Home Alone

Ok, so I wrote this post before the Five for Friday Party got started! Then I did yardwork.... And two hours later, there are over 100 people at the party! What the WHAT?! Anyway, here's my Five for Friday link-up!

My hunnybun left for his trip to Vegas today. He's going for a videographer convention. THIS MEANS I'VE BEEN HOME ALONE!
It's nice, and then not nice, and then nice again.
It's nice when I get to watch whatever I want on TV. Like The Walking Dead (which Fernie won't watch because he doesn't like zombies) or the Office (which Fernie won't watch because he's had a boss like Michael Scott so he can't get past the first couple episodes). 
Then it's not nice. Like when my hunny texts me from a tasty restaurant and says, "It was sooooo good. Wish you could've come."
And I'm eating scrambled eggs for dinner.
Then it's nice again when I get to make a pot of flavored coffee because the hunny only drinks plain decaf.
So it's been a bit of an adventure. All of this disclaimer is necessary for my Five on Friday post!

#1: This is what I had for dinner on Monday. It's mashed cauliflower I found on pinterest. It was eh. But by the time I finished making it, trying it, and getting the seasonings right, I was full. So that was my entire dinner, right there. A plop of mashed cauliflower. Mmm, you're thinking. Yummy.

#2. So what's that in my glass, you say? It's wine. Yes, wine in a Star Trek glass. I know what you're thinking. Classy.
It is indeed classy. Mad Men is on in the background. It doesn't get much classier than that. Oh, Roger Sterling. 
#3. In case you're feeling a little uncomfortable, I thought I'd share my fancy brand of wine with you. 

See that? That's FRAN-ZEE-A, for those of you who don't speak French. Muy fancy. Look closer and see why it's such a great buy:

Yes! I am! I am reducing my carbon footprint! You're welcome, Earth.

#4: All this Earth-saving inspired me. The third grade teachers in my school asked me if I could pick up a group of students who have been successful in test-taking and I thought that sounded like fun. I decided to put together a group of third graders and a group of fourth graders to work on Earth Day!

I love Earth Day stuff. 

This is what we started on.

We watched a BrainPop about conservation and then we read a brief article. From the article, we charted out this information:

#5. We wrote an Earth Day paragraph using sentence frames. Many of the students are ELLs and are working on developing their English. To help them build their sentence structure, I used sentence frames.

First we wrote four sentences using the information we learned from the video and the article.

This was the example: "Earth Day is... a special day to celebrate the Earth and practice conservation! Conservation means... using our natural resources carefully. You can help by... turning off the water when you brush your teeth! This can help us... use less water and protect our resources.

Then we used the sentence frames in green to create diversity in their writing. On Monday, they're going to publish.

Go link up with DoodleBugs!

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Media Literacy

Tuesdays are the days that I plan with grade levels. We plan two weeks at a time and we have 90 minutes. Most of the time, it's actually pretty fun! We look at the student expectations bundled together in the upcoming unit and plan lessons/charts/activities/assessments that will support those SEs.

Yesterday, second grade planned out their unit on media literacy. Media literacy is a relatively new-ish idea in our standards. It was added a few years ago, but has only recently begun to be tested, so there are not many materials out there to support it. Fortunately, media is everywhere!

Teachers are going to save their materials from home to use in their classrooms. We included learning experiences like evaluating advertisements, commercials, magazines, and even cereal boxes for the techniques used by the writers.

We planned this anchor chart to start off with. I'm excited to see how this unit goes!

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Five For Friday Linky Party

Five for Friday! Finally linking up with this fun linky party from DoodleBugsTeaching!

This week stunk because of STAAR testing. I promise not to bore you with any more of that, though. If you're in Texas, you're bored enough.

1. Finally put up my reading pledge board from our Camp Read-a-Lot Literacy Night! You can read about it here!

2. This is (part of) my family on Easter. My brother Matt is on the left, Mom in the middle, and John on the right. As you can see, as soon as the camera goes up, they cover their faces. I took eight pictures at different times. All of them look like this - paper plate face.

We call John the Yeti, as he is elusive, yet intrusive. 

3. Fabric hunting with my sister-in-law this week. We took this picture to remember the price of a solid color broadcloth. I'm wondering if it's cheaper to make my own table runners than rent them!

4. Planned with third grade on Thursday for our reading blitz review before the STAAR test! They're doing half a day of reading and this is how they're breaking up their time. This is version two of our chart - the first ended up with pink marker barfed all over it due to revisions!

