MY LIFE.

Found this gem today. Needed the laugh.

Make today a good one!

YEAR TWO

Could this be? Is is truly one YEAR later from when I started this crazy blog? What a beautiful year it has been!

It is the night before the first day of school. I'm so excited! I met my new group last week and I think I am in for a treat! I have a total of 21 (15 boys and 6 girls)! Last year, I had 21, but not a crazy boy girl ratio! Eh, bring it on!

For those that know me, you know that last year I was on a fantasy football league. For those of you who don't know this story, I'll make it brief. Eric and his college buddies organize a league for fantasy football. I like football, but fantasy football was over my head. Anyways, one night I came home from a long night of working at school and babysitting. As I was walking up the steps, I heard quite the commotion in Eric's downstairs apartment.. I walked in to find quite the sight. Seven grown men sitting in the living room all with their laptops being men. The second Eric saw me the words that came out of his mouth where somewhere along the lines of "Emily, you're in the league. what do you want to name your team?" UHHHH. WHAT. Turns out, one guy couldn't do the league for whatever reason, so at the last minute they needed someone to be the 8th person and look who that lucky person was! I decided it might be entertaining to pretend to know what I was doing, so just to make a statement my team name ended up being "Sparkle Baby Princess" (thanks Jess!!!!). It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but just so you know, I took first place and won a decent amount of cash. 

Anyways, I tell you this story because of this....here I sit, the night before school starts....waiting for the fantasy football draft for the second year in a row to begin at 10:00. I think some people might be out for blood this year. Ain't no one likes to lose to a girl.

Round 2 for Sparkle Baby Princess.

Good luck to all of the teachers, principals, support staff, and the countless other VIPs out there! 

HAVE FUN! Make it a memorable year!

End of school and sweet, sweet Summer!

Here I am! Literally 4 months later!

SO quick, quick, quick recap...

My year ended with a bang! My students were top notch and grew so much during the year. I was amazed. I really was so blessed to have such a wonderful, fun group of kiddos for my first year!

The year ended with evaluations and assessments and parties and field trips and so many other activities! I kept saying that the month of May FLEW BY.

Here are some end of the year pictures....

There is a wonderful website (Insect Lore?) where you can purchase all kinds of interesting creatures. I bought two sets of Painted Lady caterpillars. We watched them like HAWKS until they were beautiful butterflies. We submitted and voted on names for our new friends! You are not suppose to have favorites in school, but Tim the Butterfly really was a special guy.

 

One student drew me a picture at the end of the year as a goodbye present.....it is a wonderful picture of India. Clearly, that's the perfect way to say goodbye. 

Summertime!!!!!!!

School ended on Friday, June 7th..... Saturday, June 8th was my brother's high school graduation party, Sunday the 9th was the ceremony. On Wednesday, June 12th, my parents, brother, and I left for ROME, ITALY. IT WAS AMAZINGLY AWESOMELY WONDERFUL!!!!!! We were in Rome for a week, with one day spent road tripping with our driver, Georgio, to Pompeii. It is so surreal and incredible to be in a place with such amazing history and such a story to tell.

While I was in Italy, my very best friend moved out of the Crapshack (my lovely home in Heritage Hill!) into an apartment in Lansing. On June 14th, Eric accepted his white coat at the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine White Coat Ceremony! He then spent his entire summer (9 weeks) studying and working on his first semester. I am so unbelievably proud of this cutie! One semester down....5 more semesters of class to go! 

You're the best, Eric. The bees knees. I am so, so lucky to have you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I miss you BIG TIME around here :)

PLEASE NOTE: this boy will never truly be a Spartan. Because I say so. And he says so. (But mostly because I say so.) GO BLUE!

Here are some Italy pictures. (I took all of my pictures on my iPad!)..

The Spanish Steps

The Vatican/ St. Peter's Basilica

Inside St. Peter's....the HUGE size and attention to detail is unreal! 

One of my top 5 places of the trip!

Trevi Fountain

Pompeii Roads- the "bumps" in the road were for people to use as a stepping stone to cross the street when they flooded. The grooves in the road are from buggies. This particular road was "under construction" (notice grooved road turns into smooth road) when the city of Pompeii was covered in 13- 20 FEET of ash due to the eruption of MT Vesuvius.

Oven in the Bakery in Pompeii

Colosseum (There is no floor...you can see a piece of where the floor would be on the far left in the picture...where the railing is)

Seriously, I took over 900 pictures in 7 days. I have a plethora of pictures, but it is so difficult to upload them, organize them, and figure out what to do with them. If you ever want to see a slideshow of Italy, call me. You bring the wine, I'll bring the pictures.

Eric had 5 days off of school in August so we did a Pure Michigan tour. We hit up Mackinac Island, Traverse City, Leland, Arcadia Bluffs Golf Course, and Manistee for Little River Casino (where I proceded to LEAVE MY IPAD AT THE HOTEL. Security mailed it back to me and it is now home safe and sound!)

I also had the lucky honor to go wedding dress shopping for one of my dearest friends! 

Emily and Tyler are tying the knot next summer...

I couldn't even fake a smile in this SIZE 16 dress. It was just so awkward. We had so many laughs that day!

