Five for Friday {Linky Party} - And also, can I sleep yet?

Hey hey hey! It's finally my favorite day of the week! And not just because it's Friday, although might I say thank goodness, but because I get to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching and all of you other fantastic teachers out there for Five for Friday!  So let's get the party started!

I warn you now, this post is going to be all over the place, much like my brain right about now.

I am so, so, so excited that So You Think You Can Dance is back! And you best believe that I will be dancing around my house like I'm auditioning for the show! *fingers crossed* In all seriousness though, I love this show. The dancing is so inspirational, and the bodies aren't bad either! ;-) They are just so strong, fit and beautiful! 

After a month of waiting, I finally got my stitch fix and I must say I was super disappointed. I have done it once before and looooved everything I got. But this time, the price wasn't in my range and nothing fit right. The dress was too big, the capris were about a million inches too long and they sent me a bag even though I specified no accessories in my profile. I am pretty bummed. 

I think that with their big business boom they did not have the inventory or stylist power to support their new found success. Maybe I will try it again once they get through their "growing pains". 

I am almost embarrassed to post these photos, but I figured that in order to be impressed by the after photos that I need to show the before. Since my husband and I recently signed another year lease (to give us some more time to find the perfect home) I decided to redo our wanna-be backyard. Those weeds were literally almost as tall as me, which doesn't say much since I am only 5'1'' but still! I tore them all out with the help of my younger sisters and then laid soil, fertilizer and grass seeds. Now we patiently wait. 

Here is a little sneak peak of the graduation party I am helping plan for my beautiful friend Claire. She has busted her butt the last 2 years in nursing school and I couldn't be more proud of her! I can't wait to celebrate all of her accomplishments. :) 

And last but not least, Friday Fun Day! The kids love playing sight word hangman! I am sure going to miss these kiddos! I am sad to be switching schools! 

My brain is so frazzled. My to-do list keeps growing. I am ready for a break! 

I saw this floating around the internet world and it is so spot on I just had to share. 

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Chocolate Fever...

Hey guys! I hope you all had a wonderful (long) Memorial Day Weekend! I know that many of you are finished with your school year, and I must say, I am super jealous! We have 13 days left, and as you know, that means its crunch time. Not to mention, my placement for next year is still up in the air. So I am packing up without knowing where I'm moving to. But I should know something tomorrow! Fingers crossed!

My to-do list grows with every passing minute and yet all I want to do is watch Game of Thrones, try on my new Stitch Fix and read my Cosmo.

But before I start "lesson planning" I thought I would link up with Teaching Maddeness for Must Read Monday! :)

I like to end each school year with a chapter book, and my classes always love, love, love Chocolate Fever by Robert Kimmel Smith. Now, personally I don't understand the concept of Chocolate Fever. I am not a sweets kind of gal. I prefer salty. Popcorn fever, potato chip fever, beef jerky fever….That's more like it.

 If you've never read Chocolate Fever, I highly recommend it!

(Click on photo to check this book out on Amazon!)

We started this book today! The kids were so sad when I got to the end of the first chapter. They even asked if they could come in during recess so I could keep reading it to them. I love when they get excited about reading! 

Before we read the first chapter, we discussed some of the tricky words and came up with body movements for each word. The words we used were:

hatched: They pretended to hatch out of an egg

slim: They held their hands close together to show "skinny"

bitter: They made some awesome faces for this one, I wish I had taken pictures. 

fever: They placed their hand on their head and looked "ill"

Anytime they heard these words in the book, they did the movement to help them remember the meaning! I do this with any story we read. It's my little way to front load those tricky vocab words and the kids have fun coming up with the body movements!

After reading, we worked on our Chocolate Fever Menus for Henry Green. Here are some photos! This is just our brainstorm sheet. We will make more formal menus tomorrow!

(Some of their handwriting still, I tell ya…Sheesh).

I hope you are all enjoying your final days in the classroom or you are relaxing and enjoying your summer vacay! 

I think I'll post about my summer bucket list soon to get me in the mindset! Until next time :)

Five for Friday! (And a New Blog Design!)

Before we get started I have to give 2 major shout outs! 

First of all, thank you so so so much to Kassie over at Designs by Kassie for giving my blog a much needed makeover.  I am absolutely in love with it. :) Seriously, if you need any design work done, check her out! She is so easy to talk to and gets work done quickly! 

