What the Teacher Wore {{Week 23}}

After having an incredibly short week of teaching last week, I discovered that 5 day weeks are brutal in every sense of the word. No lie, I woke up every day this week confused about what day it was (not, it's not Friday...it's Tuesday...and that stinks). When Friday finally rolled around I could barely keep my eyes open despite my attempts at re-energizing via caffeine {{and lots of it}}. I say this and somehow I managed to keep my eyes open until 3 in the morning at an epic grown woman sleep over that night. I'm going on the record to say that ending the week with a happy hour/sleep over with your girls is what legends are made of. I'm pretty sure I laughed myself into a set of abs and ate enough junk food to make Richard Simmons cry for me. I learned that I'm too old to stay up until 3 in the morning and that junk food is not my friend. SERIOUS Disclaimer: I don't suggest eating pizza rolls, bagel bites, cheese sticks, and queso dip in the same night...you will NOT like how you feel at 4:00 in the morning. Now that I've slept for a full 24 hours in recovery mode it's time to start making a dent in my tremendously long weekend to do list. First stop: What the Teacher Wore {{Week 23}}.

 Army green skinnies have been on my list of things to find since forever ago. I finally found a pair at GAP and instantly knew that they were coming home with me. Although the color looks more brown in this picture, they're green...promise.

Cardigan: Target

Shirt: American Eagle

Skinnies: GAP

Flats: Target

 Mint green has long been a favorite color of mine so any chance I have to pull it into my life you better believe I'm making it happen. Typically I think of mint as a spring color, but paired up with some boots and a cardigan I think it holds its own in winter too.

Cardigan: Target

Shirt: Belk (Jessica Simpson)

Skinnies: GAP

 Half day staff development days are something that you reward yourself for surviving. When there's a to do list a mile long it's nearly impossible to sit through a 2.5 hour presentation. Camo seemed like the perfect pairing for my goal of surviving the day && the constant playing of I'm a Survivor (Destiny's Child) in my head.

Jacket: GAP

Shirt: Wet Seal

Skinnies: GAP

Flats: TOMS Ballet Flats

 By Thursday a scarf was due in the line up. Black on black, and a patterned scarf spoke to me and I was running too late to argue with it.

Cardigan: Target

Scarf: Big Buddha

Shirt: Wet Seal

Skinnies: Jessica Simpson (Belk)

Boots: Rampage

&&& then there was Friday. I ordered a new shirt from The Polkadot Alley that came in earlier in the week. I knew it was best suited for some jeans so I saved it for Friday...not wearing it earlier was tough, but it was so worth waiting for. Why we can't wear jeans every day of the week is beyond me...I don't think I look any less/more put together than the rest of the week. Jeans have somehow been labeled as too casual and I couldn't disagree more.

Cardigan: The LOFT

Shirt: The Polkadot Alley

Skinnies: GAP

 

Another thing that blows my mind...Valentine's day is this Friday. How is it already Valentine's day??? I just got the last pieces of 100th Day craziness packed away and the fun is about to explode again...with a full moon. Ayiyiyi! Being out of commission for a day and still feeling yuck isn't helping my motivation to make any other dents in my to do list, but the show must go on. Soooo, until next time...live, love && bring on the lovey dovey mushy gushy fun!

Currently {{February}}

Helloooooo February! As I sit here this morning with my first cup of coffee since Thursday {{blasted stomach bug...no bueno}} I'm stoked about the start of a new month. We're officially counting down until the end of the year and while it terrifies me that I'm going to have to trade in my sweat pants for bikinis pretty soon, I'm excited for all that is to come in the upcoming month/months. I could be alone in this, but I'm pretty sure that teachers have special DNA that turns them into holiday loving maniacs...at least I have that sparkle of DNA flowing through my veins! Any excuse to throw more pink into my classroom, decorate more than usual, && celebrate makes me happy, happy, happy! With that being said, is it any surprise that I'm a lover of Valentine's day?!?! Eeeeeks...be still my heart!

