Holy Moley!

As I sit here and reflect on my two weeks of training, I'm contemplating if I'm really feeling ready.
Honestly, the answer is no.
Not because of my room, that's pretty much completely ready.
Boy, was that the easy part.

Lesson planning.
Where do I start?
We have a new superintendent, and he wants a specific lesson plan.
The problem is that it's very difference from what teachers have done in the past.
So when I ask for guidance, most of them are also in the dark on how to work it.

The problem:
DOLs.
Demonstrations of Learning.
Sounds easy enough.
Except he wants to see something like this:
"Given five math problems, the student will answer 3 out of 5 correctly."
He wants it super black and white.
But when you teach things like reading comprehension, that can be difficult.

So, I'm kind of... faking it.
I'm not following the format he wants, but I'm coming up with good, quick DOLs.
I'm hoping that will be good enough for my administration, but we'll see.

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In other news, my teaching team is so great.
I only have 15 kids in my homeroom and 17 kids in my second class (woo hoo!).
The whole school is super nice and supportive.
Despite the stress over lesson plans, I couldn't be happier!!

But I'm still not ready!
CRAZY NERVOUS!
Oh well.... ready or not, kids come on MONDAY!

MIA and Classroom Completion

Hey everyone!
I have been MIA from bloggy-land.
There's a reason for that.
Here is one of them:

Yep, he's still with us.
He sure found a pair of suckers to take him in, I'll tell you what.

I know. He's super cute.
And he's super sweet.
He has some separation anxiety, so he barks himself hoarse all day.
It breaks my heart.
But he is crazy happy to see us when we get home.


We really want to keep him, but we don't think we can.
He's still a little puppy who can't wait to go potty for longer than 7 hours.
And we have jobs that keep us away from home for 10 to 12 hours at a time.
This little one needs more time, attention, and walks than we are able to provide.


Fritz, my number one pup, couldn't care less that we are gone for those long stretches.
He's a total loner dog who just wants to be left alone under the couch.
He's pretty much the perfect dog for us, he's just like us in every way.

Anyways, we are still working to find Fry a home.
Any takers?

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Here is reason number 2:

Completed classroom, WA HOO!!!!
The wonderful hubby took four days off to help me put my room together.
Isn't he the best?!
I sure caught a good one!

Check it out:

Please please PLEASE excuse all the stuff on the right of this picture (orange chair, huge boards, shelf like thing, TV with table cloth...)! The custodians will remove it from my room next week, but I was impatient for pictures!

I had no where else to put my hanging buckets. This will work, haha.

View from behind my desk. Doesn't the paper put some life into that terrible desk?!

View from my projector. I'm in love with that rug, I think I might go buy another.

I still have to put title on all of my bulletin boards, but I want to laminate the letters.
So, I will have to scramble to do that next week.
I'm pleased with it, I love all the bright colors.
Especially all of the orange.  :)

I'm excited to start, but I have to be honest.
I'm super nervous about the first day of school.
I'm kind of freaking out.

So, I'm off for the night to rest up.
I have to be in training tomorrow morning at 7:30 AM.
Holy moly!

Good Samaritan Venting

Ok ya'll, remember how I said it was hot in my neck of the woods?
Like, seriously hot.
The temperature hasn't fallen below 100 in what feels like forever.
That includes at night!
Way too hot to leave any animal outside for an extended period of time.



Well, yesterday, I was sleeping in while the hubby took our pup, Fritz, for a walk.

My sweet boy!

Anyways, hubby comes in after the walk, calling for me to get out of bed because he needs help.
Naturally, I think the worst... like Fritz has fallen into a hole and broken his leg or something.
I rush into the front room to see hubby, Fritz and his waggly tail, and...
A puppy in hubby's arms.

We are calling him Phillip J. Fry, Fry for short.

I pose this question: how does this always happen to us?
Last year, we found two kittens under the pool deck.

Tiny little things, they were so sweet.

It took a few weeks, but we were able to find them a great home.

And this year, we find a puppy.
A puppy who is a healthy male and not neutered.
A puppy who is super sweet, but very very energetic.
A puppy who needs to go outside almost every two hours.

And I start work in one week.
Fabulous.

We have posted a sign on the notice board of our complex.
We are going to wait a week to see if anyone calls, then go from there.
He's sweet, but I don't think we will end up keeping him.
We'll probably foster him until we can find him a good home.
But right now is just not a great time for a puppy.

Sigh.
I got virtually no work done this weekend, as you can imagine.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful, productive/relaxing weekend!

Award and August Currently!

Y'all, let me tell you.
It's HOT in Texas.
Thank goodness for sweet tea, I don't know what I'd do without it!

In other news, I received another award!
Hooray!

Thank you to Carrie at The Common Core Classroom for my nomination!

I now have to share 7 random facts about me. Let's see...

1. I am a HUGE nerd. I'm sure this fact hasn't escaped many of you, with all of my nerdy references going on. I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lord of the Rings, Firefly, many many video games, and I would probably die of happiness if J.K. Rowling announced another Harry Potter book (seriously, I'm a hardcore Harry Potter fan)! I embrace my nerdy-ness!

