The pretty much finished product!

So, it's done! Aside from just a few little things here and there, my room is complete! I am soooooo thrilled with how great it turned out this year. This post will be mostly pictures because I wanted to show everyone what the finished product looks like.

Linda Briggs is a life saver! These are the letters that are going on my door that she is so generously decorating for me. She's following my theme of ladybugs and bees. I loooove this font.

Here is my decorated door! The letters from above just have to be added to the door. Look at my sassy ladybug!! I need a funky name for her, she is really cool. Linda free handed that! She is amazing!

Here is my bulletin board that she has been working on. The little yellow section of the board is something that every teacher has. It has the sign with our name on it an also places to post our weekly newsletter and our class schedule. Here is my sassy ladybug again. She's just chillin' in the grass. I love her! This board is going to have lettering that says "Welcome Back 2-03!"


Here she is up close. Also you can see the detail of the border. Linda made that border. It's not store bought.


This is an up close view of the flower signs in the yellow section of the board. You can also see that Linda added another little ladybug on my flower leaf. Such detail!

Ok now on to the pictures from inside the classroom.

Here is my wooden closet area at the front of the room. This is where I will track conduct, fluency and how my students get home. Inside the cabinet is my art supplies and other random things. That small board beside there is where I will post my weekly spi's.


Here is the view of the front of the room. Teaching table is at the front. The other small bulletin board to the left is where my workstation rotation chart will be hanging. You can also see my caddies in the center of the tables. Those are for community supplies such as crayons, scissors, glue sticks, pencils and other various things.

Here is the side wall of my room. The shelves have my literacy workstations and phonics workstation. You can also see my conduct chart. I use the card system. Green - E (Excellent) Yellow - W (Warning) Blue - S (Satisfactory) Orange - N (Needs Improvement) and Red - U (Unsatisfactory). You can also see another blank bulletin board. That is actually a free standing bulletin board that is leaning in the window seal. It will have my Calendar Math on it once I get all the pieces :)


Moving along down that wall, this is my carpet area. My favorite area to teach. You can see towards the left my library bookshelf. Also the main focus of the picture is my still TAKEN APART air conditioner. Yep, you guessed it, still no air. Got a little bit of positive news though. Seems as though MCS is going to fix A/C units that are taken apart first because they could be hazardous to the children. Wow MCS you are SO smart. Do you sense my sarcasm?


Again my beautiful library courtesy of Mandy Collins. Thanks Mandy!


Here is my rocking chair and easel. This seriously is my favorite place to teach. I give each of my students a clip board and we work on the carpet. They rarely sit at their seats unless they are doing an independent practice or workstations.


Here is my teacher "cave." I promise this is more organized than it looks. Once I get my copier and other things there it will look much more pleasant! And of course as always I'm representin' Memphis!


Here is the other wall. My wordwalls, information wall, computer table, math workstation and listening station. Also a good shot of my students desks. Their chairs will have chair pockets on them just as soon as I wash them and bring them to school!


Here is another shot of the back wall and my lovely lazy daisy display. Uhg, I'll be glad when I don't have to have ugly fans everywhere.

So, as I have been writing this for like the past hour and a half the tornado sirens have been going off, all kinds of crazy thunder, and down pour rains! Ahhh, summer time in the South. I'm missing Jazzercise...it doesn't make me happy! Well anyway, I had the cats locked in the bedroom with me and all of a sudden this HUGE clap of thunder hit and both cats ran into the bathroom (on their own) and have been sitting in the sink ever since. Haha. Of course I had to take pictures.


Look at Izzie's face. She looks terrified! Well I hope that no one has any damage from the storms. Things seem to be calming down now.

Happy Blogging!

Mandy Saves the Day!

Mandy came and helped me organized my classroom library today and OMG what a life saver. She has a way of taking a huge task and making it go a whole heck of a lot faster. She was sorting, I was labeling, and we got this thing done in and hour or a little more. Last night I made little tags for each basket that labels the genre of the books in that basket. On the tag is either a little lady bug or bumble bee. The tags alternate the bug as well. They really turned out cute!

I know this picture is kinda blurry, but those books in those baskets make me so happy! It turned out better than I envisioned it! That extra space on that shelf is going to be used for storage. Not really sure what will go in there right now but I'm sure I'll find something.