To get the February party started I'm linking up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade for her monthly Currently Link Up && you should too!

Listening: Super Bowl Madness has entered the Owen household. True, on any given Sunday you can find football games playing in our house, but Super Bowl is even something that I can get behind. The hubs is seriously obsessed with football which is completely fine...there are far worse things to be obsessed with. Side note, ESPN really knows how to make the water works flow with their feature stories...I'm one touching story away from an ugly cry and it's not even 2:00 yet. Pump the brakes ESPN...pump.the.brakes.

Loving: The stomach bug entered my life for the first time in years on Friday. Awful stuff...seriously stuff that nightmares are made of. Thankfully it was a 24 hour bug that's hit the road to some other unfortunate soul's house.

Thinking: We have a seriously delicious {{and super unhealthy}} line up of snacks for today's festivities. Buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, home fried chicken wings && fries, french onion dip....yummmmmm! I can't wait to grub out && I'm praying my stomach is ready for the food fiesta that's coming its way!

 Wanting: Friday I had some retail therapy enter my life...despite feeling yucky I made a stop at GAP on the way home and added a few new pieces to my wardrobe. Cut to today, && I'm really fighting the urge to go full on Shop-Zilla. I did manage to make it an entire month without buying 1 piece of clothing && for that effort I think I deserve some fabulous new pieces.

Needing: I need to find some workout mojo in the worst way. I know it's only a matter of getting myself back into the routine, but the gym is absolutely repulsive to me after I leave work (&& working out before work is NOT an option...5:30 is early enough). I got some fabulous new kicks for Christmas that have been laying around looking pretty off my feet for far too long. I hear that the Groundhog bought me some time (thanks Phil), but bikini season is rapidly approaching && this chick is not ready...at all...not even in the slightest. So, tomorrow it is...back to the sweat life. I'll get there one squat && one mile at a time.


2 Truths/1 Fib:
1 & 3 are true. 2 is clearly a fib.
1. I life guarded during high school && it was seriously the best job ever. I had the darkest tan of my life..funky tan lines, but I had a killer tan. Ohhh to be 16 again (without all the HS drama).

2. Clearly a lie...painting my own nails produces anything but "professional" looking results. My left hand looks pretty decent, but then when it's time to paint my right hand...HOT MESS.

3. My brother and I have matching freckles above our belly buttons. I wish I had a picture to prove it, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Granted his belly button freckle is much bigger than mine (he's a dude && it just wouldn't be right for me to have the biggest freckle), but they match. I also have matching freckles under each eyebrow. True story!

 I've been a laptop junkie for far too much of my day && I have super bowl munchies to grub out on so until next time, live, love && make February fabulous!

What the Teacher Wore {{Week 22}}

Let me just start by saying 2.5 day weeks are what dreams are made of...everything is just so much more zen like when you're caught up on sleep and well relaxed. So zen like that this chick made it through all of the assessments that she despises with all of her heart without wanting to utter one single curse word....well that's not entirely true. I did have at least 1 bad word pop up in my brain when some of my kids acted like they had never seen a vowel before {{seriously kids you KNOW THIS}}. Alas, with a heavy heart I have to admit that while 2.5 day weeks are great for a teacher's brain, they aren't so great for a kid's brain. They do make for some pretty awesome hugs...I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

With it being a 2.5 day week this week's line up is going to be short, sweet and to the point. Brace yourselves for a total of 2 {{that's right 2}} outfits. True, I had 3 wake up calls, but Friday was a school T-shirt and jeans kind of day...they're lucky I peeled myself out of my yoga pants && hoodie because dangit if those suckers aren't the most comfortable duo in the world.

