Making Sense of Teen Numbers: Freebie!

Once upon a time I posted these lovely little number representation cards with numbers one through ten.

Well, I had a few people email me asking if I would make some for teen numbers.  So...here they are!  Numbers eleven through twenty.  Click to download.

My kids love it when I pass out all of the cards and then make everyone go find the other representations of their number.  That is such a big focus of our math series, so it's great practice for them!  Hope you can find some use for them!

Let me introduce you to my alter ego...

...Ms. Snarky.  She's going to come out to play today because well, Ms. Preppy is feeling a little bit snarkalicious today.  Please be nice to her.

Mrs. Mimi of It's Not All Flowers and Sausages was my introduction to the teaching blog world way back when I was in college {I say that like it was soo long ago} and when her book came out, I was first in line at my local Barnsey {that's Mrs. Mimi speak for Barnes and Noble, if you didn't know} and read it cover to cover.  And laughed the whole time.  I re-read it not so long ago because now that I'm in the classroom, it's even more funny.  There's one thing in her book that I end up discussing with my team at least twice a week.  I'm not sure of the exact quote, but she's talking about parent teacher conferences and how some parents seem to have a million things to do, none of which include actively parenting their child.  I love that.  Actively parenting.  It is not enough to simply feed and clothe your child.  You must actively parent them.  And unfortunately, there are entirely too many parents who aren't familiar with the practice of actively parenting their child.

There are many things involved in this active parenting phenomenon, but one biggie is teaching your child to accept responsibility.  Please explain to me why parents think that all they have to do is call me and explain that there is no way in the world their sweet little one did whatever it is I saw them do with my own two eyes and I'll just cave and apologize profusely and take away or make up for whatever consequence I've given...  Why?  I mean, that just doesn't work.  I saw your child cut another child's hair with their scissors.  I saw that.  It happened.  There's no getting out of it.  Why do you think it's a good move to allow your child to escape accepting responsibility?  How is that setting them up for success in adulthood?

I mean, if I decided to drive in reverse down the highway at 90 miles per hour with all of my doors open and my head poking out of the sun roof, I'm going to get pulled over.  And I'm probably going to get arrested.  Because I'm breaking the law.  And I can't use my one phone call to call my mommy and explain to her how horrible the police are to pull ME over because I wasn't doing anything wrong.  It was a pretty day and I wanted to try something new, is having fun illegal now?  Yes, my mom thinks I'm the cutest, sweetest, smartest person in the world.  But she can't come up to the police department and explain that it was just a little misunderstanding and that I would never do such a thing and could they please not send me to jail or give me a ticket.  That's not going to work in the real world!  But I'm afraid this is what's going to happen to some of my little friends if their parents don't step up and make them accept responsibility for their actions.  It's pretty scary.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I have some amazing parents who work with me and we support each other and it's just beautiful.  But then I have some who just have too much going on to be bothered with the responsibilities of actively parenting their child.  I'm sure we all have at least one or two of those!

So I'm thinking that at back to school night, we don't need to explain our rules for the CHILDREN...we need to explain our rules for the PARENTS.  I'm thinking a looks like, sounds like chart for active parenting.  What do you think?  What does active parenting look like and sound like to you?

Tax Break Sale! 15% off!

Oh boy, oh boy!  I love a good sale, don't you?!  In honor of April 15th, several of us are throwing a 15% off sale in our TpT stores.  I know I'll be shopping like crazy today!

Speaking of taxes...I just finished mine last night.  I have no idea why I wait until the last minute.  It drives me crazy that I do.  It's a lot like how I know my clothes should go in the hamper, but instead I put them on the floor and don't pick them up again until I do laundry.  It would make my life easier if I would just put them in the hamper.  But for whatever reason, I just don't.  I could have gotten my refund back in like, February.  But instead I waited until the last minute.  Again, I have no idea why!  Especially since there's money involved.  Makes zero sense.  I'm going to blame it on the fact that I run around like a chicken with its head cut off most days and by the time I sit down and things slow down for a second, I'm falling asleep.  I know...excuses, excuses.

