You Know You're a Teacher When...

If you haven't seen this cute little linky party over at Kindergarten Lifestyle, you need to head over there now to read up and link up!  Too fun!

Of course, as soon as I hit save I think of something else...

You know you're a teacher when you have a song for everything!  Seriously.  I could make up a song about anything.  And I often do.  Most of the time it's to the tune of the latest and greatest on the Top 40.  And I usually get made fun of for it.  But maybe one day I'll land a record deal for my superfab educational renditions of pop songs.  Doubtful, but you never know.

I'm sure we've all corrected ridiculous behavior {both from children and adults} while in public.  I'm really bad about giving my teacher look while I'm out and about.  I just can't help it.  I don't understand why people don't control their children in public.  I also don't understand why grown ups TALK during the movies.  Movie theaters are very obviously NO TALKING zones.  Methinks businesses should start posting CHAMPS charts.  They could even pay me {either in money or products} to CHAMP all interactions at their establishment.  I'd be glad to set those expectations.  In fact, I've been to a couple of malls lately that have rules posted.  For real.  Mall Rules.  I'm thinking a teacher had something to do with that. 

I guess another one would be...you know you're a teacher when you spend your Sunday afternoons switching between your Lifetime movie, Facebook, lesson plans, blogs, and email.  I'm off to do some of that multi-tasking before the week hits.  There's a chance of snow tomorrow night.  Please dear God above give me a snow day.  We've only had one this year.  That's just plain sad.  We've usually had at least 5 by now.  What's up with that?!  Send me some snow vibes, please?!

Currently...

Um.  Can we talk about how I should probably start playing the lottery because I totally called the score yesterday?  I don't care about football.  At all.  But I somehow knew the score.  I'm psychic.  {Or maybe it's psycho?  One or the other.}  Anywho...Lori and Kelly, check your emails for your prize!

I'm linking up with Farley this month!  I know you're all DYING to see what I'm doing RIGHT! NOW!

This is random, but I hope you'll love me anyway.  Are you guys having your Valentine's parties on the Friday before, the day of {Tuesday}, or the Friday after?  We had our Halloween party on a Monday this year and it totally threw me off my game for the rest of the week.  Any suggestions for toning it down next Tuesday so we don't start the week on a sugar high then crash and burn WAY before Friday comes around?   

A Day in My Ever So Fabulous Shoes!

I've had so much fun reading about everybody's daily routine that I decided to link up with Miss Klohn too!  I know that I'm a little late to the party, but I'd like to think I'm just fashionably late.

Before I start, I have to share this funny song with you {and I have a feeling most of you will relate}.  By about Wednesday, this is me.  Except I don't have kids.  Or a husband.  So I don't really know exactly why my life is so crazy, but it is.  And I'd like to do a little edit...instead of love and laundry...

.I just keep prayin' that I can get everything done and still have time for BLOGS and a load of laundry!

Here's the nitty gritty:

5:30- Alarm.  Hit snooze.

5:35- Alarm.  Hit snooze.

5:40- Alarm.  Hit snooze. {man, this alarm thing is annoying}

5:45- Alarm.  Resist the urge to hit snooze again.  {Why don't I just set the alarm for 5:45?  Seems like that would be the most logical thing to do.  But apparently I'm not into logical.}  Sit up in bed and check email, Facebook, and blogs on the phone or iPad.  {I won't go to sleep without my phone and iPad next to me.  Can't handle being out of touch.}

5:55- Drag myself in to the bathroom to shower, dry hair, and turn on straightener.

6:15- Eat some delish fake bacon and egg beaters for breakfast.  Wash it down with a Coke and pray the caffeine kicks in QUICK.

6:30- Put on makeup and fix my hair, even though I know my makeup is going to magically disappear from my face by 8am.

6:45- Get dressed.  I like to save time by picking out my clothes and ironing them the night before.  I know, I'm so efficient.

6:50- Last minute touches on the face and hair.  {As if it really matters.}

6:55- Get in the car and head to work.

7:05- Arrive at work.  Run to my room to put my things down and go pick up the kids in my teammate's room.  As I walk down the hall, I try to brace myself for the LIVE ACTION that's coming my way.  Have you guys seen Call of the Wildman on Animal Planet?  Anytime he's wrestling an animal, he screams "LIVE ACTION!"  So that's our newest catch phrase.

7:07- Walk in teammie's room.  Take one look at the children who are already climbing the walls and try to leave before anyone sees me.  Too late!  I was just spotted by a five year old who is running toward me squealing, "Tickle, tickle!".  Dead serious, people.  I get a tickle and hug every morning from one of my sweet friends.  And it totally kick starts my day.  I don't know what I will do if he's ever absent.

7:15- Kiddos are now in my room eating breakfast and doing their morning work.  I spend this time checking homework and planners.  I also try to teach the children to not rub biscuits on their face.  

7:50- We switch classes and I get to spend some time with my kindergarten friends.  We do calendar.  Sometimes Rihanna comes.  I do some whole group teaching and then we head to stations.  They have matured so much since the beginning of the year and stations run so smoothly now!

