Look At This Newbie... Linkin' Up and Stuff!

Look whose finally linkin' up!!!

This is my first time being a part of a linky party and I am just so (unnecessarily) stoked! For the past few weeks I have felt like that weird, uncool, clueless kid with her finger constantly up her nose while she stairs into the window of that party she was not invited to...

But alas, I have promptly got a clue, learned to be cool, removed the booger finger, and JOINED THE PARTY!!

Okay.... Maybe I only put on some sunglasses to just LOOK cool... But nonetheless here is my...

 My Cousin is Cooler Than Yours!

(just kidding.... but seriously...)

I received a surprise package today from my older cousin in Texas. She taught a couple of years before she moved there, then she became a SPED Para in Texas, and now shes a stay at home mom of 3 (all under the age of 5. I know, shes nuts...)

When she found out I got my first teaching position, she decided to secretly put together a Teacher Care Package for me. I am so excited to put these things to use in my room!

Well Played, Kiddo. Well Played.

Now this will hopefully be your giggle for the day.

I am currently finishing this school year as an ELL Paraprofessional. The other day we had our kindergartners illustrate each survival need of an animal (food, water, air, shelter). Well one of our little kinders just simply loves to draw. She got lost in her creativity and forgot to incorporate "water" into her image. When I asked her what part of her picture represented water, she simply drew in a glass of water in the monkeys hand.

All I could do was laugh. The kid did what I asked her to, which was to illustrate "water" in some way.

Bright Colors and Creativity

So being a new teacher, I just have to face the facts... I AM BROKE. So I heard through the Pinterest-Grape-Vine that buying Panel Board at Lowes and chopping it up into smaller pieces is a lot cheaper than buying already-made dry-erase boards. This ended up being 100% true.

I only paid about $10 for the whole board and had them slice them into 30 smaller rectangles. I then bought two different colored duct tape rolls and went to work! They turned out rather cute, I must say. Even though I am fairly certain the kiddos will eventually destroy them.... OH WELL! :-)

My Motivation is Out Of Control!

This week I must have ate or drank something different then I usually do because I was VERY motivated! I spent most of each evening creating, editing, and rearranging an entire teacher binder for next year. To make it worse, the whole thing even got deleted once, and I still managed the motivation to start all over!

These are just some screenshots of a few of the pages. They are not very detailed, but it took a lot more time than you would think!

Carnival Time!

Sorry, no image for this one! Mostly because it hasn't quite happened yet. The school carnival starts in approximately 15 minutes from now. I love this night because the PTA at my current school really goes all out. There are so many fun games, prizes, and crafts that the students get to do. I also just love seeing the kiddos with their families. It really keeps things in perspective when sometimes my mind starts to lose itself with these kids every day. ;-P

Welp, that's my Five! Thank you Kacey over at Doodle Bugs for creating this Linky so long ago that I get to be a part of now! :-)

Teacher Binder Mayhem!

I'll tell you what, I love me some technology.......until technology turns on you!!!

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNNNN

Last night I was shopping on TeachersPayTeachers for some teacher binder ideas. I figured, as a newbie, I am bound to forget some important and helpful forms that will keep me from losing my head throughout my first year teaching. This led me to the thought:

"Hey, there are some fab-tabulous teachers out there willing to share their stuff! Why not find some teacher binders on TPT and go from there!"

So that's exactly what I did. I found two great binders that I purchased (with a gift certificate). The goal was to take pages from each one and combine them into the perfect binder for me!

The first binder I bought belonged to the wonderful Julie Amick/Jackson over at EducatingEveryone4Life.

Her binder was FULL of forms and pages that were designed well and some that I would have forgotten to include completely:

RTI Forms

Parent Contact Logs

Weekly Lesson Plan Pages

Etc...

You can check this binder out here on her TPT page!

The other binder I found was just flat out cute. Keri Brown over at Enchanted Kinder Garden did a fabulous job creating her teacher binder with adorable colors and the chevron pattern. My favorite pages from her binder included:

Yearly Calendar (It's only 2014-2015, though.)

IEP/504 Page

Scope & Sequence

etc...

You can check out her binder on TPT here. :-)

Did you notice the pattern on both of these binders???

Nahhhhh, I don't even LIKE chevron... ;-P

Anywho... So I bought these two binders and began to combine them into one, picking and choosing pages and editing them all to perfectly fit my style. It was a lot of tedious work, however, because I even had to change all the dates on the calendar. But nonetheless, it was coming along nicely and I was very excited for how it was turning out.

Now, this is the "DUN-DUN-DUN" part...

After about 5 hours of editing, I decided to go on to bed. I had saved the file hundreds of times throughout the process to ensure I didn't lose it, but that will have proved to be pointless!!!

After I closed out and began to gather my things for bed, I decided to open it one last time... Only... It Didn't... Open... My binder...

IT OPENED THE ORIGINAL, UNEDITED, BINDER!

I lost my marbles, people. Absolutely lost my marbles. My binder was GONE! I was so mad that I decided to use a JEANS coupon at work today to make me feel better (and you know what, it did!)

*SIGH*

Back to the drawing board I go.... Or maybe I wont. Being productive is overrated! I think I'll take a night off from preparing for next year! What do you think??? :-)

Please don't forget to visit Julie and Keri's blogs and TPT stores! They do great work!

Shaping My Firsty World!

 Apply for teaching positions

Interview for said teaching positions

Get offered that perfect teaching position

             

             Brainstorm, dream-up, and prepare for that perfect teaching position

FIRSTY WORLD, HERE I COME!!!

I was offered my first grade teaching job right at the end of February. Do you know what that means??? It means I get about SIX MONTHS of preparation time! That is almost an obscene amount of time for a first year teacher. Most teachers I know were hired toward the end of the summer or RIGHT before school starts. So, what I am getting at, is that I am a LUCKY girl.

The rush of excitement comes in waves. I'll go a week or so feeling chill as a cucumber and not worried at all. Then, out of nowhere, I'll do all but burst with excitement for the year to come.

One thing I never stop doing, however, is searching for and gathering supplies and ideas. My new school was awfully generous in the money they gave me to spend. However, I still find myself dumping a lot of my own $$$ into my future room.

I just can't help it!!!

I have piles and tubs and boxes of things cluttering my bedroom, and yet I know I still don't have HALF of what I need.

Imaging how my classroom will look and how it will run is absolutely exhilarating. While wandering around the wonderful world of pinterest, I discovered the most amazing classroom theme ideas. The one I like the most requires all credit to be given to the wonderful Melanie Ralbusky over at Schoolgirl Style. (Find her button at the bottom of this post).

This image alone had me sold! The doggie bowls, the amazing dog scene on the wall, the chevron accents... It was all just so perfect! Plus, it fits my personality more than a lot of the other themes did.

Therefore, my room will hopefully be some version of this! I cannot wait!

I know some of my dreams surpass my means, especially when it comes to room size, class size, school policy, and what items I can and cannot afford to buy, but I will do what I can with what I have.

I am also looking forward to seeing how many of my ideas will not actually work out, whether it be room decorations, classroom management strategies, class routines, teaching ideas, etc... I mean c'mon people, I may be a dreamer but I'm also a realist. Lot's of what I do will fail. The upside to it, though, is that I will then be able to learn what WILL work.

As the summer goes by I will be frequenting pinterest and other amazing teaching blogs for ideas. I will also share anything I find and/or dream up on my own as I go. This is going to be an amazing journey!

Test Blog

*Blog Under Construction*