School Days

It has been a long times since I have participated in FTSF, so I am excited to join back in. This weeks prompt is:

"I'm done with school, but..."

I had an idea when I sat down to write, but then thought of something else. Now I am not sure which one to go with! Ok, I'll go with both.

1) "I'm done with school, but..." I miss having a locker. I loved having a locker from the time I got one in fifth grade and cleaned out my last one my senior year. I shared a locker in seventh grade with my best friend, Holly, and we had it decorated in the coolest way! 

I actually still have a few of the things we had in our locker!

My freshman year I shared with Aimee and all the fights happened in front of our locker! It was so exciting!

The other three years were strategically placed next to my friends, and we all had access to each other's lockers. We were cool. 

I can't really put my finger on why I liked having a locker so much. It was just so cool to me.

2) "I'm done with school, but..." we still have 34 days left. This one applies more to today and my teaching. I have sever summer-itis. I am having a hard time getting up each morning and getting dressed each morning is like climbing Everest. It isn't like I don't like my class, but truth be told, I want to be a little lazy for a few days. Maybe spring break will help with this.

All the other aspects of school pretty much still apply to me. I get to go school clothes shopping, I get new school supplies each year, I go threw the first day of school, school pictures, school lunch, school work, homework, just on a different level at times.

How would you finish this sentence?

Thinking Out Loud

Well hello! It's been what seems like forever! I have missed blogging and hopefully you have missed reading.

It has been busy here and for the next three weeks, I don't see it slowing down much. Oh wait, unless you call the slow walking I have to do around my classroom during state testing, slow.

I decided that I would do another Thinking Out Loud post and hopefully get out a few of the things I thought about blogging about all week.

We had parent teacher conferences this week, which equaled two 12 hour days at the office. I like the spring conferences better because they are quicker. Everyone has figured everything out by now and are 4th grade pros. It is more of a huddle with a plan for the fourth quarter and how to finish out the year.

I finished this book and gave it five stars! My students are loving it as a read-aloud and would be plum ticked if I read it the whole reading hour. I also got my signed sticker-thingy to put in my own copy (when I find one) from the author. I decided that I REALLY want to be Natalie's best friend. Where do I find an application? She wrote a sweet note to go with it and I showed my class with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Spindiddly!

The SOL project with my small group is going AMAZING! They girls are enjoying it and I am enjoying reading their slices. I had a few parents mention it at conferences and how much they are enjoying it. Mission accomplished.

My sister came to visit this weekend and we made a day of yesterday! We started out with a 5k for St. Patrick's Day and now I can barely move, but it was a bonding moment for the two of us. We had lunch with some work friends of mine and then went to get coffee and ran into our high school teacher from back home. It was probably the craziest thing to see he and his wife walk in the store, five hours away from home. It was good to see them even it was only for a few minutes.
We ended the night at the Ranch with breakfast for dinner. How happy is the syrup bottle? It was nice to share a meal with family and friends followed by a few friendly games of Spoons and Dominoes!

And now this is my goal for Sunday....

Guest Staring....ME!

I think it is official. I have been asked to guest blog! Does that mean I have made it in the blogging world? In my book it does!

Hop on over to Brielle and Me and check it out!

I have really enjoyed getting to know Kerith and her family through her blog and we have even chatted about meeting up. How cool is that?!

Huge *heart flutter* for sure!

Do OCD Moments Matter?

OCD, quirks, whatever you would like to call them, we all have them. Sheldon Cooper may be the current king of OCD. I also thought of Monica from Friends and her moments. I mean she has a label for the label maker!

My train of thought stumbled upon some of my own quirks this morning and I got to thinking more about them. Are they things that I can over come? Do they really matter?

I was thinking about my SOL challenge in my classroom and how on Monday I am going to give the ones who wrote their slices over the weekend a sticker. Would I let them pick what sticker they wanted, or would I control what sticker they picked? I like to use one sheet of stickers at a time and use them as they come on the sheet. (As I type this, I am thinking how silly this sounds! They are stickers for cryin' in the night!)

Another example, back in December we had a high intensity situation at school and the whole day was spent with the teachers just trying to make sure that the students felt safe. At one point some of my students asked if they could draw on the board. I despise students drawing on my board. They always manage to make a mess out of it and there is always a lighter color marker that is now stained a darker color when they are finished. Yet that day, I knew that they needed to have that moment, so I sucked it up and let them and tried not to watch.

