Here's a Peek at my New Classroom...

So after checking out on Friday, I rushed out of my old school before I cried TOO much and made a fool of myself. I am horrible at "good-byes" though I informed Kristi it was not a "good-bye" for us, but a change in relationship. She truly has become one of my best friends these last few years.

Anyway, I went straight to my new classroom. I had a goal in mind...THROW AWAY a lot of stuff. Ha!

 

No, really. I want to paint the shelves and bulletin boards before I "move in." The shelves were all PACKED with stuff. You would not believe it...should have taken before pictures. Why do I always forget that?

 

I don't remember if I told you that this school I'm going to is where I went to elementary school--many years ago. I actually found things that we used back then! Teacher resource books labeled with my 1st-2nd grade teacher's name (who has been retired for many years). I even found a teacher resource book from 1976--and no, I was not in school then. I wasn't even born yet!

 

That first day I got this entire wall of shelves cleaned off. The best part...when I got tired, I was home in ONE minute. Did you catch that? ONE minute--as opposed to THIRTY. That was one of the BIG reasons that I took this position!

 



What do you think of this awkward space? I'm thinking reading nook...



Then I went back Saturday to finish these two smaller ones and take down the bulletin board "stuff" so everything would be ready to paint.

 

 

 

I  really wish I could fast forward to the moving in and organizing part. Speaking of organizing - have you checked out:

GENIUS!!!!! I spent who knows how long checking out 40+ blogs the other day for organization tips. I'm sure more have linked up, so I will have to go back for more!

 

Here's a picture of all my "stuff" right now...tucked away in the lunchroom...just waiting to be organized. :-) The janitor has already teased me about needing to build an addition onto my room. LOL!

 

I did find some cool stuff on those shelves. Here's a few of my finds:

 

Math Border - This will look awesome on my future black bulletin board to use with "The Meeting" (Saxon Math).

Buzzers! They really work and each have a different tone...I see some quiz games in my future.

CDs - Christmas songs, movement songs, and Shel Silverstein, yes please!

Anyway, maybe that linky will still be open when I get to start putting my room together!

 

Have a blessed day!

Crystal

 

P.S. When editing this post, I deleted the word "actually" three times. Hmmm...must be my new favorite word. Do you ever catch yourself doing that when you write? ;-)



Moving Forward and Bucket List

So I won't talk much about this issue because it makes me sad.  Most of you know that Crystal took another position for next year.  We finished up our school year and on Friday the staff gave her a gift and our wonderful music teacher prepared a song about her using some ideas that I gave him.  Well, the song was supposed to be funny (and it was) but we all ended up crying by the end of it.  I will miss her a lot, but we have become great friends and will remain in contact and of course continue our blog together! 

 

We have linked up with some bloggy friends, First Grade at Last, A Cupcake for the Teacher, Miss Kindergarten, and A Modern Teacher to share a summer bucket list: Join us and share your bucket list for the summer as well!

 

 

http://www.miss-kindergarten.com/2013/05/my-summer-bucket-list-linky-party.html

 

1.  SLEEP

 

2.  Check out this neat way of arranging desks in the room.  I found it on pinterest and plan on spending some time thinking of how I will arrange my room and what materials I will need for it. 

 

 

http://pinterest.com/pin/244320348507431849/

 

 3.  Hmmmm......I have been thinking awhile about making these for my groups.  We will see....
 

http://pinterest.com/pin/148970700144167236/

4.  Visit friends in Denver, Colorado

 

 

5.  Cat Sit.......My mother has a rescue for cats and has many cats that she takes in and adopts out to good homes......want to adopt one LOL!  Anyways, every summer she thinks she needs a vacation for some reason :-) and I get to go help take care of these cats for about a week......after a day of it I am usually extremely tired.  I don't know how she does it but she does and she does a great job with it!  Those cats are spoiled beyond belief!!

This is me after a day of helping with all the cats!!  LOL!

 

6.  I have a lot of home improvement/crafts that I would love to do this summer.  I always do have a lot that I want to do, but don't seem to get many of them done.  But, this is one that I would like to accomplish this summer if possible.  Found this on pinterest and thought it would be great to do in our unfinished basement.  (Pinterest is wonderful!) 