The day was really fun. I got to spend a lot of time with Mandy and Houston. I think the highlight of the day was when I got locked in the teacher's lounge bathroom and Mandy was outside in the lounge on the couch laughing her butt off while Houston freaked out trying to get me out. He said "Mommy it isn't funny!" Haha. It worked out that she could come and help me because she had to drop her car off to be repaired in good ole' Whitehaven. Let's hope when she picks it up tomorrow it still has all four tires on it! (JK Mandy!) After we worked at my school we went to Booya's for lunch and I had a delicious Booya Burger! It made me feel cruddy afterwards because I really don't eat like that anymore! Sometimes you have to splurge though. After Booya's we decided to go up to CCA for a visit (TK to me). We wound up staying for awhile. Here's a goofy picture of Hou Boo and I from today...
I love that kid. Gosh I hope one day when I have one it is just HALF as cool as him. :)

Anyway, Mandy also visited my Jazzercise class tonight. She did great for a first timer! I hope she comes back to visit soon!

Tomorrow I'm going to sleep in a little bit, go to school and put the final touches on my classroom. I will have lots of pictures to post tomorrow. Keep praying for me and my Jazzercise auditions in September. I've been practicing everyday. Oh and if anyone knows where I can get CPR certified for cheap please let me know!!!

Hope everyone's week is going great!

Happy Blogging!

A little work and some exciting news!

I've been working all day in my classroom. I'm exhausted! But I can now say that all of my 21 plastic tubs are unpacked and just about everything is put away! It's actually starting to look like a classroom now. I took some picture of what it looks of as of today. Oh and in case you are wondering, I STILL have NO AIR. UHG!

Well here is the view from the door. As you can see I've got some furniture arranged. I also rolled my rug out. Oh and Mandy, since I know you're reading this see those crates on the rug? Those are full of classroom library books that you'll be helping me organize tomorrow. :) That's also the shelf Chris fixed and the baskets that I'm so excited about. Also if you look at the student tables those are caddies I bought from Wal-Mart. They have a lot of space in them and individual compartments so that I can do community supplies. I'm a big fan of the community supply thing. In third grade I had the students use pencil boxes and they lost their things ALLLLLLL the time. I like having tables again too!

Here is a closer view of my library area. I really love it. I'll love it even more when my books are in the baskets. That'll be a task for tomorrow. That twirling rack beside the bookcase has books on cd in them. You can also kinds tell that my A/C unit is still pulled apart, I just propped the casing up so it would look good for the picture. Please pray for my air conditioning!


Here is the front of the room. You'll see my teaching table at the front. My writing station where that stand up pocket chart is. I also got my conduct chart hung today. Its to the far left of the picture. I am really happy with how everything is turning out!

Here's a view of the room from the back. That table in the middle won't be there but right now I'm using it for getting things ready. It's my work table. You can see my teaching easel and the HUGE pile of EMPTY plastic tubs stacked up in the corner. The good thing is that those tubs are now EMPTY!!!

Here is what Sheila and I like to call the teacher "cave" this is the corner of the room devoted to just my materials. It has my metal cabinet, filing cabinet, sliding cabinet and shelf. It's not 100% organized but it is definitely getting there. Oh, and see that ugly brown trashcan? Every class has to have those now. It's actually an emergency kit. It has food, water, and other random things in case of an emergency. Not exactly pleasing to the eye huh? This picture is blurry too. Sorry!

So, I am really glad that things are coming together nicely in my classroom. I'm ready to finish it all up. It's weird, but I'm kinda ready to get back to work. I miss the routein. But don't you worry, give me two weeks and I'll be wishing for summer again. When's the first school holiday again? Labor Day!!

I bet you're wondering what the exciting news is! Well I felt your prayers about my Jazzercise movement screening and the worked! I passed!!!!!! So now I have a lot of work to do in order to go to "Workshop" in September. The workshop is September 11-13. Before then I have a lot of things to do like learn 10 routeins (backwards because that is how I will teach it!), get CPR certified and get other paper work and things done. Now workshop is just the next step I have to get past. There is still a chance of not making it when I get there. So, keep the prayers coming, I will definitely need them! I really am excited though. I feel like this is an area of my life that God is taking hold of. Jazzercise is what completely changed my life and made me a healthier person. I have a need to want to help other people do the same.

I'll keep you all updated on all of this stuff! Hope you're weekend was great and to those teachers out there working in their rooms, GOOD LUCK!!

Happy Blogging!

Busy Day!