My wonderful brother, Danny, moved to college last week! SO CRAZY. Michigan will love their newest addition! I was in "Back to School" meetings that day so I couldn't be there, but based off of my parents' story, I was sure glad I wasn't! HOT temperatures do not mix well with moving someone into the 4th floor of a not air conditioned building!!!! I'm so excited for him to have this experience. Moving to college is just one of those life stages. You're living the dream, Danny! Live it up and GO BLUE!!!!!!!!!

Summer 2013. You were a gem. Thanks for the memories!

Screening Follow Up

Well, screening is over! It was great to see that side of the equation, but I think I did my time. Five days was PLENTY. It was nice to meet other teachers and meet new incoming K/DK students. The most horrible part was that I had to write sub plans for five days. Sub plans is the WORST. It just is so timing consuming and you never know what's going to work, how it is going to work, if they will work slow or fast, etc. I am just so glad that I am back in the classroom, getting back into a routine with these littles!

Round Up/ Screening

This time of year is very busy in Kindergarten and DK. Around now is when everyone starts to think about next year's incoming littles. Each school in the district has both a Kindergarten Round Up night and Kindergarten Screening dates.  Let me briefly explain both. Kindergarten Round Up is basically an hour long meeting for all parents of incoming Kindergarteners for the 2013-2014 school year. They hear from the Principal, K teachers, and a DK teacher. They receive some paper, listen to some powerpoints, and sign up for Kindergarten screening. Now screening is an assessment based event. This is when the parents come back to school with their student and the staff assesses their letter knowledge, gross motor capabilities, number recognition, etc. After this is complete, they staff determines if the child is ready for Kindergarten or if the child would benefit from a year of DK.

Long story long, here we are in the middle of it. The rest of this story will be hard to tell without using names. I will try my best to be clear, but just work with me.  I was signed up to give a Round Up presentation and do screening at another school (let's call this school A) in the district. No problem. I found a sub early and am all set for the night presentation that is later this week and the two days I will have to miss next week to screen. Then, I volunteered to do Round Up for another school (school B) who needed the help. Last week, I quickly pulled myself together for the presentation that was on Thursday. I left when I was done and all was great.....until Friday when I was asked to help them (school B) with screening too....only they are screening for THREE days this coming week. That's three days I will need to find a sub. My sub for the other dates (two dates for screening for school A) can only do Thursday, so now I am hunting for someone to cover my room on Tuesday and Wednesday so that I can help school B with K screening. Yikes!!!!!!!!! I am in no surprise that I am in this situation, because anyone that knows me knows that I literally CANNOT say "No" to anything. CANNOT. CAN'T. Won't. Will not. Can't.

I am pretty excited for all of the days of screening to see how it all goes down and the GOOD NEWS is, that it all works out. I'm not worried. What is meant to happen will find a way. HOWEVER, if you want to be my substitute...call me. ;) Just kidding!

The Return from SB2013

I am so glad last week is officially over. What a wacko week. Yuck. My students just weren't themselves. I don't think they were quite ready to come back, but neither was I! They seemed super tired some of the time, but other times they were just not thinking! This could be from one of two things: having indoor recess 9 times out of 10 OR the fact that they were away from school and my classroom for over 11 days. I'm not sure which is worse. We spend a few days reviewing literally everything we have learned this year in regards to behavior. No, you can't hit. No, you can't run inside. No, you can't scream at the top of your lungs. Being away from the structure of school and the schedule of our day really impacted them. They kind of forgot what we do and how we act. In the long run, it isn't a big deal, because I know that deep down they know what is expected. I'm sure this week will be better than last. Well, or I should say, I HOPE this week is better than last. 

Spring Break!

My first Spring Break as a real life teacher was a relaxing, refreshing success!

 

It was a great week off filled with sleeping in, good food, and good company. I went home to Mom & Dad's for an extra long Easter weekend, was in Grand Rapids for a few days, and then took the train to Chicago! Although I spent some money on hotel, train, and possibly a shopping trip or two, I tried to not go crazy with a big vacation like the cruise over New Years.

 

My biggest accomplishment over break was applying to Graduate School. It wasn't really hard, just a few clicks online, but it's the "commiting to more school" that is the accomplishment. I fear that if I don't do it now, I never will!

 

 

Only NINE weeks left of my first year! CRAZY!

 

 

Counting by 10's

We had a worm day right before Spring Break.  We talked about worms and how they are CLEARLY made from Cheerios. Ten of them in fact. We made worms with pipe cleaners until our fingers fell off...or until we wanted to stop. Now we use them daily to count by 10s!

 

Thanks, Laura!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is Here!

TaCkY TuEsDaY

There is a book called Wacky Wednesday which is written by Dr. Seuss. In the book, everything sense to go wrong. Everything is backwards and overall, just wrong. My students were asking for a wacky hair day for months, so here was our perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, we had Spring Picture Day on the only Wednesday that we had left (the last Wednesday before break was already named PJ Day), so we had to go with Tuesday instead. It was wacky hair day and wacky clothes day just like that. That is how Tacky Tuesday was born...it was from a complete and TOTAL lack of planning ahead. WHOOPS.

