose a poem from the tree and keep it!

 

On Wednesday I met with my Harry Potter book club. We meet once a week to read Harry Potter and do some fun stuff. This week, we finished our bookmarks with glitter paint!

This is our little book tree in the library! 

 

 Each year, my school has a family night for the faculty. My dad has played Santa for the last two years - he greets the kids, does some ho-ho-ho-ing, and hands out the gifts the parents have brought for their kids. I always get my little brother a gift from Santa. He's 18 years old, and he's about 9 inches taller than our dad. So this, to me, is hilarious.

My hunnybun is a photographer, and he needed some holiday photos for backgrounds. So he took pictures of our Christmas tree! I love our tree. It's blue and silver and old-fashioned-y.

 Head over to DoodleBugs to check out the other Five for Friday posts or to link up yourself!
 

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Bright Ideas: A Blast From the Past!

November's Bright Ideas post is very unique. Instead of being a million brand-new bright ideas, we're giving you a change to browse through some of the great bright ideas from the last ten months that you might have missed! 

The Bright Ideas posts are great places to get interesting and useful tips and ideas to use in your classroom without having to download anything! No freebies, no products, and no hard drive space involved! Just good teaching and great tips.

These are my Bright Ideas posts from the last year. Check them out and maybe you'll find something new to try out!

I was extra-excited about this Bright Idea. This fun Creative Writing Response for Any Book! is a good way to get kids to respond to text while encouraging them to develop their writing vocabularies, too!

Setting Behavioral Goals  is a great way to get kids thinking about their own goals for behavior while encouraging teamwork, too!

 

 I love my color-coded Response Rings for checking for understanding. I hope you love them, too!

 

Personal Editing Checklists are a differentiated tool to help individual students develop a sequence for editing their own writing!

 

 My first Bright Ideas post was about Special Delivery Book Bags, a fun way to get kids excited and engaged in reading new books you introduce to the class!

  I hope you've found some useful tips here! If you see something you like, follow my blog Check out some of the other Bright Ideas Posts below!  

An InLinkz Link-up

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