Secondly, many of you may know that I am being moved for the next school year. While my future placement is still unknown, I have to give a shout out to my principal for working her butt off for me! She has contacted other schools on my behalf and has texted me anytime new postings go up. She is going way above and beyond what she needs to do! I am going to do something extra special for her once the moving dust settles! 

Welp, another week down. Only 3 more to go! I am so jealous of those of you who are already on break. But it is a Friday and we get a long weekend, so I can't complain! And it's time to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the weekly linky party!

The biggest thing that happened this week is my lovely new blog. I can't get over how adorable it is.  Pardon me while I swoon some more. :)

The downfall is, I lost all of my previous posts/comments/followers and have to start over. But it's totally worth it! 

Looking back at my pictures from this week I realized that we spent a lot of time on the carpet this week in my classroom!

Here we are playing a a homophone matching game! They could not get enough of this game. They're obsessed. I think I broke them… 

For the cute little homophone song that we listened to way more times than I care to admit (and that is now permanently engrained into my brain) click {here}!

Here we were working on retelling circle stories! They had so much fun with these. We are now in the process of writing our very own circle stories. 

I started running outside again! Side note: A few years back I was training for a half marathon and dislocated my knee the weekend before the run (and then once again about a year and a half later.. a student threw a block at it. It was an accident). I spent the last few years going through physical therapy on my knee in order to strengthen it, but running hasn't really happened. I started on the treadmill and now I'm running on trails! 

I registered for the Color Run in September! It's been just the motivation I needed to stop being afraid and just nike that! The beautiful weather we've been having hasn't hurt either! 

It probably wasn't the best idea to start Game of Thrones so close to the end of the school year. As if my teacher-itis wasn't already bad enough...but the damage is done. 

Do any of you watch this show?

And last but not least, the lovely warning I woke up to this morning. In the wise (although now not so funny) words of Woody, "Somebody's poisoned the watering hole". 

I hope you all have a fabulous (and long) Memorial Day weekend. Anyone have any fun plans? We have back-back BBQs all weekend. Hello hamburgers, goodbye will power. 

10 Things About Me

So I did a little more blog snooping today and I noticed that many of you started out by posting some fun facts about yourself! Seemed like a great way to share a little bit about myself and hopefully connect with some of you! I’m not sure if I can come up with 10, but here it goes!

1. I am excited/terrified/nervous about starting this blog and feel way in over my head! Any pointers would be greatly appreciated :)

2. I am super short (hence the name tiny teacher). I often get confused as a student, which took some getting used to! Sometimes I shop in the children’s section because the clothes fit me better. Actually, one time I had a student show up wearing the same dress as me. That was embarrassing!

3. I don’t like sweets of any kind. No cake, no ice cream, no pie. I know, I know, I’m crazy. I’m more a salty kind of gal! 

4. I am a fitness junkie! If I wasn’t a teacher I would probably be a personal trainer.

 5. I paid for my first 2 years of college with a vocal scholarship. I used to sing in choirs and musicals. Now I only sing while sitting in traffic. But you best believe I put on a real show.

6. I have been with my husband for 8 years. He has been so supportive of my career (which has been a roller coaster these past years due to budget cuts in our state). I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in crime.

7. WOW this is hard…I’m terrified of lawn gnomes. They really creep me out. Travelocity commercials are the worst!

8. My favorite season is fall! I love everything about it! FOOTBALL season, pumpkin everything, the beautiful colors… AHHH is it fall yet!?

9. I am obsessed with bad TV…like really bad TV. Pretty Little Liars anyone? Sorry, I'm not sorry.

10. I do a lot of freezer cooking! It is such a great way to keep healthy eating habits when both partners work full time! If you haven’t tried it, you should! It totally saved my life!


Well, that wasn’t so bad! Now if I could just figure out how to connect with other teachers… oh and get my blog to not look so crazy! Have a wonderful weekend!

Hello!

I am so, so, so excited to be starting my own teacher blog! I am constantly creating my own supplemental materials for use in the classroom and have gotten such amazing responses from fellow teachers that I thought I would give this teaching blog/TPT thing a go!

I love finding fun and exciting ways to bring content to my kiddos and I have been seriously stalking teacher blogs for about a year now and have been so impressed by what is out there. I can't wait to become a part of it all! I hope to make many connections with all of you amazing teachers out there! Please follow, comment, share, etc!


P.S. I use exclamation points a lot if you haven’t noticed! You were warned :)