 

I moved just about everything backwards, around, or relocated it in general. My students thought it was awesome, I actually HATED it. I couldn't stand that things weren't where they were suppose to be. I had a totally new view of my classroom from my rocking chair and that just isn't right. I've always said that I like change and it's okay to mix things up. NO. It is OFFICIALLY not okay. My classroom is NOT okay to change.

 

OH, the things we do for our children (biological or not!)!

 

I wrote the morning message upside down. I struggled. It was really difficult to do!

 

 

 

Like you thought I WOULDN'T dress the part. You know I went all out.. don't kid yourself...

 

 

Dr. Seuss

March is Reading Month and what better way to celebrate than with DR. SEUSS!!

 

I actually had way more Dr. Seuss books that I thought! So we found plenty to do over the course of the month.

 

We fingerpainted Dr. Seuss hats (whatever color we wanted!!)...

 



 

What would YOU do if Thing 1 and Thing 2 were loose in your house!?!?!

 



 I am so bummed that the first one turned out so blurry. I really need to invest in a better camera. (Can I tell you that I currently have more megapixels on my iPhone camera than my actual camera??...Just putting it out there...)

And I quote... "..eat green beans with them, during morning, evening, and anytime."

Yes, this is real. Welcome to my world.

 

 

St. Patrick's Day

Just a little tear art sharmrock activity!

Letter Animals

Each week, we focus on a different letter of the alphabet. We talk about the formation of the letter, the sound that that the letter makes, different words that start with that letter, etc. Erika found these adorable letter animals. I try to do these every few weeks. Some of the letters are hard to manipulate into creatures and some weeks we just have too much on our plates to do it. My students really enjoy them and I think they are SUPER cute. :)

Here are some examples....

Sickness

I have been so lucky this year in so many ways, but I have to admit that I find great happiness in the fact that I was only sick THREE times this year. Before the year started, everyone kept warning me that I was going to "build up" my immune system. I was so fearful that I was going to catch every sickness there was. I mean, let's be honest, the bodily fluids of my five year olds are secretly all over my room. They can't help themselves. Thank goodness I was on top of it. I wash my tables with Clorox numerous times week and I wash my hands with soap and water (not hand sanitizer!! or as my students call it..."hanitizer"). I was sick the second week of school, over Christmas break, and the last week of February.

 

Here's to NINE more weeks of being sickfree! :)

 

(Just incase....'knock on wood'.)

It all about LOVE!

Febraury is the love month and boy, we did it big!

We made cute love bugs from paper.

The day we did this, Eric and I went out to eat. He asked me what we did that day and to his surprise, I HAD THE PIECES IN MY PURSE, so I busted it out on the table!!!!!

We made cute little heart wreaths with paper plates and paper hearts.  They hung in my room for awhile and were the perfect touch at the Valentine's Day Party. I also had the best VD party ever because the classroom parents were in and out in ONE HOUR. ONE HOUR. IN AND OUT. I loved that!!!!

Roles have Reversed!!!

Now, don't get me wrong, every day in DK is exciting and a great day however my BEST day yet was when I had a certain visitor in my room. When I student taught in Kindergarten, I was in the best class ever...Laura's class. We had so much fun and worked extremely well together. We have grown to be very good friends. Anyways, I invited her to come to my classroom and see how I do things. I found myself saying "Oh, and you taught me this..." and "You showed me that..." and "I learned that from you...". I was so excited to be sharing my room and my students with her.

Groundhog's Day

Even though the concept of Groundhog's Day is a pretty foreign concept to a 5 year old, we talked about it anyways. I mean , why not!? We looked on a map to find Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. (As if explaining a weather telling groundhog wasn't strange enough to my littles, try explaining "why Punxsutawney sounds so weird?"....my classic answer: "It just does." They didn't fight me.) We also made paper bag puppets:

My First Snow Day!

This post can be summed up into one easy sentence:

January 28th 2013.....


SNOW DAYS ARE SO MUCH BETTER WHEN YOU ARE THE TEACHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY back! January...

Holy Moly!! The last three months of my life are literally a blur. So much happening and so busy, yet I can't remember anything! Wayyyy back in January we finished up our main study of winter. We talked a lot about penguins, snow, and snowmen. We took snowballs and wrote our names on them...Cute!

 

 

We made puffy snowmen out of shaving cream mixed with elmer's glue. They turned out okay, but I think my ratio of shaving cream to glue was off so it was hard to dry on them once they were dry. We read The Mitten and The Hat. For both stories, we made both a mitten and a hat out of paper and yarn. We colored the animals and were able to retell the story! We traced mugs onto paper and painted them. Mrs. Augustine put then on a bulletin board with the following poem (that I wrote!):

Mix with kindness as a start,

Then add friendship from the heart.

Make sure to plop in a great big hug,

Watch as it soon will overflow the mug.

When you drink up this warm, chocolaty pool,

You’ll always make good choices at Meadow Ridge School!

New Alphabet

I like the alphabet that I have in the front of the room, but I decided I needed something bigger. I couldn't find anything that I liked, so I made my own with scrapbook paper and printed block letters.