Five for Friday (September 18)

Trying my best to keep posting!  I am so tired at night that I sometimes forget but better late than never, here is my 5 for Friday!

 We are well into our Wonders reading program and enjoyed using a little printable book and used our text to answer questions.  It feels good to be doing some meaty work now that the "getting to know you" phase is winding down.

We also are learning to us a graphic organizer to collect ideas, write a draft and copy onto good paper.  This process always seems daunting for first graders at first but I am very proud of the work that they did!  In our Wonders program, each week has a different writing task.  This week our Essential Question was "What do you do at your school?" so we wrote about what we did at school!  LOVE that Wonders connects everything...

This writer loved that we learned how to use our privacty folders!

This friend may think that i am making them do a bit too much discussion!

I love it when a first grader (past or present) thinks enough of me to bring me a gift.  This little owl was painted for me by a first grader from my class last year.  She was given to me this week....love it. I also received the lovely bracelet from a current student who "got it last year in kindergarten but knew that I loved books SO MUCH that I had to have it". One of the benefits of teaching for sure....

I am trying to embrace the changing of the seasons here in Western NY.  I used to LOVE fall.  As I have gotten older, I have started feeling that fall is just the season before a very cold, windy, snowy winter.  Summer has been been so lovely now that my kids are older and I have a fantastic pool and deck that I just don't want it to end....that being said, I obviously have been neglecting some of my plants since school started (ha!) but have started the decorating.

My husband and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary this year and we marked the occasion by going out for a yummy Mexican dinner and a showing of Spamalot.  SO FUNNY!

We have started our fall sports season and hubby and I bought shirts to wear while we are watching Varsity Volleyball games...or Modified tennis matches...or Varsity hockey...or track...it is the beginning of a FUN year!

5 for Friday (September 4)

We started school this week.  I am in love already.... 

Exhausted......but really excited about this year!

Thank goodness for those Koo Koo Kangaroo dudes.....
Gonoodle will be my friend this year for sure.

I decided to use my wind chimes as an "attention-getter" this year.  It is a really nice addition to my repertoire.  The best thing is that these are chimes made for me by a former firstie.

We did a little first day writing.  Most of the kids wrote about specials and recess but this little cutie liked math. Good girl!

First week love notes, pictures and jewelry.  And  a very sparkly pen.

One of my "New Year's Resolutions" was to keep my desk cleaned off. My desk looked great tonight but the table behind me had this busy pile on it. A sign of a great 3 days.

Really tired.....hope I get my mojo back soon!!!  It has been in the high 80's with no A/C this whole week and that has taken all my energy.  I promise that I will be much wittier as we go through the year!

5 For Friday - August 28

In the spirit of "trying to blog again" I am doing a 5 for Friday! Click on the header to go to Doodle Bugs blog! I am not back to school until September 1st but I have been plenty busy!

Volleyball season has started!  

My son is playing on the Varsity team this year so we started early! 

I love to watch him play! 

Nice serve Nate!

I had a "Meet the Teacher" time at school this week.  It only took me until 10:30 to get THIS ready. That is not a good sign for next week when I have to pull it all together by 8:15...yikes!

My son turned 16 this week.  I can't believe that my little 6 week preemie who had to spend 3 weeks in the NICU after he was born is now a 6 ft. tall 16 year-old.  He is really turning into a sweet young man and I am very proud of him.  We joke about the fact that he would not eat when he was born and now we cannot fill him up! (see the frozen yogurt pic below!)

His yogurt weighed twice what mine and my daughter's did!

This pretty 8th grader waited SO PATIENTLY for her schedule to arrive in the mail.  It finally arrived and she was on the phone texting EVERYONE.  She is happy that she has some classes with her friends.

 Then we had to go set up the lockers....

This is some intense decor!

I did actually get into my room for a bit this week too!  I feel like I could spend 20 hours a day there and still never finish all that I need to do.  Only other teachers would really understand that.  Here are a couple of areas in my room that are always very popular!  I really wanted to climb under the counter and read a book.  My daughter took a snooze under there one day this week when she came to help me.
I have to remember to take more classroom pics....

Well, not too bad for getting back on the wagon! 

Crafting Therapy

What to do when you are a total procrastinator, school starts in 2 weeks, your classroom is not done being cleaned yet and you have so much work to do that it is making your head spin?? Make new door signs for your new team mates and the 2 team mates that got married last year! These are so cute that it almost made me want to re-do mine!