All These Things...

I'm totally going to be one of those annoying people who doesn't blog for a month and then does about 4 posts in a day. So scroll up and down to see some new posts, if you're so inclined.

 

So, all these things are what's going on over here the last few weeks...

 

 This is very blog-worthy! I cleaned my room for the FIRST TIME since school started. Terrible? Yes. Am I sorry? No.

 

 My Doodle-Bug realllllly needed a haircut!

 

 One day about two weeks ago, I made this little sucker right smack dab in the middle of the Reading Block. Yes, I did. Because, my kiddos were just about to kill each other. And, I know LOVE this little contraption. It makes my life a lot easier. The kids love it, too. Because they get to sit in fun places like the windowsill and on top of desks. It's pretty exciting, I do admit.  (I did not come up with this idea, btw. I've seen them all over Pinterest!)

 

 This is what I stare at all afternoon. Every afternoon. Just so you know...

 

 Our school is having a fundraiser. And, I just felt really strongly that I should help the kids. Yes, that's it. It's all for the kids. It's a crying shame I had to eat all that chocolate :(

 

Two weekends ago, my parents and I went to have breakfast with my grandpa. Isn't he the cutest thing ever?

 Well done, IHOP. Well done.

 

 Back at my grandpa's house, my dad and aunts did some cleaning. We found a HUGE box of my grandmother's jewelry. I found this "R" pin in one of the boxes. It's a pin from the Ravens, my brother's rival team when he was about 11-15 years old. There is no rivalry quite as large as the rivalry between middle school aged baseball travel teams. So, I was surprised that she kept this pin! And, there wasn't a Bandit pin to be found! Ha.

 

The vacuum cleaner may or may not have nearly exploded.

 I picked out a nice stack of vintage bangles. I love them! Especially because they were my grandmother's.

 

 I also got a MAJOR stack of Little Golden Books for my school library!

 

 

That night, there were hot air balloons above my neighborhood. I was on a walk with my mom and I ran back to the house to grab my phone to take a picture. Sadly, this was the only one left!

 The Finster finally got her haircut! And, it is SHORT!

 

 So short, in fact, that I had to put pajamas on her because she was shaking! Ha. I keep my air on 67, so no hair = very cold, apparently!

 

 But, she didn't like my idea. No pajamas. Point taken.

 

 Last Wednesday, my mom came to get Finley during the day and she left me a little surprise! Isn't it so cute? Thanks, Mama!

 

 This is what I treat myself to when I complete my first observation of the year. Think I was excited to get that thing over with???

 

 Thursday, I received the sweetest darn note I've ever gotten from a kid at school. It made my day. Seriously.

 

And, Thursday night, we had a Family Literacy Night at school. The place was PACKED!

This is my classroom FULL of children while their parents learned how to help them be better readers at home. This is just the front of the room. And, there were about 6 other classrooms full of children. Uh-mazing!

 

Well, was that random or what?? Ha. Thanks for peeking in on my incredibly boring, but busy, life!



Labor Day Weekend

 

It was a great weekend, but it started off rocky and it ended terrible! I got a migraine at school Friday and had to leave early. But, by Friday afternoon I was better. We headed to my grandmother's house in Gleason, TN. We had a great time visiting with family. We got back Sunday and I woke up on Monday with a ROTTEN stomach flu. It was awful, ya'll. Seriously no fun at all. But, I'm feeling better-ish today and I haven't blogged in a while. So, here's a photo recap of the weekend...

 

 This little creature LOVES to ride in the car. She spends about the first 30 minutes with her eyes wide open just checking everything out. Then, when she's satisfied that we're there for a while, she curls up in my lap and snoozes. I try not to be too jealous.

 

 My two cousins got up super early Saturday to run a 5K. When they got home, Baby Kirsten chewed on the medal in her diaper. As you do...

 

When we got to the parade, we saw these cuties drive up in the golf cart! This is my great-uncle Edmond and his grandkids: Mattie, Will and Carson.

 

They were climbing all over that golf cart!

 Will's pretty cute. I think his momma's gonna' have her hands full :)

 

My grandma and my cousins' kids waiting on the parade to start...