9:25- Switcheroo number two!  First grade this time!  This group of kiddos is crazy smart.  Seriously, they could teach me.  I just stand back in awe for most of the class period.  And I love it.

10:30- Lunch.  I mean brunch.  {Last year lunch was at 10.  I was ravenous by the end of the day.  It was rough.}

11:00- Recess.  We don't get a planning every day, so we worked out a solution on my team.  If we have a planning that day, we have recess duty.  If we do not have a planning, we are either completely free or we have detention.  Today I was completely free!  Tomorrow I have duty.

11:30- First grade again.  We do stations and they continue to amaze me.

12:15-  The final switch.  Second grade comes back and we spend the rest of the day together.  We do calendar.  We do some whole group activities.  Then my favorite part of the day comes: intervention time.  I have two super fab interventionists who each pull a group and I am left with 14 kiddos.  We kick some major booty in the last 45 minutes of the day.  It's awesome and we all end the day with full brains and feeling so smart!

2:15-  Tell the kids it's time to go home and they're all, "Really?  Already?"  We pack up and I send them home.  I go back to my room, making a few stops along the way to catch up on gossip debrief.  I make sure everything is ready for the next day and head out.

3:45- Tutor.  I am totally loving tutoring on the side.  It's so much fun working one on one with kids.

6:00- Home!  Finally!  I find something to eat, turn on the TV, turn on the computer and spend the rest of the night catching up on emails, Facebook, blogs, and doing some planning from home.  I also clean out my DVR during this time.

10:00- Shower and dry hair.  Pick out my clothes and iron them.  Get lunch ready for tomorrow.

11:00- Bed!

Rinse and repeat.

If you haven't already linked up, click on the picture above to do so!  Only two more days of waking up to an alarm clock!  Happy Wednesday, my friends!



Holly Bloggy Christmas Link Up!

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all had a wonderful day with your families!  I also hope that my Holly Bloggy friends were able to wait until yesterday to open their gifts!  Sarah and I had so much fun organizing this and seeing all of the neat gifts everyone exchanged.  Over the next few days, we will get up all of the pictures we have.  But we also want to hear from you!  I've seen a few of you already post about your awesome partner, so please link up so we can all read about it and ooh and aah over your gifts!

I know a few of you still have gifts that are MIA.  We are working on it!  Feel free to shoot us an email; we are reading them and working on getting in touch with everyone as time allows during these busy holidays!

Please make sure you link directly to your post about Holly Bloggy Christmas, not just to your blog in general.  Make sure you include a link to this post and Sarah's blog {http://kentuckykindergartenkorner.blogspot.com/} in your blog post about Holly Bloggy Christmas.  Also, if your partner is a blogger, please make sure you include a link to their blog in your post!

Thankfulness

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!  I'm excited to link up with What the Teacher Wants and talk about all of the things I'm thankful for.  Anytime I talk about being thankful, Alanis Morissette's song "Thank U" gets stuck in my head... {thank u India, thank u terror, thank u disillusionment}  You can thank me for getting that stuck in your head later.  Anyway, here are all of the wonderful things for which I am thankful:

What are you thankful for in your classroom?

Well, my little friends, of course!  They crack me up on a daily basis and I am forever thankful for that.  I'm also thankful for my Smartboard.  Oh, it is just so wonderful.  It makes my life easier and my teaching so much funner.  The kids totally dig it too.

What person are you most thankful for?

It's too hard to just pick one!  I'm very thankful for my family.  We're all quirky, fun, and loving.  My entire family is absolutely hilarious and I love to laugh more than anything else on the face of the Earth, so I'm ever so thankful for my funny family.

What three blogs are you most thankful for?

Oh, I love so many blogs out there!  I'm rather thankful for Jennifer over at Rowdy in First Grade.  She's definitely one of my blogging BFFs.  We swap stories and problem solve together and it's just magnificent.  One of us needs to relocate ASAP so we can combine forces and kick some educational booty.



I also love me some Rebecca over at Teaching First!  It's been so fun getting to know her through giveaways we've done together!  There's a chance Rebecca, Jennifer, and I would have too much fun if we ever got together in real life.



My third is actually two: my Kentucky blogging buddies!  Sarah over at Kindergarten Korner has been an AMAZING partner in Holly Bloggy Christmas!  I'm so thankful for all of her help with that.  And it's just plain awesome to have another blogger in my district.




It has also been really fun to get to know Diana from Cole's Little Pups.  She's a sweetheart and I can't wait to meet up with her for lunch next weekend!  I'm going to have to work on getting her a blog button!

What guilty pleasure are you most thankful for?

Two words: Chelsea Lately.  She cracks me up and I would love to work on her show.  The working environment seems almost toxic with all of the practical jokes and dry humor and sarcasm.  Sounds like paradise to me.  I'll do almost anything for a laugh.  And I would love to be surrounded by people who have a good sense of humor.  Serious is the leading cause of wrinkles. 

What are you most thankful for?

I am most thankful for laughter.  If I couldn't laugh, I don't think I would make it.  You guys know I love Bill Cosby.  He says: "Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers.  And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it."  That is so true.  I have a very dry and warped sense of humor and I can find something to laugh about in almost any situation.  I just love to laugh.  It makes me happy.  It makes other people happy.  And happy is good.