Well these days my days are pretty much the same. Wake up, get ready, go to school and work, work out and then come home. Same thing today. I was able to get a big project done at school today because our laminating film FINALLY came in. For those of you teachers out there I'm sure you've heard of the artist. D.J. Ekers. She makes some REALLY cute stuff with flowers, insects, trees, etc. I bought one of her big bulletin board sets to use on top of the lockers in my room. I laminated it all today, cut it out, and then hung it. The thing that takes so long is I like to tape things up first in case I want to move it around. Once I have it placed, I go back and hot glue it down. Yes I said it, I hot glue stuff on my walls at school. Its almost necessary to hot glue because you will come in everyday and find something laying on the floor if you just use masking or duct tape. Anyway, here is what the end result is.
I just love the little sun shine and the lazy daisies, as I call them. I think it turned out well. This is also a good picture to show you the new ceilings we had put in over the summer. If you saw the ceilings before, you would be AMAZED at how much better it looks. The lighting is so much better also.

So after working at school (and going for a much needed pedicure), I went to Wal-Mart to look for new baskets for my classroom library. I wanted to really get good baskets that would be durable and last me more than just a year. I made the mistake of using cheap ones last year and they were busting up before the first semester was over. These baskets are those white ones with gray handles and holes in them. I'm sure you've seen them. They seem like they will last a long time! I sure hope so because I bought 23 of them and it cost me $57 bucks! I don't think I will need ALL of them for the library, but I can use them elsewhere also. Oh and if you are wanting to buy some of these for yourself....don't go to the Collierville Wal-Mart because I bought all they had. :)

Lastly, I'm gonna ask for special prayers tonight for myself. I'm waiting to hear whether or not I passed my final casting call in order to go to the September workshop for Jazzercise. I've told myself that if this is something that God wants me to do, then it will happen. I'm not worrying over it, I've put this totally in His hands. So I guess in your prayers just pray that what should happen, happens. I'll let you all know what happens, and hopefully it will be good news!

The next few days will be busy. I plan on working all day tomorrow and then Houston's birthday party at the spray park is on Saturday. I got him TONS of moon sand (sorry Mandy) and a jumbo Diego coloring book. This is just for his spray park party. "T" will take care of him for the family party as well.

Well, I'm off to cut out more lamination. Hope everyone is doing well!

Happy Blogging!

A Work in Progress...

...that's what I'll call what's going on in my classroom. I got there this morning and really started to unpack and finish some things now that my floors have been waxed. Of course, I took pictures and will continue too as I get this new room ready. First I'll show you some of the bulletin boards.

This is my word wall board. I found those skinny pocket charts last year at Target for $1.oo!! They are great for organizing these word walls for reading, math, and science and social studies. These are three things we must have in our room. You can also see above the boards my three math posters I hung today as well. My computer station will be set up underneath this boards also.

This is a chalk board in the room. Another requirement is that we have a word wall that is continuously updated throughout the year. In second grade we are still focusing on high-frequency words so we will add to this board as we go over words throughout the year. I can add the words with chalk, rather than having to make cards to hang. It took awhile to do, I had to measure out the board to have even squares for every letter of the alphabet (x,y,z are in one box together) and then trace it out with marker. Then I took painters tape and spread it over the marked lines (TOOK FOREVER TO GET STRAIGHT). I also used sticky letters for the squares. I did this on a section of my white board last year, I think I'll like it with chalk.

Here's my information board. Wasn't able to update much on that board today. The blue pocket chart will hold my class helpers. This part of the board will also have the school calendar, conduct, etc.

Right underneath that board is my math workstation. I have made matching workstation signs that I will hang once they are laminated. The top part of this shelf hold their individual math manipulative kits. Don't mind those Voyager boxes in the way. For some reason we got those delivered already today.

Lastly, I started unpacking my reading, fluency, phonics, and work work materials. All of these boxes are not completely unpacked. For those of you who are wondering, all these materials don't belong to me. Our reading first grant got us all of these wonderful resources.

I did a lot more than it seems. I started placing some furniture, putting things in cabinets, and cleaning in general. I plan on going back tomorrow morning to work.