Charlie-Boo was all about some candy!

 This is Carson. Carson is the first red-head in the family since Matt and I! So, needless to say, I kind of love him. Plus, he has a mischievous grin that I kind of love :) He was totally my buddy on Saturday. He sat in my lap the whole parade!

 

 And, I can't believe Mattie is a big ol' third grader now! We take this picture every year. Here is a picture from one of her first TaterTown Days...

 

 

Later that day, I tried to get a picture with Baby K. And, well, usually I have to get several takes because I look awful! But, this time, I'll let you see why we had to take it several times...

 

 

Come on, Kirsten! You can do it!

 There ya go!

 

We spent about 4 hours at the Dairy Queen waiting on these jokesters to eat their ice cream. Kids eat sooooooo slow!

 

Back at the house, we spent some time swinging. It's our favorite thing to do at MomMom's!

 Charles said to me "I take picture?" He did a pretty good job, huh!

 

 Saturday night, I painted Abigail's cute little toenails :)

 



And, Finley climbed up in my lap and was snoozing in no time.

 

It was a great weekend! Except for the puking...

First Few Weeks...

 

Two weeks into the school year, guys! It's flown by. So far, so good. Those kiddos are starting to have more good days than bad days... except for Friday. Whew, that day was rough. Ha! But, overall, we've gotten a lot done and I'm starting to feel like those kids are mine.

 

 

Here's a little recap of the last few weeks...

 

1. Instagram Dump

 

I'm just going to post some of my favorite Instagram pictures from recently. Because, who doesn't love a good Instagram picture?

 

 



I'm obsessed with Throwback Thursday. So, I posted this a few Thursdays ago. It's my absolute favorite picture of me and my brother from when we were babies. And, it comes with a story. Right after this picture, I literally dumped the kid off the picture platform. Onto the floor. So, if you ever needed proof that you can suffer a traumatic fall as a baby and still become a professional athlete, there it is. Oh, and check out the comb over on his head! Ha!

 

Last weekend, at my mom and dad's, I was trying to get a picture of the guest bedroom my mom had just finished redecorating. I set Finley on the bed to keep her from running out of the room. And, she proceeded to pee all over that white bed. Like, all over. Yeah. She really doesn't ever do that. She spends pretty much countless hours every week in my bed. But, this night, she did. It was awful. Sorry again, Mom!

 

My mom went to Goodwill in Franklin last weekend and came home with this - a shirt from my school! I mean, really? I'm still trying to find out who gave away their shirt, ha! It was a staff shirt. I'm pretty sure whoever gave it away is probably mortified because I posted this picture on Instagram and Facebook! But, in the end, it's okay because my mom was super stoked to get a Cole shirt :)

 

Pretty sure this little mutt needs a haircut, right?

 

Love, love, love.

 

2. Writing

 

This year, we've been using the same writing program as we did last year. It's basically where you teach the kids to make brainstorm lists of topics and then they choose one and do "quick writes" where they just write independently for 20 minutes or so. It's honestly the best 20 minutes of the day. I bring them all to the carpet, make sure classical music is playing, turn the lights down and they just write. Now, this class is a little more, shall we say.. squirrely? that last year's group. So, they've had to work a little on building their stamina. But, I'm seeing progress and kiddos are filling up almost entire pages of their authentic writing. Awesome!

 

I let them decorate their writing journals and I think that helped a lot to get them excited about writing.

 

It all makes my teacher heart happy. I wanted to take some pictures of their writing. Especially the little girl's who wrote about the differences between Freddy and Jason. Ha! But, it kind of felt like a violation of their privacy to post their personal writing in their journals on the blog. But, you can trust that when we publish some writing, I'll let you see.

 

3. Morning Message

 

Our district and school has put a huge emphasis on Morning Meeting the last two years. I'll be honest, it was struggle for me last year. And, I sometimes still struggle with wanting to just get the day started and getting right to work. But, I know there are benefits for my kiddos so I'm trying my best to do meaningful activities during that time. I've been using the Morning Message this last week to teach nouns and verbs, long vowels with silent e's and character traits!  I'm pretty positive that these are absolutely nothing special and nothing you haven't seen before. But, I want to remember stuff that I do for next year, so I'm going to post them. (As a side note, I've already pulled up my blog at least 4 times this year to remember things that I did last year during the school year. I knew I blogged for a reason! Ha!)