You know what, I lived through it. My markers weren't destroyed and the board was easily cleaned after they went home.

It wasn't that big of a deal, and neither will the choice of sticker they use.

In one of my favorite books by Sharon Creech, one lesson learned by the characters is:

"In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?"

Does it matter in a week if they used the fifth sticker on the sheet and not the next one in line? Does it matter in a month if the orange marker has a little blue in it when it writes?

Nope, the marker still writes what I want to write on the board and the sticker did it's job at rewarding the student. 

I am going to try to remind myself of this lesson whenever I want to cringe and say no to something that might be an OCD/quirk moment, because in the course of a lifetime, it probably doesn't really matter.

What is one of your OCD/quirks? Can you overcome it?

March

As I stated in yesterday's post, February is over and that means that March is here! I am indifferent when it comes to March, but I do like the beginning of any month. It just seems like a new beginning and new adventures.

This March is bringing a new adventure for a few of us in fourth grade. We are unofficially participating in the Slice of Life Classroom Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. I since it is so new to me, I am only doing it with about seven or eight students. They all volunteered and seemed excited about it. I hope that they remember that it starts today even though it is Saturday and we aren't at school. I am participating also, but won't be posting all of them as blog posts. I hope to show case some of my student's slices at some point during this month. Kind of like a guest blogger.

On another note, I have three new obsessions, one being only hours old:
Diet Dr. Pepper
Almond Roca
Natalie Lloyd

If I could get all three together in the same place then I might just be in heaven! The dogs needed to use the loo around four this morning and then I couldn't get back to sleep so I picked up A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd and couldn't put it down! The language in it is superb! The way she describes things is an explosion for the senses. I then went and looked for her on-line and found her blog. I want to read every post she has ever written! I have just found my new read-aloud book starting on Monday!

Here are a few other things that will be happening in March:
~The Prattes return from NZ and I move back into my own humble abode
~Parent/Teacher conferences
~A day off after conferences (love these days!)
~State testing (possibly the longest two weeks of my life)
~St. Patrick's 5K
~My dad comes home from working in Kansas since the beginning of Jan.
~Guest post over at Brielle and Me
~Hopefully some unexpected adventures

What are you looking forward to this month?
Do you have any new obsessions?

February Sweet Summer Fling Update

February is over....already. For such a short month, it really was a long one. March could fly by since it will be a very busy one. Hopefully it isn't too busy to get some reading completed.

Here is my Sweet Summer Fling 2014 recap.

I only got two books crossed off of my list, which is one less then I calculated to finish in time.

I wanted to adore this book since I adore Anne, but it was hard to get through. There were parts that I liked and where Anne shined through. This makes me worried about the last two of the series, but I will read them.

This is the third book of Meg Cabot's "Boy" series. I like these books because they are written in email, letters, notes, and IM messages. It makes for a quick read and since I too like to write these myself, I enjoy it. This one was also a little harder to get through. Predictable and but by the end, the boy gets the girl and we learn that every boy has a heart somewhere.

I did get a few children's books in and truth be told, I enjoyed them more. I also read a book for book club.

Book club choice
3 stars

Newest Newbery Medal winner
4 stars

2 stars

4 stars

What did you read this month?

Remember How I Teach Grammar?

Remember the time that I participated for the first time in Slice of Life?

Remember how it was about my grandmother and the fun drink that she made me growing up?

And remember the glaring grammar mistake that I made?

Yeah, the one that I am known for correcting students for whenever they use it wrong.

The one that just this last Sunday the Sunday Morning Show on CBS talked about.

The one that I teach the students every year.

The one that my grandmother taught me and made sure I used correctly.

I am talking about the rule for using "I" and "me" correctly in a sentence.

Yes, somehow I used them incorrectly. My sentence was, "she made them for my sister and I." It clearly is supposed to be "me."

I was horrified this morning when I checked my email and had a message from a dear friend pointing out this mistake. Not only am I a teacher and I know better, there were several teachers/writers that read my last post and I am sure where thinking what kind of a teacher I must be since I so easily messed that one up. I quickly changed it.

Then laughed about it with Kris, my team teacher, until tears rolled down my cheeks. 

So, if you read my post yesterday, go back and read it again and see that it is now correct. Now that's not to say that there are other mistakes, but this one embarrassed me the most! ;0)

P.S Don't look at commas!