2. My husband and I met when I was 11 years old (he was 13). We "dated" for three years, then had a nasty fight and broke up. We didn't talk for six years, I was that mad at him. Then, when I turned 20 or so, we started talking again. Within two years, I was transferring to a college in Dallas so I could move in with him. Two years later, we were married! I think we were pretty much destined to be together!  

3. I really really really like Japanese animation. I have a huge anime collection (that I inhereted through my marriage... mwahahahaha!) and watch it all the time on Netflix. If I had the choice between live action TV and anime, I would probably choose anime. 

4. Orange is my favorite color. It was my wedding color, and it's going to play a huge part in my classroom. When I was little, I pretended to be Sailor Venus because she was the prettiest in her orange sailor suit! I love love looooooove orange!

5. I worry about everything because I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed when I was a teenager and have learned to manage it without medication. I'm so proud of myself for that! 

6. I wanted to be a psychologist before getting into education. My actual degree a double major in Child Learning and Development and Psychology. I also decided to tack on a teaching certification because it sounded like fun. I instantly fell in love - I love to teach! I knew there would be no way I could go back to psychology research after having been inside a classroom.

7. I'm a total sucker for Disney movies. My perfect day off would be sitting in bed,watching classic Disney all day long. They remind me of my childhood and good times with my mom and grandparents (I'm also basically a kid trapped in a 20-soomething-year-old's body, hehe!)

Those are my random facts!
I must not be very interesting, I struggled to come up with them!

Here are my nominations (I'm short a 10 because blogger is not cooperating with me! I will add on when it is working!):

1. The Newbie Lou 
2. Mrs. Kelly's Class 
3. Slick tricks for Grade Six 
4. Time for 4th Grade
5. Teaching 4 Real 

Follow these rules to to claim your award:
1.  Thank who nominated you.
2.  Include a link back to who nominated you.
3.  Include the award image in your post.
4.  Give 7 random facts about yourself in your post.
5.  Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award.
6.  When nominating, include a link back to their blog in your post.
7.  Let the bloggers you nominate know by leaving them a comment.

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Lastly, I'm linking up with Farley for her August Currently linky party!


Here is my August Currently:

Here's my cookie dough!

For those of you who are not as nerdy as I am, or have not memorized every line from every episode of every Buffy the Vampire Slayer Series, my room being "cookie dough" means that it's a work in progress. Here's the actual quote from Buffy:

"Because—OK, I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming whoever the h___ it is I'm gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat— or enjoy warm, delicious cookie me, then... that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done."

Clearly, she was talking about relationships. I'm talking about my classroom.
But hey, the it works!

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This is how my room looked when I walked into it for the very first time. Woah. This is from the door looking straight.

Remember this? This is from last week. 

TA DA! The small shelves are my class library books. The left shelf is fiction books and the right is nonfiction.
It's not as organized as I would like - I really wanted to use bins for everything. But those books were dusty and it was super hot, so this will work for awhile!

I swear, I was so relieved to have this finished! 
The blue bins on the shelves are where my leveled readers will go (once I've sorted them), and the blue bins on top are for various book recommendations. Labels will be put on them on August 24th, or the next time I am allowed in my room... whichever comes first!


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This is another view of how my room looked when I first walked in. This is from the door, looking left.

This is what was behind the butcher paper on the shelf. More stuff to tackle, woo hoo! 

Here it is now!!! This is my "desk". I'm going to get rid of my actual desk - a table works just fine for me so I can mean with small groups. I wish I had a kidney table, though! This isn't anywhere near what the finalized product will look like, but it's a lot better than the craziness I started with!

The hubs playing teacher!

What's that writing behind him? Oh, it's old information that was behind the tile board that was nailed to the chalkboard. From 2004. I decided to take the tile board down so I can replace it and make bulletin board sidings and got a good laugh when I saw this! 

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Last photo of when I first walked into my room. Yikes. This is from the door, looking toward the back left.

And here it is now! I still have tons of stuff to put away, but it's definitely brighter. AND the blinds are semi fixed, woo hoo! I am so in love with my bright orange board. :)

PS Here... Seriously, bulletin boards? I hate them! It is not easy to get all the paper and borders up so that it looks perfect!  I finally said that it looked good enough (from far away), but it drove me crazy!

Hehe, I just thought this one was cute. Silly hubby :)

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So there you have it, my cookie-dough, work-in-progress room!

The bad news?

They start to wax the floors in my hallway tomorrow.

That means I can't get back in until August 20-24. 

Which means August 24 for me, because I have a week of New Teacher Academy!

Argh!

But the hubs is going to take August 24 off and help me finish up my room.

He is a very handy guy to have around, we got so much accomplished already!

Whew, all better. 

So, I came home and put together several to-do lists. 

I also brought tons of stuff home with me to sort through. 

So I will keep myself plenty busy in the next week and a half crossing things off my list!

I just wish I didn't still have stuff I had to purchase. 

I'm seriously running on empty. :(

Oh well, it will pay off in the long run!

Has anyone else started working on their room yet?