Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Thankful November (Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Pinterest)


Thankful November!!



I know it has been a while, but I’m alive and still breathing.  I have just been busy with the normal stuff…….MY JOB!!!  They are really forcing us to earn our paycheck and then some!!!  Oh well, I will skip this boring topic!!!!





Planning hands-on activities keeps me busy!




We had a nice Thanksgiving.  I am so thankful that we get three days off for Thanksgiving.  It really makes for a nice and relaxing holiday. The plan was to spend Thanksgiving Day at my mom’s, but Nick and Lucas both woke up in the middle of the night with an evil stomach virus.  They were down for the count and didn’t get to celebrate. (Lucas has actually only  just gotten better in the last day or two!

This is the day before Thanksgiving.  There was a line all the way out into the parking lot!


The break was fairly relaxing considering I procrastinated until that Saturday about putting up my Christmas decorations.  I love getting them up and enjoying them, but it’s a lot of work and I don’t get much help.  Luckily, Nick puts up the outdoor lights; he gets all of the stuff down from the attic and puts up the Christmas tree.  I spend a total of about 6 hours putting up ornaments and other decorations. My two sons have never been interested in trimming the tree. Nick asked me if I enjoyed decorating the tree.  I said that I didn’t, but it wouldn’t get done if I didn’t do it.  After all of that work, I want to be able to enjoy the decorations for a while before I have put the decorations back into storage.  Growing up, we never put up our tree early, this is just one of those things that I have decided to do.




Santa tree in the dining room











I didn’t go out at midnight on Black Friday, but I did shop later in the day and I found some good bargains!  I have also enjoyed doing some easy shopping from home. (on-line)  I also took advantage of some of the Cyber-Monday specials!!



I think I’ve mentioned before that I have become obsessed with teacher blogs.  I follow about 20 of them and I get many ideas from them.  Many of these young teachers are very tech-savvy and they develop many things that they share via the internet.  I’m really impressed by their creativity!!!



My most recent obsession is Pinterest!  Have you heard of it???  I would best describe it as an on-line visual bulletin board of collected links.  Once you download it to your computer, you can “pin” anything you find on the internet on one of your “boards”. Once it is pinned, it is also a link to that site on the internet!!!  I have found the neatest ideas for crafts, teaching, jewelry, decorating, and recipes.  You have to be invited to join.  If you are interested, give me your email address and I will invite you to join!  Happy Pinning!!! (Oh, I almost forgot!  One of my young FB friends has her Christmas wish list on Pinterest!!! Smart!)

http://pinterest.com/





Saturday, November 19, 2011

Happy what??


Happy week before Thanksgiving!  I have all of my family home for the week and I’m thankful.  I also only have students one and a half days this week.  (Tuesday is a half day of some kind of training!)



Well, can you believe it? I’m still alive and kicking.  I have just been extremely busy with life, which, right now, happens to be teaching.  Teaching is now not just a full time job, but a life job.  It consumes your life!!!  I have wonderful class of good strong second graders, but, it isn’t about just teaching anymore.  Here is a short list of some things that have been added to my teaching plate:

Differentiated instruction training

BAS (reading assessment) training

2 days of giving the BAS (I didn’t finish.)

CSC meeting on a new student

Calling parent about a child’s progress

Giving a jewelry making class on a Wellness Day (this is a good thing!)

A special Thanksgiving dinner where all of the parents were invited (We had so many people that it took up our Gym time.)



I’m also currently obsessed with reading teacher blogs and Pinterest.  There are so many neat teaching ideas out there that it is overwhelming.  I’ve found lots of cool things that I’ve used in my classroom.  I just wished I had fewer constraints so that I could use more of the ideas that I find.

This is from Ireland and it makes me happy!