And speaking of excuses...my lack of blogging as of late is totally because the new Blogger has completely thrown me.  I can only get it to open in Safari.  And I never use Safari on my computer.  It's just different and I don't really like different.  And things are different in Blogger and I start a post and then have to just close my laptop because it stresses me out!  I feel like I need some kind of therapy to get me through this.  Hopefully I'll manage to pull through...

Spring break's lease hath all too short a date...

My alarm started screaming at me at 5:30 this morning.  It was just plain rude.  I felt a little bit like Veruca Salt {the band, not the brat} and wanted to sing back, "leave me lying here, cuz I don't wanna go..."  but I just hit snooze until 6 and hit the ground running.  It's so hard for me to get back into a routine.  I think it's because it takes me so long to get out of the routine.  I didn't start sleeping in until Thursday.  Stupid internal alarm clock.  Spring break always gives me just a little taste of summer and leaves me wanting more!

I had big plans for my break with great to do lists.  Want to guess how much of it got done?

If you guessed "very little to none", you were right!

I managed to work out every day, shop, pick up some around the house, do laundry, and go to school long enough to get things ready for today.  {So much for trying to plan for the rest of the year...}  I needed another week to get through the rest of the things on my list.  I think maybe the hours in my spring break days were somehow shorter than the hours in my work days?  Kind of like how Saturday and Sunday are significantly shorter than Monday and Tuesday...

Luckily the kids were just as tired as I was today.  They'll warm back up here pretty soon and be back to their usual shenanigans.  Then hopefully I'll have some kid funnies to share with you.  But right now...I need a nap.  I'm sure that most of you who were on spring break with me last week are feeling the same!  I hope that you guys got more accomplished than I did!

Finally...a break!

Ahhh...I'm on day 2 of my much needed spring break.  And I still have a whole entire full week of nothingness!  I'm so excited about sleeping in and being able to pee whenever I want to!  I've been making a Spring Break To Do list ever since Christmas.  Here goes:

-Clean out my closets {yes, closetS. I'm one girl in a two bedroom apartment. Both bedrooms have clothes EVERYWHERE and I need to get it under control.} and either donate or eBay things I don't wear.  It's kind of sickening, but I'd say half of the clothes in my closets still have tags on them or have only been worn once.  I always think I'm going to look sooooo cute in this or that, but when it comes down to it, I spend my days with small children.  They're messy and they hug you even though there's snot all over their face or paint on their hands.  So I end up wearing my school t-shirts pretty much every day to keep my dry cleaning bills down.  And even though it would be very nice of me to donate everything, I just love to eBay it all so I can buy more.  I can't help it.  Do you donate or eBay?  Or a mix of both? 

-Straight up CLEAN my apartment.  It's a hot mess.  Maybe if I can get it all straightened out over break, it will be easier to maintain?  Right? 

-Plan and make copies for the rest of the year.  When I get back from spring break, there will only be 27 days left of school.  I can totally get all of that planned and copied and have things ready for my sweet volunteer grannies to do and then the rest of the year will be smooth sailing.  Hopefully.

-Work out every.single.day.  I totally bought Insanity.  And it is just that.  Insane.  But I kinda like it.  It kinda feels good.  And with all the hard work and sweating I've been doing, I better look AMAZING when the 60 days are over.  I'll be insanely ticked if I don't.

-Blog more!  Things have been so crazy busy around here that I feel like I've been neglecting my blog and all of my favorite blog reads.  I can't wait to catch up!

-Get the Very Pinteresting Spring Exchange organized!  Sign ups end next Wednesday, so I'll spend Thursday getting everyone matched up and emailed!  If you want to participate, head over and check it out.  If you want to host a giveaway, you need to email us by April 1st to be included!  {teacherbloggerexchange at gmail dot com}
So...those are my plans.  What do you want to bet I won't get much of it done at all?!  My DVR is pretty full.  And catching up on Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl sounds sooo much funner than cleaning and planning.  But who knows?  I just might end up being crazy productive and get a bunch of work done. 

Who else is spring breaking it with me this week?  I am so very sorry to those of you who aren't on break right now.  I'll try not to talk about it too much...  But hey, even if you're not on break, at least it's FRIDAY!  Happy Friday!

