About Me

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I'm a mid twenties girl. Who has the cutest two boys ever. I'm married to the best hubby ever (aka the Man). I'm also a teacher of sixth grade with a masters degree in Education. I'd rather be busy than bored. I love things bright and beautiful and my family means the world to me.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Giving thanks!

I've been working slowly on my Thanksgiving post and thinking of what I'm thankful of. Yes, I'm sure many others are doing the same things, but there's nothing wrong with following a good trend. Today's morning question (we have one everyday on the board that my students have to write a very short response to- its an easy way to take attendance and learn about your kids) brought about a wonderful answer.

The question was, what are you most looking forward to over break?

I got standard answers of sleeping in, no school, no homework, turkey, hunting, and things like that. One student, such a sweetheart, put:
"Giving thanks for everything I"m blessed with throughout each year- especially my teacher and friends."

Melt my heart it was so sweet. When I had a moment I slipped a note on her desk saying that I felt blessed she was in my class and I was thankful for her and her classmates everyday. The boy sitting next to her read it and I overheard him say, "I bet she's serious too." Lovely :)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Today was a great day!

I've been hoping for a day like today. We had a busy day, but got a lot accomplished. All the students (including my "stressor") had a good day. Smiles and laughter all around. An even better part would have to be that I just finished grading their test over the novel we've been reading and they ROCKED it.

Just had to share that after my "rant" the other day. Here's hoping for a repeat!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Christmas List part 1

As the holiday catalogs and e-mails come rolling in I have flashbacks to being a younger, care-free, mortgage free, greedy Christmas list making girl. Since I missed the Wednesday outfit post I thought I could share some of the items I'm loving. Please feel free to pick one and send it to put under my tree. Yes, I realize we're absolute strangers, but tis the season for giving right :)

Starting with Gap: (Thank goodness for the discount!)



I'm a huge lover of scarves and winter vests. A super easy combo that keeps me cool when I'm running errands and don't want to fuss with a bulky coat. I think the dress and skirt would be cute with a black turtle neck and tights.
* Today we had our store meeting for our Holiday season, let me just say I volunteered to work more so that I can afford some of the things I saw.

Next stop would be Old Navy:

 A girl can never have too many ruffles. NEVER!

And to round out the brand Banana Republic:



Hopefully the Man takes a gander at this post :)





Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Teacher Rant

I hoped not to do this. I thought I could avoid it. But being that I like to think of this as some type of online journal I would like to take a quick moment to vent. About today. About teaching.

I love, love my job. No questions about it. I love being around my students. The last week has just felt extremely trying. My team mate has no problem with put-downs. She won't directly say it, which is almost worse, she infers that you don't meet her standards or that you are doing something different from her, which is CLEARLY wrong of course. I am not a confrontational person. She is much older than me, she's about 10 years older than my mom. Deep down I know that talking with her might be of benefit for me, but I don't feel that any good would come of it. So I'm working on letting it go.

I have a student, honestly 1 out of my 24, that is really stressing me. I've gotten e-mails from his mother about how much he hates school, he feels I hate him, that all I do is yell in class, and treat him completely different than anyone else. After some discussion with the mother through email and a 1-on-1 talk with student it has been realized that he isn't being honest with either one of us. Once mom realized this she canceled a face-to-face conference with all of us and is now putting the student in therapy. I am at the point where I'm documenting any interaction I have with this student within two hours of the interaction so that I can go back if need be to recall what exactly occurred. Luckily after talking with some school personnel they're going to step in and require that mom come in.

Today we struggled with linking and action verbs. Tomorrow I'll re-teach, we'll re-visit our work and we'll try again.

I just got an e-mail from a parent that his son's test was graded incorrectly. The answer for #5 was graded incorrectly. But I shouldn't worry because he went through the rest of the test and checked for any errors- there weren't any. He was also kind enough to add, "If you'd like me to look over your answer key before you grade other tests I'd love too. Science was my favorite." I kid you not. 

I've decided 7 days of yuckiness is enough. Tomorrow will be good. I'm not going to read a single parent e-mail during the day :) I will stop doubting my teaching abilities and continue to work with my students the best way I can. Thanks for letting me vent, I feel better.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Just some randoms...

  • I haven't logged onto to blogger since Sunday evening. I haven't read any blogs, checked any coupon or sales, and feel like I'm missing a lot. Is that sad?
  • Tomorrow I have an meeting after school with a student and his mother. Apparently he's been telling his mother I yell at him, hate him, and when I talked with him today he had no idea what I was talking about. He mentioned that his mother likes to exaggerate. It's going to be a oozy!
  • Up here in the frozen tundra its cooled down to 40 degrees for the next few days, but by next week we're back in the 50's. So weird, I feel like winter is going to come in with a vengeance.
  • Today we did "Candy review". I asked questions, if the student got it right they got a piece of candy. Finally we are rid of one bucket of candy at our house. This is clearly an example of how horrible a teacher I am.
  • The b-day party went fabulous! Our neighbors are awesome at dressing up in costumes, plus the kids had a fantastic time.
  • Tucker is in LOVE with his bunk beds, he lasted about 5 minutes in the top bunk on the first night and has spent the rest of his nights in the bottom bunk.
  • Report cards are due tomorrow afternoon, hence the blog missing.
  • I'm hopefully back, with pictures to come this weekend.
  • Happy Friday all!!!!