 

http://pinterest.com/pin/244320348507307955/

 

Hope you join us in the linky party....love to hear what your bucket list is for this summer! 

 

Have a great week and a huge thank you to all of our soldiers!  Kristi

 

 

Proud Mom - Had to Share

Okay, here's the video I was trying to upload yesterday. This is my daughter at her last school talent show...they have one for the 3rd - 6th grades. I can't believe she will be in middle school next year! She actually turns 12 tomorrow. :-)

Anyway, I'm very proud of her. Each year she chooses to practice and sing a song about the Lord. This year the song is called "My Hope is in the Lord." I didn't get to go, but I threatened her brother that he better video it given the opportunity. He was too embarrassed to go up front so you could actually see her, but you can definitely hear her. :-)

 

Of course, I think she is great!

Crystal

3 More Days and AR Competition Winds Down!

 

I can't believe we only have 3 more days of school!

 

That means next Friday I will be leaving my classroom and school for the last time. :-(

I'm feeling sad and excited all at the same time.

 

I have keys to my new classroom and school already. They were done on Thursday. It was really hard to get up and go to work Friday when my own kids were still in bed snoozing. I just keep thinking that next year, we will have the same calendar! That will be so awesome!

 

About my new classroom, I just took some of my things up there and looked around. Then I came home and took a nap! LOL!

 

It is too overwhelming right now to think of all that I need to do...

 

Anyway, the AR competition has come to an end--which is a good thing. Kristi and I are both extremely competitive. The library closed on Wednesday, but we each asked for a basket of books so the classes could keep reading. I even pulled some leveled readers from earlier in the year to keep them earning points. We had told the kids we would have a party if we made it to 1000 points (between the two classes) in the last nine weeks.

 

On Thursday, we knew we would not make the goal so Kristi and I started taking tests too. I took a test on The Hunger Games (which I had read last year) and some of the half point books pictured below.

 

 

At the end of the day, I had 27 points. Kristi had 5.

 

Would you believe she bribed (with Coca Cola) another teacher friend to take a Harry Potter test under her name?

 

So I came back the next day and took tests on Catching Fire and Mockingjay and earned another 25 points (I got a 60% on one of them--oops--guess that is why you shouldn't wait a year to test on a book).

 

Like I said we are really competitive! :-)

 

As it turned out, the classes tied and we made the 1000 points so we have a float party planned for next week. Hooray!

 

Well, I wanted to leave you with a video of my daughter singing in her school talent show, but I'm still working on getting it uploaded. Maybe tomorrow...this proud mom has to share. :-)

 

Have a blessed weekend!

Crystal

 

 

 

How to blow up a Balloon!!!????

 

So last year we found this cool idea from Erin at First From Franklin.

 

 

 

 

http://firstwithfranklin.blogspot.com/2012/05/10-day-countdown-baby.html

 

We came up with a list of fun things to do each day, typed them up, printed it and stuck it in the balloon.  If the student doesn't have to move his/her clip down throughout the day, then they get to participate in what it says in the balloon the next day.  The kids are so excited about popping a balloon every day and want to make sure that they are following our rules so that they can do whatever is inside the balloon.  The following is what we decided to put in our balloons:

 

May

9^th – Gum-we gave them gum to chew all day long

10^th – Sunglasses-this was the day that we went to the zoo for our field trip, so we gave them sunglasses to wear to the zoo

13^th – ink pens-they will get to write with pens all day

14^th – lunch in the room with the teacher

15^th – extra recess

16^th – move desks-they get to arrange the room the way they want to for the day

17^th – mystery readers (other 1^st grade class)-they get to read with the other 1st graders

20^th – kickball-we will have a kickball game between the 2 classes

21^st – nature walk-they will go outside and take a walk and do a scavenger hunt

22^nd – Movie Day

 

The best part about all of this is that I learned something about Crystal last year when we did this activity.  We were in my room after school and started to blow up the balloons.  I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life.  Crystal doesn't know how to blow a balloon up.  Bless her heart, she tries but it doesn't work!  LOL!