Announcing...A Very Pinteresting Spring Exchange!!

Sarah and I are ready for the next exchange!  Head on over to get the scoop.  We hope you'll join the fun!

Winner.....and some teacher chat!

So sorry I didn't get to post my winner yesterday!  It was way late by the time I got home and well, I was too tired for the ol' blog.  I know, so sad.  BUT!  Here I am today!  With a winner...

Congrats, Meredith!  Send me an email at mspreppyblog at gmail dot com and I'll get the books right to ya!

I wanted to chat with you about one of my favorite parts of the day.

Lunch.

My team is pretty hilarious.  Like, I think Chelsea Handler should invite us for an all teacher round table.  It's that funny.  Sometimes people in the office come down to our room and tell us we're too loud.  And then we wonder exactly how much they heard...

Anyway, I thought I would share today's lunch experience with you.  I'm warning you that it's going to be jumpy.  And stream of consciousnessy.  Mainly because that's how we roll.  Here goes:

Lunch started when I walked in singing, Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as hiiiiiiigh...take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow... Because I was way excited that I found a math themed Reading Rainbow to keep in my back pocket just in case the temperature in my room became mind melting {which it did} and we all needed to take a little breather because OMG, who can work when it's 85.4 degrees in the classroom?? 

{Yes, I showed a video.  Call me a bad teacher if you want, but seriously.  We were all sweaty and I was about to die from heat exhaustion and we were all pretty much fried by 1:45.  Aaannddd...  I totally spent some quality time with TI on my way to school this morning and he was all, you can have whatever you like.  And what I'd like is for my air to be fixed.  But TI lied.  I did not get whatever I like.  That's the last time I'll ever trust a rapper.}

So that's how lunch started.

I ran into one of my teammies at the store the other day and while we were there, we both encountered quite the sight.  So we decided to share our story with the rest of the crew.  We were trying to explain how this lady looked and really, the best thing to do was use TV characters.  And she looked a LOT like Xena, Warrior Princess.  Sooooo tall, amazon-like, super thick and long hair...the whole shebang.  So we've got Xena, Warrior Princess.  Xena was pushing a toddler in a stroller who had these really big scary, sneaky eyes.  Like totally mischievous.  To get the point across, I turned to TV characters again.  This kid was a lot like the baby from that show Dinosaurs.  Only this time, they didn't catch my reference on the first try.  So I had to pick up my imaginary pan and pretend to hit my friend over the head with it while screaming, "Not the momma, not the momma, not the momma!"  Then they got it. 

Anyway, so the whole not the momma bit took us back to our youth.  Now, I'm the baby in the group.  And I'm 24.  One girl is two years older than me and the other is five years older than me.  So when I say youth, you can think Spice Girls, Tamagotchis, Mary Kate and Ashley...  You know, nineties thrills. 

Well, our reminiscing took us to TGIF.  Who remembers TGIF?  All those great shows...Family Matters, Step by Step, Boy Meets World...Aaahh.  Loved TGIF.  LOVED IT.  Now I have to watch my TGIF shows on TV Land. 

Then after TGIF you had SNICK.  You know, Saturday Night on Nick.  Kenan and Kel, All That, Are You Afraid of the Dark... 

So what ever happened to Kel?  We all keep up with Kenan on SNL, but what about Kel?  Did something happen to him?  Is he OK?  Cue a quick iPhone google search at the lunch table.  Kel is fine!  He was even on an episode of Good Luck Charlie recently.  Life can go on.  Oh!  Remember that Good Burger movie?  Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, may I take your order?

At this point we're laughing so hard we're about to pee our pants because Lord knows we haven't been to the bathroom since we left home.  Someone takes a break from laughing to ask, How did we end up here, anyway?

So we work backwards {great strategy}: Good Burger...Kenan and Kel...SNICK...TGIF....Dinosaurs...Not the momma...Xena.  XENA!  Then we look at the clock and guess what?  Our lunch time is up.  Story unfinished.  I'm sure you can tell that the majority of our stories remain unfinished.

Is your lunch like my lunch?  Is your lunch funner than my lunch?  If it is, can I visit?