Productivity

CHECK IT OUT!!

Katie King at Queen of the First Grade Jungle is celebrating her 1,000 + followers by teaming up with some of the best bloggers out there! 9 awesome bloggers are submitting some of their BEST work and if you win, you get it ALL. Go check it out, and good luck, but I'm going to win it ;D. I am just kidding....


So wanna know what craziness I signed myself up to today? Well, I had an early doctor's appointment, which is *conveniently* across from the street from where I worked last summer. I walked in to say hello, because I have been so busy and haven't had a chance to stop in ALL year :(. So I did, and it turned out that they actually needed a liiiiiiiiiiiiitle help this summer... Well, long story short, I got MY OLD SUMMER JOB BACK!! :D So exciting, right? So my plan of sleeping late and blogging all summer is ....no longer :(. But oh well. The perks outweigh the negative. It's going to be a fun summer. (I was originally looking forward to having a summer OFF except for my graduate courses..... especially since I've worked my butt off every summer of my life.. BUT oh well) I had a BLAST last year, so I'm excited :D.

Well, so with a new job in line, I set out to get my criminal background check... again... but I forgot that I need my social security card, and I was NOT about to travel 30 minutes back home just to go 30 minutes back... so I decided to go shopping instead :D ... what?! I had HAD to celebrate my getting a new job. It's tradition. Any time I get a new job, I splurge ASAP. because I know I have a check waiting for me at the end of the month. TERRIBLE habit, right?

THEN.... I got some awesome new clothes for my trip to Mexico this summer :D and some teacher stuff for next year :).... and then I got my hair cut, went to the grocery store, picked up my prescriptions at CVS, then FINALLY went home. And if THAT'S not enough to be considered productive, I got home, cooked dinner, scrubbed the guest bathroom, organized my office (in search of my *LOST* Social Security Card), and even did the dishes! And around 9:30PM, I still hadn't found my SS Card :(. I was getting ready to dig through the trash, when Dan found it in the files that he had from when he did my taxes back in January. Wow I am SO thankful for this wonderful man :D He does my Taxes, keeps my important documents, finds the things I lose.... :) ahh. Anyways, it is found. And I will get my background check tomorrow before I get my oil changed... Oops. I should have done that today. Oh well! New exciting day tomorrow... and counting the days .... OH HEY 14 days until my birthday :D woohooo ....

Have a good night! And check out Katie's Blog! :D

~Sarah

Beginning of Summer 2012

So this has been my first official week of summer vacation. Although the last day of school was May 18th, we have been pretty busy ever since!


On Saturday the 19th, we boarded a plane (5:30 a.m. -yuck) for Boston, for a cousin's Bat Mitzvah. It was an AMAZING party. This was the first bar/bat mitzvah I have ever been to, and this was the most fun I have had in FOREVER... the DJ was just incredibly fun and entertaining. I wish I could book him for my wedding day... but anyways, sweet Rachel had the pink and green theme going on, and the decorations were SO CUTE! Before dinner, they lit the candles to the cake. She had a rhyme for each person/ group of people that she invited up to light a candle with her. I was not expecting this AT ALL, but she called all of her cousins up to light candle # 8, and she inlcuded me as one of her cousins, which I felt was SO special, because she is actually Dan's cousin... and Dan and I aren't even married... yet. So that was really cool.

The table name plates were SO CUTE as you can see... sorry it was cropped out .. I couldn't get a good picture for the life of me. I kept redoing them, as they somehow came out with lines all across them.


So that pretty much set the tone for the beginning of summer. It was a great weekend except for the fact that the early flight and long travels gave me some sort of sickness involving sleep deprivation/ dehydration/ caffeine withdraw/ stomach bug/ exhaustion/ something. Pretty sure that sums it all up. Either way. We walked around Quincy Market and downtown Boston on Sunday before our flight. It was a BEAUTIFUL day, and I got to spend Bonus quality time with the soon-to-be-in-laws, which would have been great had I not felt so crummy.

Beautiful, right? Oh how I wish I could go back, *sigh*.... But anyways, our flight came in around midnight on Sunday, and unfortunately, since I NEVER have the ability to sleep on planes, I came home EXHAUSTED and totally NOT ready to go back to work the next day. But I had post-planning and packing to do. Monday and Tuesday were our post-planning days, but I didn't get much done with being sick and retesting my student who Failed the CRCT the first time, so.... It took me part of Wednesday, also to get everything done. But I went back and sneaked a few pictures for ya. I wish I had taken pictures to show what it looked like before, but I will just have to take pictures as I get all set up for next year.

Classroom Tour: Starting from the door, and rotating around to the right

 So here is the view when you walk into the room, facing the opposite corner. We have our TV that is on every morning to broadcast our Dragon News Network (the 5th graders do a pretty good job!!) The blue that you see is covering up my bulletin boards so that they do not get dusty. I pinned the paper up with thumb tacks, so I will take it off in August and voila! My bulletin boards are already set up for the year! One is my reading corner bulletin, and the other is for the postcard exchange.

Here is the back corner of the classroom with my teacher desk and resource bulletins. It's great how much storage I have back there, but I can't stand the PINK! What an awful shade... I had the doors covered up with posters, and word walls, but I am rearranging it for next year.

 We were required to cover anything that would get dusty. So the big stuff that wouldn't fit in my cabinets is all hiding behind the yellow plastic table cloths ($1 from the dollar store~chyeah!) The wooden door in the corner is the bathroom. I love the convenience of having a bathroom in all the K-3 classrooms, but it sure gets nasty in there! Especially with 5 boys! WHEW! Back to what I was saying, on the back of this door, we have letters that said: "Toadally Awesome Work" to display good work. From here you can also see the classroom door, and the wall of bookbag hooks and shelf. This is the wall where I had my independent/ writing center. I had a pretty cool set-up this year, but I still can't wait to reorganize it this year so I can share it with everyone.

