Wisdom for Wednesday - Rejoice Evermore!

Happy Wednesday!

My Pastor has been preaching through I Thessalonians and we are into chapter five, so this week's quote comes from one of his sermons on verse 16:

Rejoice evermore.

I Thessalonians 5:16

I consider myself a pretty joyful person (and I hope those around me would say the same thing), but every once in awhile I do allow my circumstances to affect my attitude. 

When my Pastor said this, I promptly made sticky notes (I heart sticky notes) to put in various places as a reminder. He went on to say this (which got several sticky notes as well):

Rejoice evermore is not based on my circumstance--but on my God!

Don't you love that? No matter what is going on around us we can still rejoice because of our God. We can rejoice in His deliverance, His mercy, His grace…the list could go on.

Here's a few of my favorite reasons to REJOICE!

In the Word!

 (Psalm 19:7-11, 138:1-2)

In what God has done, is doing, and will do!

 (Psalm 5:11-12 and Psalm 13:5-6)

In hope!

(I Peter 1:3-9)

Thanks for stopping by for this week's:

Have a wonderful day! 

Make it a joyful one!

Setting Routines!

We are starting to get in a little bit of a routine at school.  I always forget those little things that you have to tell about like:  where to get a pencil if they need one, extra crayons etc.  So many routines to teach at the beginning of the year.  

We have started practicing Read to Self for the Daily 5.  Today we did 8 minutes and I was soooo excited because the majority of them did an outstanding job! 

We are going to add work on writing in this week.  I'm excited to get the full Daily 5 up and running with this class!  

I hope all of you are having a great start to your new year if you have started.

Five for Friday - Back to School Style!

WOW!

First week back to work complete.

I am exhausted!

How is it that an experienced teacher can never be completely prepared for the physical and emotional back-to-school demands?

I set up my room the first week in August. I lesson planned for the first weeks and have my year long plans done. I started waking up at 5:00 a.m. a week ahead of time. I was taking about 10,000 steps each day during my final weeks of summer.

And still, I came home from the community cookout and scrimmage last night feeling a lot like this:

I seriously limped to bed. :-(

Anyway, let me give you a peek at my week Five for Friday style!

Thanks Kacey for this weekly link-up!

1

The Christian Teachers Facebook Group leaders have put out a prayer journal for this school year (started Monday). It is based off of Psalm 119 and covers four verses a week. I'm accepting the challenge to memorize it! I love this app for practicing my memory verses. 

2

Monday morning it was back to work for inservice. It was plagued with technology issues. Ugh! I felt so bad for our administrators who had planned good things, but nothing was working correctly. One of the drawbacks of a small school...no full-time tech person. I did manage to score some goodies though! Can't wait to read this book!

3

No tech person means we have get to do a lot of techy stuff ourselves. I had an issue with my computer/projector connection all last year, so they promised me this Google Cast thingy would solve my problem. I was a bit skeptical, but happy to report that it did solve the problem after I spent an hour installing it and setting it up. I fear it will only work when our internet is working though. Can anyone confirm that?

4

Thursday was our first day of school, so of course, I had to make my kids get in a picture with me! He's a junior. She's a sophomore. Me...well, I'm a 2nd grader (year seven).

Also, from the first day of school, my students working/playing with their morning tubs. 

This is new for me this year, but so far I'm liking it. We have our morning meeting in the gym, students come to my room and do their lunch count, check their GO (getting organized) book, and then head to breakfast (if they choose to). The morning tubs keep the non-breakfast eaters busy and encourage the breakfast eaters to be quick! I rotate the tubs each day and as the year progresses, I'll add different activities. The first few weeks, we are sticking to Legos, Play-Doh, and Pattern Blocks.

5

Day two (yesterday) we started building our stamina for Daily 5. The students did 3 minutes really well, so they wanted to try 4. It really went better than I expected based on some of my littles this year!

We are also building our stamina for school right now. This bunch is doing pretty awesome in the morning. The afternoons are a little rougher, but we will get there I'm sure. So thankful that our administration agreed to a morning and afternoon recess PLUS our kiddos get PE every day. :-)

I even got things done during my PLAN time (if you've followed us long, then you may remember I did not have a plan time during the school day the last three years) so I do not have to go work at the school today! I think I'll go up for a few minutes just to make a video classroom tour for you though. We'll have to see the how the day goes. ;-)

Have a great weekend!

Wisdom for Wednesday-Lonely

Welcome to another week of:

Wow!  If you really stop and think about it, I would say it is all pretty amazing.  Knowing that God is with us at every moment.  He knows every thought we have before it is even spoken.  He knows how many hairs we have on our head.  He knows everything that is going to happen to us before it even happens.  So, we should never feel lonely because he is always with us.  