5. Last, but not least, my cat. The Professor is completely inappropriate. It's a good thing I got him fixed, or this picture would be rated R! He has no shame.
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Camp Read-a-Lot, Part II

I've been a terrible Literacy Leader. Two weeks ago, I spent the whole week helping administer TELPAS. This week, I spent my time hopping around at our STAAR Celebration Pep Rallies and administering the Math and Writing STAARs. So I haven't done that much literacy stuff.  I did get a little schooling from a second grader, though. As I handed out the district's media disclaimer during the TELPAS, I said, "Please sign your name on the line. This means you don't have a cell phone with you."
One of the kids gave me a smarty-pants look. "We're second graders," he said. "We don't have cell phones!"
Sheesh. It wasn't my idea, okay?
Today was my first normal day in a couple weeks. It was nice. I got to work and I was like, "What do I do here? (When I'm not giving tests?)"
I didn't have long to wonder. As I stood, hesitating in my doorway, the day came and hit me in the face and I managed to fill it with planning with teachers, meetings, and working on my very sadly delayed "Camp Read-a-Lot" bulletin board. 
I've been sitting on this board for a couple weeks. What with meeting with my groups, planning, paperwork, and testing, it's been a month since our Literacy Night actually happened! So today I gathered my butcher paper, family reading pledges from the Literacy Night, and put together my board! I can only hope the kids actually remember what it is. Short attention spans...

The board was a bit too long to actually capture it all. I tried that panoramic thing, but it made it look a little curvy, so we're stuck with an angled shot!

I added the little puppets the kids made and I stapled up the cover from the book we used, A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee!

I made a tent out of butcher paper and cut a little flap to add some 3-Dness!

Check out the materials to have your own Camp Read-a-Lot Literacy Night, Super Family Literacy Night, or Roll Out the Red Carpet for Literacy Night!

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April...currently!

It's been months since I've caught the currently soon enough to link up! Finally made it! Have a happy April!

Tomorrow and Wednesday is the first round of STAAR testing for fourth and fifth grades. Because their day is sooo long and horrible (mine too because I'm doing a small group oral administration - scary ) I put together some little treat bags for the teachers. Here's the rhyme:
The STAAR is here. It's time to shine! You and your kids will do just fine.  To help you get through this long day, have some snacks along the way!
Inside, I put some popcorn, a granola bar, and a Crystal Lite packet for tasty water.

Don't forget about my upcoming sale! My blog has 500 followers and my TPT Store has 1,000 fans! In honor of these great fans & followers, and also because it's Spring, I'm having a Spring Sale Friday - Sunday, April 5 - 7. Check out my TPT and Teacher's Notebook stores to get 20% off on all items!

Go link up with Oh'Boy Fourth Grade!

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Pantsy Fants

So yesterday I blogged about my spring break bucket list. This means I blogged about wedding wedding wedding!
But today, reality has struck and I have one more thing to add to my bucket list.
Pants.
I have problems with pants. I hate to try them on. My figure, Greek goddess-esque, isn't exactly pants-friendly. It's more muumuu friendly. My waist is smaller than my hips, because my hips are enormous. I'm not sure why. It's like you took my mother's 5'9" curvy frame and squished it down into my 5'4" lumpy frame. 
LOL Just writing this makes me laugh. I don't hate my own figure. I just know it's special and unique and it hates pants.
Especially jeans.
I love wearing pants and jeans. I just hate trying them on. For this reason, I have worn the exact same kind of pants for the last six years. They are Target pants. I loooooved my Target pants. I had black, gray, brown, and two shades of khaki. And I wore them all the time! Target pants Target pants Target pants. 
Shopping for pants was great during this pants heyday. I could go to Target, stride straight towards the rack, check the size, and buy them, without trying anything on! Because I always wore the exact same kind! 
But alas, Target has found out about my pantstopia. They discontinued my pants. Now they have some system with four different styles, none of which is the style of pants I love. They're all "low rise, curvy thigh" or "high-buttoned boot cut" or "skinny pants pantsalots" and I just don't get it. 
I even searched online for my special pants, but to no avail. They just don't exist anymore and I'm not gonna wear those imposters with fancy labels.
I just want pants!
So I figured I would wear my pants until they fell apart. I can deal with buttons (I'll sew them back on) and loose seams (easy to fix), but some wear & tear is unfixable. Last week, I lost two pairs at the same time, due to the same culprit: thighs.
My curvaceousness extends to my thighs. These dainty thighs tend to rub against each other with every step, threatening to set fire to pantyhose and shredding the fabric between them into a fine mesh. Suddenly, I'll sit down and have a tear about three inches long, rendering my pants unwearable.
So now I have to go buy pants. I'm not excited about it. I'm not looking forward to it. I'm really just dreading it, and I'm not sure where to go, because Target has disappointed me one time to many. I guess I'll hit JC Penney. Maybe they have pants with the perfect blend of mom-ishness and just enough Greek goddess for me.
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