 

 

And, yes. I do call them Snickerdoodles. I always have. It just came out my first year of teaching and it's stuck. I can't not do it.

 

4. Character Traits and Providing Evidence

 

I blogged pretty extensively last year about my character traits unit. You can find that post here. It goes more into detail about each activity we did for our two week unit. I did a lot of the same stuff this year.

 

One day, we  read Strega Nona and we charted the character traits of Big Anthony. I read it aloud, stopped every few pages, brainstormed traits with the kids and then let them talk with their partners about the evidence. Then, they wrote on a paper that looked just like this their own evidence. I didn't write on the anchor chart until they shared their evidence. They really did a great job with this and were right on with the evidence each time.

 

Another day, we read Strega Nona and focused on the woman herself!

 

 

And, we used the basal story The Trial of Cardigan Jones to work on finding evidence in the story. We all know how important evidence is to Common Core so this was a helpful lesson!

 

5. Classroom Additions

 

I've added a lot of odds and ends to the classroom since school started.

 

This is a new addition to my room. We had a training on the Constructed Response Math Assessment before school started and we were shown this model. It's basically a way to encourage kids to show their work in word problems in different ways. As we go over math morning work, we add awesome work up to this board. I need to draw examples of each on the headings but I just haven't gotten to it yet. I really like having a way to encourage them to do more, though.

We've started adding words to our word wall!

I've also posted our Daily 5 charts now that we've made them. And, on that big blank awkward white space, I'm going to make cards for all the phonics skills we learn so that the kids have a place to go to reference them.

And, you've gotta' love a good Class Promise!

 

6. Tug of War

 

Matt and Blakely came to my parents' last night and the pups had a full on Tug of War with Finley's blanket! I mean, you should have heard all the snarling and growling!

 

It's so weird, but Finley's obsessed with her blankets. She goes and gets them out of her crate and brings them into whatever room we're in. So, she was NOT HAVING IT when Hampy started trying to play with them, too. Ha!

But, when it was over, this girl was worn out!

 

Alright, that's all I've got tonight! Hope everyone has a great week!

 

 

 

 



Half a week down!

We've officially been in school for a half a week. Which is nuts. It feels like the longest week there's ever been. Today should have at least been Thursday! Ha. I'm going to make a list of stuff tonight of everything I wanted to share because its easiest and I'm dog tired.

-Speaking of dogs, this one went to the vet today! She weighs 7.5 pounds (although at least a pound of that is fur!) and she's healthy as a horse. But, man alive, why are vet visits so expensive?? 

-School's been going good! I was honestly terrified after the first day. I though these kids were going to be a rough group based on the three hours we spent together. And then I went in the hallway and saw all my kids from last year and wanted to weep. Literally. But, these kiddos are growing on me every day and their behavior is fine. They're still adjusting to everything, but they're no worse than any other group I've ever had. And, they're pretty stinking cute, so that always helps :) 

-We had a little roster drama and I've ended up with four new kids. Three of which I had in first grade. And I love them all! I hate that they're having to move rooms, but I'm happy to have them join the crew. I loved the chance last year to teach some of my sweet kiddos from first grade and this year was my last chance to get to do that, so I'm a-ok with getting some new kiddos!

-We've been a little random and scattered in what we've been working on this week. We've done a lot of visualizing... 

and project making...

and talking about what makes good classrooms...

Apparently, they're worried I'm going to hit people? 

-One new thing I've tried this year is using song cues. I have been playing a song when it's time for Morning Meeting, a clean up song and a pack-up song at the end of the day. So far, I'm loving it! But, I've been having to use my phone to play them and I don't love that! 

-I just love this picture :)

-I have no self control when I'm tired so I ate this tonight: 

I don't even feel bad about it! Not. At. All. 

Okay, I'm off to bed! Adios!