Kinder Tribe Linky Party-Getting to know this Kinder Teacher

I am linking up with the Kinder Tribe for their first Linky party. Below you will find a little bit about me.

Ever since having my daughter I have learned to love coffee! I drink it with lots of flavored cream or just lots of cream and sugar.  I have found that I function better when I have had a cup of coffee in the morning than on days that I do not.  

I absolutely LOVE flair pens!!! I just went and bought a new set yesterday and don't remember them being that expensive but they are worth it because I love the way they write.

I discovered Sneezy the Snowman a couple of years ago and have found that it provides a story that can help teach many different standards.  My students love making predictions while reading the story, revisiting the story and recalling the details in order and adding on to the story using their imaginations.

Mrs Wills' always has such great inspirational ideas on her blog!  I love how she writes as if she is having a conversation with you.  

My absolute favorite part of teaching Kindergarten is seeing the major growth that EVERY child makes throughout the school year. Even my lowest child makes drastic improvement from the beginning of the year.

I hope you have enjoyed learning more about me!  Click here to go back to the original post and get to know other K teacher bloggers.  

Five for Friday

I am once again joining with Doodle Bugs Teaching to summarize my week.  I feel like it has been an  uneventful week, but after traveling for two weeks I am perfectly ok with that.  

Luckily I have amazing in laws who were willing to watch our crazy dog while we were away.  He did get boarded over the 4th of July weekend so that they could go away as well.  While he was boarded he must've picked up kennel cough, he got the shot for it when he got to the vet but apparently it works best if given a couple of days before boarding.  He has been on cough medicine and antibiotics all week.  It is a very odd sound to hear when he coughs.  

Since being home my baby is now more of a walker than a crawler.  She will still crawl periodically but prefers to walk.  It is a whole new "ball game" now that she is walking.  She is into everything and I feel like it is harder to keep her interested in things because she always wants to be on the move.  I love and hate it all at the same time!  

This week involved lots of unpacking of bags and suitcases.  I  feel successful because I was able to unpack and put away the majority of our stuff while keeping the baby entertained.  Usually I would've saved this for nap or after she is in bed but there was so much to get done and unpacked.  

I got a Lilly planner!  I am hoping that it helps me to stay more organized both personally and professionally.  I am planning on keeping it in my purse so that I always have it on me and can use it for both home and school.  I have been feeling overwhelmed and as if I am not getting anything done.  Hopefully making lists in the planner helps.  

Our 2 year anniversary is Sunday and for anniversary/birthday presents we decided to get Fitbits.  They are supposed to be delivered today and we are both excited for the UPS truck to bring them.  I am sure I will have updates next week.  

Hope that you guys have all had a relaxing yet productive week!  Check out what other teachers have been up to this week by clicking here and looking at the bottom of that post.  

Five for Friday

Happy Friday!!! I have taken a break from this Linky Party for the last couple of weeks because I've been busy simply enjoying the summer and spending time with my baby.

These past couple of weeks have also been busy weeks of traveling which included visits with family and friends. We made it to Michigan Saturday afternoon!  I get so excited when I see the Pure Michigan sign.  

Being "home" also means we get to visit all of my favorite places that I miss so much! Guernsey's has the best ice cream I have ever had. A. has never wanted or liked ice cream before, but she loved it from there. She must just know good ice cream. 

We also went to the splash pad near my dad's house. It was our first time visiting a splash pad. It took her a while to warm up but she ended up loving it. 

Since we are "home" my family has been eager to entertain my little one which has left me with some free time to work on my classroom decor packet.  The numbers and letter are already posted in my TpT store I am currently working on center signs and job cards. I also have many more ideas to include in this packet. I am hoping to have it posted on TpT by next week.  

I also worked on finishing some TpT items that I started in the Spring as part of the TpT Sellers Challenge. My students loved these centers and they truly helped solidify their subtraction skills. I noticed a few mistakes in them when using them with my students so I was finally able to look at them more closely and correct (hopefully) all the mistakes.

I hope everyone has had an enjoyable week!! Check out what other teachers have been up to by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom. 