Well friends, I'm off to have dinner with the fam.  On Thanksgiving Eve, I will leave you with this wonderful gem of advice I received from a Lifetime movie the other day: "Count your blessings and keep on steppin'!"



Behave yourself!

I'm linking up with Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business to give you the scoop on how I try to tame those wild things that roar their terrible roars, gnash their terrible teeth, roll their terrible eyes, and show their terrible claws.  You know, the kindergartners.  I love it when the intermediate teachers are all, "You couldn't pay me enough to deal with snotty noses and accidents all day."  Because I'm thinking, "You couldn't pay me enough to deal with snotty attitudes and 10 year olds who have yet to discover the wonders of deodorant."  To each their own.  And kindergarten is definitely one of my favorites.  I teach kindergarten, first, AND second grade.  So like Hannah Montana, I get the best of both worlds: the sweet little people and the more independent, but still sweet bigger little people.

My first year I was pretty lucky with the kindergarten crew that came in.  Most had been to preschool and while they still needed some reminders, they weren't bouncing off the walls or using their glue sticks as lip gloss.  My second year, the new kindergartners were more like first graders.  It was a total dream.  They could have fun and still follow my rules at the same time.  It was truly beautiful.  This year I feel like I run a three ring circus most days.  {But I like to think it's the greatest show on earth.}  I had to teach them how to be students before I could teach them anything else.  It was rough for a while-and still is every now and then.  But I'm on my way to having them tamed.

One thing that my team uses that really helps is this behavior chart:

Our kiddos rotate classes throughout the day.  They keep this chart in their folders and mark it at the end of each class.  If they have a straight or sad face, we write what rule they broke so their parents know what went down.  This gives us a chance to have a little chat and try to get them back on the right track.  Parents sign it each night and return it to school the next day.  This has been a great visual for our kids, as well as a way to remind them that even though they decided to hit their neighbor in my room, they could still turn it around and get a smiley face later in the day.  We love it.  The kids love it.  And the parents love it.  Win-win-win.

Oh!  One more tidbit!  One day, completely out of desperation and frustration, I managed to find the most brilliant, wonderful, amazing solution for those kids who consistently win the Non Sequitur Award.  It even works with the Notorious B.L.U.R.T.:

Unifix cubes.

Seriously.  One day I was nearing the end of my rope with one little guy and I gave him a stack of 5 and whenever he said something off the wall, I took one.  The leftovers earned him a treat.  I still do this occasionally with my story tellers and major blurters.  They respond pretty well to it.  I give them a stack of 5 and at the end of class, however many they have left is either worth money for our classroom economy or minutes to tell me a story.  They quickly realize it's much more fun to have the money or a private conversation with me than it is to blurt out and interrupt my ever so brilliant instruction.

I hope all of you kindergarten teachers out there will link up with Mrs. Miner!  I would love to hear about your behavior management systems.  Because who knows...I could walk in tomorrow and need to come up with a totally different game plan.  Oh, the children.  They like to keep me on my toes. 

Facebook Linky Party!

There for a while, I was spending so much time over here in blogland that I would go a day or two without logging on to Facebook.  I know...the horror!  My friends thought I had dropped off the face of the earth.  But now I can find so many of my favorite blogs on Facebook!  I just started my own Facebook page a couple of weeks ago and am working on getting it together.  I added a cute little Facebook button in my sidebar.  Baby steps... 

The Lesson Plan Diva is having a fun linky party for you to find all of your favorite blogs on Facebook!  They're organized by grade level to make it easier to find what you're looking for.  So head on over and like away! 

Top 3 Things Linky Party

I've been finding so many wonderful blogs over the past few weeks!  Becca over at Simply 2nd Resources is encouraging everyone to share the top three things they are going to focus on this school year.  Here are mine:

1. Technology- I should be getting a SmartBoard ANY!DAY!NOW!  And I can't hardly wait.  My two math teammates both have SmartBoards, so I've been left out of all the fun for the past year.  I want to find, create, and incorporate some awesome interactive lessons with my kiddos.  I can't wait to see how a SmartBoard transforms my teaching and my students' learning. 

2. Small Group Instruction- My students visit math stations each day.  One of those stations is Teacher Station.  I want to make better use of this time with small groups.  In previous years, I've had one activity at the station, but this year I want to have a variety of activities to choose from so I can give each student what they need.  Stations are student-selected, so I'm not able to create leveled groups during that time (that probably would be the easiest solution, but...we like giving our students choices).  But I know I can do better at differentiating activities so everyone in my class gets the most out of teacher station.

3. Creativity!- For the past couple of years, I've been using the same resources and activities that I inherited from the previous teacher.  This year, I want to branch out a little and create new things!  We got a new math curriculum (Math in Focus) last year.  Now that I've spent a year stumbling through learning the curriculum, I know what the kids need to know and where the book is taking them.  So I'm looking forward to creating some awesome station/center activities based on the Singapore math strategies taught in Math in Focus {and sharing them with YOU!}.

Join in the fun and share your top 3 focus areas for the year!