Aside from the classroom, I have some sad news to report. Last night an ambulance and two paramedic fire trucks pulled into our cove. Buddy Green, one of my dear neighbors died last night. He was scheduled to have heart surgery this week on one of his valves in his heart. Apparently something went very wrong and he collapsed. The paramedics tried to revive him, even the whole way to the hospital but were unable. Please keep this family in your prayers. Buddy's son just lost his mother in law and they had to attend that funeral today after having the long night they had last night with his own father. Mr. Buddy was such a great guy. He was just cutting his grass on Sunday. He stopped anytime he saw you outside to talk to you. I think I will remember him most for the time when my Grandfather was living with us before he died. Buddy came over almost everyday to visit with him. They were great friends through the Methodist church. Again, please pray for this family, and praise God that he is in Heaven where he doesn't have to worry about heart problems any more.

Hope everyone had a wonderful rainy day!
Happy Blogging!

What a Weekend!

Well first off I should say, the birthday dinner went off great! He loved the meal and the cake. I have to say the cake was pretty good. Only bad thing is that I got a big fat nail in my tire on Thursday and had to wait for the pouring down rain to stop so I could get it fixed. Or should I say Chris got it fixed. He pretty much takes care of all that stuff.

So Friday we left for Chicago for an NMRA/NMCA Drag Race. They actually call it the superbowl of drag racing. Chris's motor is still being worked on so unfortunately he didn't get to enter, but at least he was there to watch for his birthday. Never in my 25 years would I have figured that I would get into drag racing, but it's really fun to watch! Here is a picture of the track we were at. It is called the Route 66 Speedway at Chicagoland. This was taken with my iPhone too...I'm surprised how clear it turned out!

As you can see it was cloudy. It never rained but OMG it was cold. Had to buy a sweatshirt there. The only kind of shoes I brought were flip flops so my feet were freezing. The first night we were there it was just qualifying. Guys (and some gals!) were making passes trying to qualify the best spot possible. Then once the qualifying rounds are over they move into elimination. The way they pair the racers is a lot like a bracket in basketball. The lowest races the highest, etc... Well here is the most amazing story! Chris has a friend who used to drag race but since then has retired and has gotten his son (who is 17 by the way) to start running his car. He qualified in last place and so come elimination time he of course had to race number 1. The 17 year old kid took out the number one qualifier!!!! Everyone was so happy. Unfortunately after that he went out in round two, but he did such a good job. He hasn't been racing that long and this was his first NMRA race. He definitely got his name out there! Chris's other friend lost his motor during the last round of qualifying....it literally exploded. Which brings me to another point, I saw a lot of cars go up in flames this weekend, and near crashes. This is the part I don't like!!

While we were there we stayed at the luxurious Red Roof Inn (HA!) that had paper thin walls and you could hear all of the sounds of Chicago in our room. Saturday night some wild racers who were staying next door to us were outside our door in the middle of the night just talking loud and being crazy, and then invited some girls up there with them. We hated to be party poopers, but we called the front desk to complain. Apparently we weren't the first ones to call and complain either! They quieted down after that. Actually the next day when we checked out the lady asked Chris if we enjoyed our stay, and he jokingly mentioned the noisy Saturday night and she took 20 bucks off the night! Here is a picture of Chris and I during the final elimination rounds on Sunday.

I look really pale. Maybe it's because I was so cold! Anyway we finished up watching the final rounds and started to head home about 6:30p.m. We thought we could make it the whole way home but around St. Louis and 11:30 we thought it would be safer to sleep in a cheap motel and get up and drive the rest of the way today. But before we stopped we went to McDonald's for dinner. Now for those of you who know me, I don't eat fast food as much as possible so I wanted to be reallllllly cautious about what I ate so I decided to get a happy meal. Well, in this happy meal came a toy that was a mini beanie baby. Did you guys know these were making a comeback? Anyway the beanie baby I got was Pico a Chihuahua with pink fur around her neck. She was born on June 10, 2007 and she was most of the entertainment for the ride home today (Monday). Here is where she spent most of her time riding.

Yep, right there on Chris's shoulder. He can't deny it, they have a special bond. That is until he put her in time out and made her stick her nose in the corner. (I think we were delirious at this point!)

So all in all, it was a great trip. I got to experience something I had never seen before, spend some time with Chris and celebrate his birthday. One thing that I just had to take a picture of was the sunset when we started our drive home Sunday night. Here is a picture.

Isn't it beautiful? What a great way to end a trip. Now it's back to work in the classroom first thing tomorrow morning!

Happy Blogging!

EXHAUSTED!!