 Monday was our 100th Day. I planned to make a 100th day t-shirt, but lounging on the couch while surfing Pinterest and sipping coffee won the battle...again. During  my surf session I came across this pin which I'm positive I've been pin-spired by before when the temperatures were warmer, but the boots && scarf "winter" version was just right for the days before Icepocalypse 2014. I have a navy polka dot shirt in my closest, but it was WAY too suited for spring time temperatures rather than the icy cold we were experiencing so I did some swapping. In my version I pulled the pattern in with a scarf and kept the top solid. Same color scheme with just a few minor switches && no shopping had to be done...SCORE.

Cardigan: Target

Shirt: American Eagle

Skinnies: GAP

Boots: Rampage (Belk)

Scarf: ALDO Outlet

 

 

Tuesday was a half day && it was gloriously freezing by the time we got to leave. On the way to work it was hard to believe we were expecting massive power outages due to snow and ice. BUT a few short hours later, Jack Frost was starting to work his magic && I was a believer of the weather forecasters' predictions. I'm also a believer in layering && that's exactly what I did for day 101.

Sweater: Express

Scarf: TJMaxx

Vest: Ralph Lauren (Belk)

Skinines: GAP

Boots: Belk

 

So there you have it...Week 22...the entirety of its 2 pinspiration filled days. Week 23 is a full 5 day week and I have laundry, lesson plans, and tons of super bowl snack prepping to do. Until next time, live, love && enjoy those Super Bowl commercials!

Rain or Shine. . .the Show Must Go On!

Just when I thought that it had rained all that it could rain, Mother Nature proved that I don't know anything and dumped buckets on us today. It rained all. day. long.  Days like today make me very thankful for my "illegal" lamps and my paisley rain boots (which like a fool I left at home and trudged off in my Toms ballet flats. . .DOH!). Buuuuut, a little bit of rain never hurt anybody and lord knows there's tons of work to be done so the show just had to go on!

This week in math we're reviewing word problems and measuring with non-standard units. This week is also Dr. Seuss week which translates into a week of dressing up!! One of my favorite parts of being a teacher. . .it's like the good parts of high school never ended (ie: Spirit Week). We're reviewing word problems with the help of my little unit Under the Big Top. Anything that allows my kids to move around and sit with their BFFs is a winner in my room so the problem solving sheets are always a HUGE hit. There are activities included in the unit that will provide practice time for 3 addend word problems, addition word problems, and subtraction word problems (with sums/differences up to 20). For the next 2 days we'll be working on measuring with non-standard units. Tomorrow my crazy ones will be measuring various Seuss inspired clipart cards with swedish fish and cubes. I haven't posted it on TPT yet (I need to change the Seussical title first), but it will be up as soon as my mind can think of something equally creative and cutesy. Publix had swedish fish on sale this week so it was definitely meant to be (just like it was meant to be for me to open up a bag and eat a handful of them during small groups..YUM)! On Thursday and more than likely part of Friday, we'll be making these cute Cat in the Hats and measuring them with "Thing 1/Thing 2" paper squares (about an inch long).

You can never go wrong with a craft. . .especially not during Dr. Seuss week! Of course we're doing tons of Dr. Seuss read alouds all throughout the week. We're working on making and revising predictions as our main comprehension skill && duh we're definitely working on editing sentences (they need all of the practice that they can get). Our writing block this week is devoted to descriptive writing and that means adjectives, adjectives, and more adjectives. Later this week I'll blog more about our writing activities (and my apparent obsession with beanie babies when I was a little one). My kids LOVED my collection. . .as for me...I was a little embarassed toting the gigantic storage tub down the hallway. . .oh the things we do for teaching!

Before I sign off for the night to pick out my crazy socks outfit for Fox in Socks day, this is reason #1579014957 that I love the ladies that I work with. It's from last year's Seuss week, but the grand finale hasn't come yet this year (and I'm thinking my beloved green tutu is making an appearance). Until next time. . .Live, Love, Teach. . .and wear a Lorax mustache! :)

Rain, Rain, Go Away. ..and take my cold with you!