On the bulletin board under the flag, is where I do my Daily Calendar Math. The dry erase boards held my picture daily schedules, which I removed because there is a different one for each kid, and of course they will all change next year. The dry erase boards were also home to my standards, essential questions, and behavior management system...  Again, I took it all down because it all needs to be rearranged next year. 

Well, that's it for the tour... We were required to have everything off of the floor, so it took 3 days to get the room all packed up. I hope it doesn't take so long to put it all back, or I'll be in TROUBLE. With the addition of one day for professional learning, and another day to sit around and FINALLY RELAX, that took up all of last week :) Then, we got in the car and went to Atlanta to visit some friends for Memorial Day weekend.

Dan had a business trip in Alabama the day before, so it was my job to pack up the puppies and bring them with me. They did a really good job! We got out half-way at a rest stop to run and get water. And naturally they got back in the car and had to sit in the SAME seat, (no matter that they had the ENTIRE back seat to spread out), as always... lol they look so sad, but really they were having fun... I promise.. they love car rides...


So we went to the pool on Saturday and Sunday, and had a GINORMOUS barbeque. Our friend smoked brisket and a boston butt (i think?) on the grill. He has one of those amazing GREEN EGG grills (I want one!!) and the food turned out phenomenal... We also duplicated our favorite appetizer from our favorite BBQ restaurant.. (If you're ever in Atlanta, you NEED to try Foxx Brother's BBQ... owned by twin brothers, and it is AMAZING)... anyways. They have this appetizer called THE TOMINATOR: Tator tots, cheese, brunswick stew, more cheese, and IT IS AMAZING. so we recreated it, OF COURSE! and guess what, it was AMAZING (duh).

We had a lot of other food.... I made fresh zucchini boats from a recipe on Pinterest.. I never got a final picture of it, but check this out: This is a picture of all the FRESH vegetables we picked from our garden. Yup! We got some cucumber, jalapenos, and zucchini. We stuffed the jalapenos with cream cheese and bacon (a favorite) and I put bread crumbs, cheese, and grape tomatoes on the zucchini. We popped both on the grill and they. were. delicious. All of them. And then I made a chocolate cake with a little help from my friend. You need to try this recipe. I found it on Pinterest! Click the picture or the captions to get the recipes.
   
Zucchini Boats  
 
 Black Magic Cake Recipe


But on Monday, we had to go home. As much fun as we had, we needed to get home so my Dad could come and install our shutters. He's made some awesome shutters for our house, and he works on two rooms each time. This time he came to install shutters in the front of our house, and that was amazing.


I'm pretty sure that's enough posting for one day, so I'll have to add pictures of the shutters at a later time. He has to come back next weekend anyways because one of our windows is crooked (~yeah. Seriously.) and he has to trim the shutter so that it will fit. Hope you enjoy reading about my summer so far... I have had SO MUCH fun spending time with family, dogs, and friends, eating, and laying out in the sun. Hope you look into the delicious recipes that I had found. I would love to know what and how you cooked out on Memorial Day weekend! Please post a comment and share!


Thanks
~Sarah

Welcome, About Me, and Why Blog?!

Hello and welcome to my blog! So my name is Sarah, and I've been wanting to blog for a while now... I've only been teaching for 2 years and I am totally OBSESSED with reading other teacher's blogs and stealing genius ideas to make my classroom more fun and effective!

I taught inclusion Pre-K my first year out of college. That was a wonderful experience, because I co-taught with two amazing co-teachers. While I learned a lot from them, I did not have the flexibility to do what I wanted with the classroom. Throughout the year, I dreamed of ideas to make my own if I had my own classroom.

After that first year, we moved (my fiance and two dogs) two hours away from our college town. I did not find a certified teaching position right away, so I settled for working as a Pre-K paraprofessional at an amazing private childcare center, and that was also an amazing experience! My co-teacher, Mrs. Ayn, was AMAZING, and she has also inspired me to blog. You could check out her blog at http://littleilluminations.blogspot.com/ ....She is the most animated teacher I have ever worked with! After years of experience, she still loves what she does everyday, and comes up with the most creative ideas to keep her little ones busy all day!

Then, in December, I was hit with a chance of a lifetime to teach in an AUTISM POSITION!!! :D I was happy to finally set up my own classroom and plant my feet into a position that I could keep for years. Best of all, I LOVE working with children with Autism. I have been working with them for three years now, and I love that they are ALWAYS different, and so interesting. Most of them are systematic and schedule-oriented, just like me (lol), and I just LOVE working one-on-one with them. I feel a connection with them that I can't explain, and it makes it so much more rewarding when you see how much they progress.

So, here I am. I taught in my position for five busy/stressful months, and I am lucky to say that my job will still be there in the fall! With all the cuts in the past few years, I guess things are finally starting to look up, and I couldn't be happier. It has officially been summer vacation for one week, and I've been so busy it's hard to believe all that time is already gone!

SO the whole point of this blog.... I am going to use it as a diary to document the things that make me happy, so it will help me remember the things in life that I love. And when I get stressed, I can use this as my Chicken Soup for the Soul. And hopefully as I pick up some ideas from other teachers, I can link them on here. And hopefully as I create my own ideas, I can share them with you. And hopefully you can help me improve my ideas to help me grow as a teacher.  And if you ever have any questions or advice for a child with special needs in your classroom, I'd be glad to help if I can. You can always email me at: saustin614@gmail.com.

So, I hope you enjoy  :D