Today has been a crazy, crazy, crazy day!!! Started off the day with Jazzercise and then went up to my classroom to do some work. Today has completely worn me out. I don't know if it's because I was working in the heat for so long, but I am exhausted! There is a lot of work to be done. It is a HOT mess! Here are some of the pictures as proof!


This is the view of the disaster from the door! Look at all that that has to be put up and unpacked before August 3rd.


This is a view of just a few of the plastic tubs (there are 21 total) that I moved from one classroom to the other. These also have to be unpacked before August 3rd!! Ahhhh!!! Can you spot Tom the Turkey? Haha.


Here is one of the bulletin boards in the room. This is one with the blue fadeless paper and the yellow lady bug printed border. It's hard to tell from the picture but the border has tiny blue flowers. The blue ties in with the other border I'm using in the room as well. This board will more than likely have classroom information like conduct, fluency scores, classroom helpers and etc.

Here is the other large board in the room. This board has the fadeless yellow paper and blue border with yellow bumble bees. This is where the blue from the lady bug print border and the other blue paper tie in. This board is going to be a vocabulary, math, science and social studies word wall. This is a good shot to show you the two borders and papers together. The small section is the area around the light switch. It has to be covered because it's cork board and it looks rough if you don't!

So it doesn't look like I did much today, but trust me the work I put in takes a looooooong time. I like to make sure the paper doesn't have any wrinkles and stuff like that. I can be a little too picky sometimes. One really great relief though is that one of my wonderful teacher friends Linda has agreed to decorate my door and outside bulletin board. Since my room has to be ready before inservice, having her help me out with that is AMAZING. She told me today she was thinking of covering my door with sky blue paper and putting tall grass with lady bugs coming up out of it. I think it'll look amazing! Next time I'm at school I'll have to take pictures of the boards she does. Her first undergraduate degree was in art design. You can definitely tell she loves to do what she does.

Tonight I'm making Chris a birthday dinner. Since we are going to be out of town on his actual birthday, I agreed to make him a dinner tonight. We are having yummy lasgne and my famous garlic bread. For dessert I made a cake. Strawberry cake with vanilla frosting. I also decorated it and um, it looks like a Kindergartener did it. Oh well!! It's the thought that counts! Here's a picture of the cake.


Well, wish me luck with the dinner. We all know cooking is not my best quality!! :) He better like it either way. I'm liking this blogging thing. I think I'll make a point to keep it up!

Happy Blogging!

First Post!

I guess I've decided to join the blogging world! I'm not sure how often I'll get to post a blog considering summer is almost over! :( When school starts back I'll be working non-stop with that as well as grad school.

Anyway, yesterday I went up to my new classroom for the first time since the last day of school. (For those of you who don't know I moved from 3rd grade to 2nd) I have a whole new room to set up. Not only are our classrooms a mess because of the ceiling work being done at school, but my new room has no air currently because they are having to install a new unit! I guess I shouldn't complain because with a new unit hopefully I won't have any problems. Memphis heat + 20 children + no A/C = One crabby teacher!

I have a lot of work to do, but I enjoy setting up a classroom. My principal asked me yesterday to have my room ready by inservice so that it can be a model classroom. It gives me less time to work with, but then again, I like having a deadline. I went to Knowledge Tree yesterday and got the beginnings of my classroom. My theme in the classroom this year is going to be lady bugs and bumble bees. Our school wide them is "In the Garden," so I think it goes along well. I plan on going up to school tomorrow to put up bulletin boards and then wait for the floors to get waxed so I can start arranging and unpacking!

Friday I leave for Chicago for a few days. I'm going to a NMRA race with Chris for the weekend (it's also his birthday). It should be fun! I've never been to Chicago, and although I know I won't really get to see much of the city, it will be cool to be somewhere I've never been. What am I not looking forward to? The LONG drive. But I'll survive! :)

Let's see, what else has been going on? Houston's birthday coming up! I can't believe my little man is turning four! Mandy and I went to Hobby Lobby last week and got the stuff to make his birthday invitations. I'm really proud of them this year. Making Houston's birthday invites has become sort of an annual thing. I feel like each year they get better and better! Here's a picture of this years.

They look even cuter in person! If anyone wants me to make invitations for them, I'll be happy to.

Well I think that's all for now. I'll try to keep this up as best as I can. Tomorrow hopefully I will be able to post pictures of my completed bulletin boards at school!

Happy Blogging!