Have a great day!

Can you say tired???

This is how I have felt during my planning period in the afternoons.  I always forget how hard the first days back at school can be.  I am on day 4 of our school year and we are starting to get a little bit of a routine going.  I admit, I am tired and my throat is sore (from all the talking I've been doing-LOL)!  I hope all of you that have started school are starting to get into a routine and the tiredness starts to fade away!

Have a great day!

Fill Your Freezer - Teacher Timesaver!

Hey there!

When I went through my phone looking for pictures for my usual Five for Friday post, I realized I had one lonely photo. :(

It just proves that the busyness has begun.

I spent most of my time either at volleyball practice (two a days) or at appointments (hair, eye doctor, dentist, etc.). Thankfully, my classroom is set up and ready to go. I've got some lesson planning to get done, but when I tried to go to my classroom today there was no internet access which gave me a good excuse to turn around and come back home.

I report to work on Monday. EEEK!

Students on Thursday! EEEK! So excited!

Anyway, while I'm in meetings next week my kids will continue to help stock our freezer with breakfast and dinner (something we've been working on the last week or so). I've shared the breakfast recipes before--click here.

Have I ever told you that I have amazing kids? I can't believe they are headed into their sophomore and junior year!

Frozen dinners and/or crock pot dinners are key for us through basketball and volleyball season while I'm coaching. My husband gets home from work before the kids and I so he cooks for us a lot, but he appreciates it when I have some easy things planned and prepped for him.

Disclaimer: I am not a freezer meal expert! I have just learned some things along the way that might be helpful to you. Also, this is not going to give you specific meals at a specific price, etc. like many of the freezer posts I've seen. Just some ideas on easy (and not too expensive things you can do to help with meals) and some of our favorite recipes.

The basics:

1. Brown ground beef and freeze in portions that are common for your recipes (i.e. 1 lb or 2 lbs). 

Tip: Make your beef go further by shredding carrots and cooking them right along with the beef. If you don't over do, your kids won't even notice when you use the meat in recipes!

2. Season ground beef and form into hamburger patties. Freeze patties (or cook them first and freeze).

3. Make meatballs, cook and freeze.

4. Dice chicken, cook, and freeze in portions that are common for your recipes.

A few of our favorites:

1. Sloppy Joes - We use this recipe from The Pioneer Woman and it freezes great!

2. Chicken Spaghetti - Another one from The Pioneer Woman (we leave out the pimentos).

3. Cracked Out Chicken Bubble Up - Not necessarily a freezer recipe, but easy if you have diced, cooked chicken ready in the freezer and it is one of our favorite Pinterest finds! 

FREEZER TIP: Put food in Ziploc bags and lay flat so it takes up less room in your freezer. Also if you make a casserole (i.e. chicken spaghetti), you can lay the bag in the pan you plan to cook it in just until it freezes in the correct shape. Then remove the pan so you can use it.

Some of our favorite recipes I plan to try freezing for the first time:

Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf

1 lb. ground beef	10 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
8 oz. cheddar cheese	2 large eggs, lightly beaten
¼ c. bread crumbs	¼ c. mayo
1 T. Worcestershire sauce	¼ t. salt
¼ t. pepper	1/3 c. ketchup
2 T. mustard	1 (3 oz.) can French fried onions

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, combine the beef and all ingredients except ketchup, mustard, and onions. In a small bowl, combine the ketchup and mustard. Stir in ¼ c. of the ketchup mixture into the beef, reserving the rest. Form meat loaf and place on center of broiler pan (well greased). Spread remaining ketchup mixture over the loaf. Bake 40 minutes. Top with French fried onions; bake another 10-15 minutes.

Chicken Enchiladas

1 can Cream of Chicken soup	8 flour tortillas
½ c. sour cream	1 c. Cheddar or Monterrey Jack cheese
1 T. margarine	1 t. chili powder
1 medium onion (chopped)	2 c. chopped cooked chicken
1 can (4 oz.) chopped green chilies

In small bowl mix soup and sour cream. Heat margarine over medium-high heat.  Add onion and chili powder.  Cook until tender.  Add chicken, chilies, and 2 T. soup mixture. Spread ½ c. soup mixture in baking dish.  Fill each tortilla w/ ¼ c. chicken mix. Spread remaining soup mixture over enchiladas.  Sprinkle with cheese. 

Bake at 350° for 25 minutes.

**to change it up, add 3 T. fresh chopped cilantro to sauce

Hope you are enjoying either your final weeks of summer break or your first weeks of school! 

Let me know if you try the recipes! ;-)