It's funny how being a teacher changes your mind on certain things. For instance, if I have to hear one more person talk about how beautiful a full moon is I'm going to be forced to drag them into my classroom, feed my kids cupcakes (the kind with the swirly twirly glopped on icing) and let the full moon vibes show them how beautiful it really is. Rain goes hand in hand with the beauty of the full moon. A rainy day when you can stay at home, snuggled up in a blanket watching your favorite movie/TV show (ahem. . .Real Housewives of Beverly Hills). . .now that's beautiful. A rainy day stuck inside with kids who haven't had outdoor recess in 5 days. . .now that's not such a beautiful thing. Despite the fifth day of indoor recess (did I mention it's been 5 days since we've gotten to run and scream at the top of our lungs???) today was a pretty good day. Half of us came back sick from the long weekend. . .good to know it's not only me. One declared a "cold" club that I was the president of and he was the vice president of. . .so sweet. But, I'll be the first to admit that while the sound of being the president has a nice ring to it, I can't wait for my term of "President of the Cold Club" to end.

Anyway, onto the things that really matter like how we're going to spend one of the last weeks in February.  This 4 day week is going to be packed with tons of learning and special visits. Today we saw a play on how to stop a bully (I've never seen my kids so confused. . . the actress that played a little boy was actually a woman). Later on in the week we have a visit from the tooth fairy in honor of Dental Health week (I've seen pictures and they wear tutus. . .y'all know I love a good reason to wear a tutu)! Learning wise, we're all over the place. The end of the third nine weeks is rapidly approaching and we're busy tying up the loose ends.

In math we're focusing on telling time to the hour and the half hour. I know for my kids they're really good when each skill is isolated, but when you combine the two they stare at me like I'm a Spanish speaking alien with 5 eyes and underwear on my head. Of course my hate for workbooks (and finding page 336 out of 700 pages) overtook my time management skills and I endulged in my Publisher obsession. A few hours later A Tickin' and a Tockin' (Part 2) was born. It's one day in and my kids are in love with Froggy. All of the activities included in the unit were created around different Froggy books. If you don't know who Froggy is yet, you betta ask somebody! I'll be posting more on what we've actually done as the week goes on (remember I'm trying to be better about this whole blogging thing).

In ELA we're focusing on determining the problem and the solution within stories and of course we're busy editing sentences. I do this every week because it's such a difficult skill for first graders to conquer. There are so many rules of capitalization to internalize and use within their own writing. Practice makes perfect I suppose. Tomorrow my plan is to blog a little more about how my centers work. . .because that's something that always blew my mind when I was first starting out. The district that I student taught in didn't do small group instruction so when I was hired and expected to use them, I was a fish out of water. . .a really scary feeling. Anyway, with Monday being President's day my Honest Abe's Sentence pack was the perfect fit. It's in my TPT store and of course it's only $2.50.

Just to reiterate how beautiful a rainy day can be. . .my furry babies have the right idea of how to spend one. They have their mom's great taste in blankets and shows! (Yes that's Tamra from Orange County. . .I may or may not re-visit old episodes as I anxiously await the new season!)

Until tomorrow. . .live, love, teach!

Love is in the Air. . .Among Other Things

Ok, so I'm not the greatest with being a regular/comitted blogger. However, I am amazingly good at losing my voice and catching colds (third time this year...seriously no joke). If you've ever had to teach without a voice then you know it's no walk in the park. . .it's nearly impossible. . .and definitely the closest thing to torture that I ever want to experience. One would think that having a day off would have given me plenty of time to keep my word about blogging every week, but catching up with my Beverley Hills ladies with this snuggle bug was way more appealing. He's seriously the cutest little furry baby that's ever lived and I love him to pieces!