 

I was sitting there blowing up balloon after balloon and realized that she couldn't do it.  She was trying with all her might and blowing, making noises and turning red.  :-)  Needless to say, by the time I had all of my 10 balloons blown up, she had her one balloon halfway blown up.  I had to blow the other 9 up for her.

 

This year, I was so excited to do it again just so I could watch her try to blow a balloon up (I know it probably isn't very nice of me), but I have never seen anything like it before.  LOL!  She must have been practicing or something because she actually was able to blow up a few more balloons this year.  Although it took her 14  2 hours.  :-)  I only wish I could have a video of it for the full effect so you could hear the noises and see her face as she tries so hard to get 1 balloon blown up.  But, I did capture some of it with pictures.  Check it out! 

 

 

Taking in deep breaths before her attempt to blow up her first balloon!

 

 

After 15 minutes LOL!  Here is what she had on her first balloon!

 

 

 

 

WOW!  2 hours later!!!  :-)

 

 

 

 

 

SHE DID IT!!!  14 HOURS LATER!!!

 

 

It really didn't take that long, but I think I had about 4 balloons done by the time this first one was blown up! 

 

Needless to say, we had a fun time blowing up balloons and we did have a good laugh about it at Crystal's expense (Thanks Crystal). 

 

Hope all of you have a great week!  Kristi  

Moving :-(

Some of you may remember from this post in March that I will be changing jobs next year, and I am a teacher that likes to leave ASAP on that final day. It is approaching so FAST!

 

11 more days with kids!

 

13 more days total!

 

I started thinking that I did not want to be sitting around here packing after everyone else has gone home for the summer. On top of that, Kristi is the one moving into my room and she has been giving me grief about getting out of her way. Well, not too bad...but I've got to give her a bad time because I know what she is blogging about this weekend and it will be an embarrassment to me! You'll have to stay tuned to find out...all I can say is she took pictures of this most embarrassing fact about me.

 

What a friend! ;-)

 

Anyway, back to moving. On Saturday, I came up to my room and took everything out of my cabinets and my closet. I didn't think I had very much stuff because I have only been teaching THREE years, but as you can see...

 

 

The room was a mess! I had three bags of trash and several boxes of recycling. I packed 5 totes, one large box, and LOTS of items that wouldn't fit in those things to take home with me. I literally only left the things that I'm still using or what will stay at the school.

 

Now I'm thinking, "Where am I going to put all this stuff?"

My new classroom is smaller and I don't even have a closet! Ack! The set up should be interesting...

 

The clean out was fun and revealing. I found a lot of things from college that I was sure I would use and hadn't touched in three years. Like Charlotte...

 

 

Charlotte was made in my teaching art class--the program insisted we learn to teach art, music, and PE because we might end up with a school that did not have a teacher for specials.

 

Funny thing is...that is exactly where I'm heading! As of right now, I will be teaching my own specials at my new school. I'm still praying they find a music teacher because...well, let's just say I've learned and forgotten how to play the piano twice in my life...

 

So I had to part with Charlotte. She is now sitting in the teacher's lounge waiting for a good home or someone else to throw away because I didn't have the heart to do it!

 

Have a great rest of the week!

 

Crystal

 

P.S. Kristi is already filling my closet, cabinets, and filing cabinet! ;-)

TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale!!!

Teacher Appreciation Week is here! I hope you enjoy some special thanks from your students, parents, and schools this week. We have already been told some of our goodies coming from our wonderful PTO. Can you say MASSAGE? And yummy breakfast?? Sonic drinks???

 

It is nice to know we are appreciated and our parents do a great job of that!

 

Kristi and I decided to join in the TPT (and TN) sales this week, so head on over to do some shopping. There are LOTS of sellers in on this sale so we'll be doing some shopping of our own!

 

Our TN sale will run May 4th - 10th.

 

 

 

The TPT sale is a TWO day sale May 7th - 8th so act fast!

 

 

Enjoy your week!

 

Crystal and Kristi