Donors Choose

I have been MIA lately, I know...but for good reason! I just returned back to work two weeks ago after being on maternity leave. I loved every single second I spent at home with my baby girl, but it feels good to be back to work. I wanted to dedicate this post to a website that is near and dear to my heart...donorschoose.org If you're a teacher, im 99% sure you have heard of this amazing website. If not, you should go check it out ESPECIALLY if you are in a school similar to mine. Basically teachers submit "projects" asking for things for their classroom that are not in the school budget. In my case that is everything. I am in an inner city school with a 100% free and reduced lunch rate. Anyway, over the summer I put together FOUR projects. ALL FOUR of those projects were funded by anonymous donors with a little help from my friends and family members. We received new markers, colored pencils, crayons, dry erase boards and markers, pencils, pencil pouches, cardstock, a personal laminator, clipboards, a class set of headphones, construction paper, Kleenex, chart paper, AND MY FAVORITE... $500 worth of new books for our classroom library. Only about $30 came out of my own pocket and all that stuff listed above totaled to about two thousand dollars. Is that not the most AMAZING THING?! Donorschoose.org has no idea I'm writing this about them, I am no way affiliated with them. I just wanted to share with you just how awesome they are! My students lives were definitely changed!!!

Maternity Leave

August 3rd my boyfriend and I are expecting our first baby. With babies comes maternity leave. I spent my whole Saturday pinteresting how to get ready for a long term sub but I still don't feel 100% confident. Right now I am just thinking I will plan out every minute of my days (ugh) and make my lessons that way? I'm not sure and would love some advice! Also, I am due August 3rd, we return back August 25th...what would a reasonable date be to return? I'm so lost! First time mom syndrome :) Thanks!

Teacher appreciation week!

So, I'm a week late (and a couple days, but who's counting?)
This is for you. For working during the nights, weekends, planning time, every free minute you have. For trying to create fun and unique lessons for your kiddos to take them further. For spending your own money on supplies and resources. For being more than a teacher. For being a secondary parent, nurse, counselor, and every other hat we have to wear during the school day. Thank you. Thank you for waking up early day after day, for constantly doing what is right for your kids, and for being under paid while you're doing it. Treat yourself to something nice, you deserve it!

New TPT Product

Go check out my new product on Teachers Pay Teachers! It is a parts of speech flipbook for all grades! It took me FOREVER to make, but it was well worth it. Hope you enjoy! :)

tpt flipbook

TGIF!

I'm sorry, but sometimes teaching is not all butterflies and rainbows. Today happened to be one of those days. Two kids sent out, one suspended, and unsupportive administration. Non-stop talking, off task, and little to no focus. UGH. Literally SO happy it is Friday. I don't know about the rest of you teachers but we are already experiencing the can't sit still or follow directions summer jitters. Eeeeks!!! We still have a month and a half to go!

Anyway, this week we completed two different and fun projects. The first one was a math project- area robots! I got this awesome idea off of pinterest. (Of course) My students love anything arts & crafts based, so this was a big hit while incorporating math... score!

Didn't they turn out adorable?! :) I love them!


Our next project I found from this great blog, teachinginroom6 and it incorporates Math and Social Studies! Again, my kids loved it! It took them three math & social studies blocks to complete, but the end results were well worth it. We first studied 13 colony quilts and talked about what all of them had in common. We decided things like they were colorful, symmetrical, and used lots of shapes. Then we started to incorporate math, we talked about how on our own quilt (a piece of graph paper with cm sized squares) we would have to count, divide, add, and subtract to get our designs to be symmetrical, it was challenging and FUN! They turned out great! :)

I hope all of you have a wonderful weekend and can get some rest to be nice and refreshed for Monday! :)
Oh, and one last thing Teachers Pay Teachers is having a great sale for May 5 and 6 and my WHOLE store is 20% off. Go grab some great deals! :)

First Post

Hi Teacher Friends! I'm so excited to be starting this blog, after I found inspiration from createteachandshare I felt like I NEEDED to start my own. I already have a store on teachers pay teachers, so I figured I would show you how I use the products in my own classroom! Don't forget to follow me here and at my TPT store! Thank you so much for joining me and check back often for new posts.