Now that I'm back to normal (and caught up on all of the mess created when your substitute doesn't show up for the day) here's what we've been up to! I've always loved Valentine's day...really there isn't a holiday that I don't love. Honestly, who doesn't appreciate a good reason to celebrate and eat chocolate?? It fell on a perfect day this year too which added more to my love for the day of love. All week long I pumped in mushy gushy love themed activities into all possible crevices of our day.  For math this week we took a moment to review a few topics that we've touched on since coming back to school (comparing numbers, measuring with non-standard units, missing addends/subtrahends, and graphing). I whipped up a new unit Crazy In Love (little did I know how perfect it would be because they were cra-to the zy all week long). As usual they ate up the chance to work with a partner and spent their entire recess (4 days inside because of the rain) trying to copy the clipart on drawing paper (my little Picassos are always ready to draw some doodles).
The activities I included in the unit all have a corresponding Valentine/love themed book to get the excitement bug flapping its wings. Here is a list of the read alouds (and their activity from the unit):

1. Love, Splat- -by R. Scotton (Hearts & Graphs: Measuring with Candy Hearts)

2. The Biggest Valentine Ever! - -by S. Kroll (Cupid's Love Shuffle: Measuring with Non- Standard Units)

3. Froggy's First Kiss- -by J. London (Frogs & Kisses: Comparing Numbers)

 

4. Who Will Be My Valentine This Year?- -by J. Pallotta (My Funny Valentine: Missing

     Addends/Subtrahends)

 

They're all super cute books that I would highly suggest adding to your personal library if they aren't already a part of your collection. You can grab your copy of Crazy in Love at my TPT store && get your lovey dovey crazy on next year (or this year as a belated celebration).

 

Our writing lessons this week were focused on writing facts about animals and people. As part of our love day celebration the kids were told to pick one person or thing that they loved and to tell me why/describe that person or thing. Most of them were really sweet and picked their moms or dads, one picked me, and one picked. . .are you ready for this? Chocolate milk. After the editing was done and a final copy was created we got busy making our very own cupids. The only pattern I gave them was a circle for the head. Everything else was created on their own. I never really give them a lot of patterns because I want them to problem solve && of course I want their work to turn out a little different than the person sitting next to them. I did do the diaper fitting (yes I said diaper. . .and yes it was crazy town for a few minutes as they laughed like hyenas and rolled on the floor).

 

Of course we had our Interactive Read Alouds for the week focused on Cause and Effect relationships. Our read alouds included: Corduroy (D. Freeman), Franklin's Valentines (P. Bourgeois), Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes (E. Litwin), and Mole's in Love (D. Bedford). &&& d-to the -uh we had sentence editing in our centers. . .this week it was from the pack Lovely Sentences. Their work was something to love and I finally feel like they're really starting to get the hang of capital letters and punctuation marks! Praise to the big man upstairs (and no not Santa as one of my lovelies suggested. . ."Who? Santa?"). As always my sentence editing pack is in my TPT store for just $2.50.

 

With all of the work out of the way, it was party time- -Fun Thursday style! We all made valentine bags. . .they weren't anything special just colored paper bags with handles, their names written on them, and a few valentine stickers. Then the kids passed out their Valentines. For the first time ever I had everyone bring in Valentines to pass out that were already completed and filled in. I'm always surprised at how much candy some parents send in with their kids. . .giant treat bags that make mine look shabby (not cool)! Without further delay, here's a picture of my Valentine treat for all 16 of the little ones that hold a piece of my heart in their glue stick covered hands.

I used my super cool (and way underused) Slice machine that  my mom got for me a few years ago when I was into scrapbooking (my obsession with Publisher has put that on the back burner. . .really it's not even on the stove anymore). I then used Publisher to create a tag that I cut out (with a circle punch tool), glued it onto the cardstop scalloped tag, punched a hole and tied it onto the treat bag with curled ribbon. Inside of the bag I put a cup of pudding, a valentine note pad, heart eraser, and a few pieces of candy. Of course I attached a spoon onto the bag. . .I'm not sure if they were actually used because when dessert is involved all table manners disappear and my kids like to eat like cavemen, but it's the thought that counts right? Last but not least, here's my pinterest inspired banner. All of first grade made them for the 100th Day of School and I couldn't resist bringing it back again!

 

Until next time, live. . .love. . .teach!