Have a great weekend!!

Rock Your First Year Teaching Linky Party

Happy Wednesday!!! I have joined up with Teaching with Crayons & Curls and My Mommy Reads to offer new teachers advice and to help them learn from my mistakes.  I am very late to the party!  I had started this post about a week ago and never finished it.  This weekend was a crazy weekend and we are preparing for vacation so I have not had time to sit down and finish it.

Your first year of teaching is something that you have envisioned for a while. It is a time full of mixed emotions-excitement, fear, happiness and stress.  All of these feelings are perfectly normal and I'm sure the majority of teachers can relate to them. I always have these feelings as the beginning of the school year approaches and this will be my ninth year of teaching.

1.  Take notes of what went well and what you could do better. I always had a lot of ideas that I thought were great but when I actually did them there were lots of room of improvement. 

2.  Find a good support system to collaborate with at your school.  They may be other teachers on your grade level or teachers not on your grade level.  These people will help keep you sane, develop lessons and help you to realize that things will be ok and it's not the end of the world when your lesson does not go as planned.  

3.  Take time for yourself. Do not immerse yourself in work that you are not giving yourself time to breathe.  Go for a pedicure, go out for drinks with friends, read a book, visit with family.  Do whatever makes you relax and get back to your happy place.  You will be a better teacher knowing that you have had time to yourself.  

1.  Do not stay at school working until the wee hours of the night.  You SHOULD NOT be closing the building down each day.  While it is good to be prepared and plan for the following day you need to take time to be with your family or by yourself and enjoy time away from teaching.  Working and having your brain think about teaching all the time will eventually leave you feeling burnt out.

2.  Don't stress if an observation doesn't go as planned.  There is always room for improvement.  This is where a good support system really helps out and helps you realize that while your lesson did not go as planned it also wasn't as bad as you think it was.  

Enjoy your first year! Know that you will make mistakes and that's ok. It will be a year full of learning for your students as well as yourself. Learn from your mistakes and know that the following year will be even better. I feel like my second year of teaching was my best year of teaching.

I hope that this provided some guidance and insight to help you have a successful first year of teaching.  Click on these links here and here to see what kind of great advice other teachers are offering!  

TPT Challenge Week 1-Makeover Madness

I am participating in the TPT challenge that will take place over a four week period with a new challenge each week.  This week the challenge is called Makeover Madness.  This is something I had planned to do this summer with many of my products.  I choose to makeover the Polka Dot and Chalkboard Alphabet Posters.  My classroom theme last year was polka dots and chalkboard and this was one of my first products I created for TPT.  I used this in my classroom this past school year and realized some changes needed to be made to this product.  When it was originally created, the product consisted of 2 alphabet letters on each page.  This was a great size for word walls, but I felt that it would have been nice to have them on a full sized page.  I also noticed that some of the vowel pictures as well as one consonant picture was slightly confusing.  The vowels used the long vowel sounds rather than the short and the letter G had a picture of what should have been a glove, but actually looked like a mitten.  I wanted all the vowels to be uniform in their long vowel or short vowel sounds.  Initially, the sounds that we teach for vowels are short vowels, so it made sense to have all short vowel sounds on the cards.  Also the cover on the initial product was boring, not colorful, had no pictures, and did not accurately describe the product.  

The revamped version contains a bright, colorful, picture filled cover.  It also has two sizes for posters-half sized alphabet and whole page.  There is a preview of the different sized pages available below the cover picture.  This product is on sale for the next four days.  Check out product makeover's from other teachers here.  

Five for Friday

I am once again linking up with DoodleBugs Teaching Five for Friday linky party.  

This has been my first full week home since being on summer break!  It has been great to have a chance to get the house in order and to sleep in my own bed after a week on vacation.  

On Sunday I linked up with hundreds (maybe even thousands) of other TPT sellers for the TPT Seller Challenge hosted by  Third in Hollywood, Sparkling in Second, Teach Create Motivate, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista.  I have loved meeting new teachers via social media and learning new ideas.  One of the first things that this challenged asked us to do was to record our stats at the beginning and again at the end(which will be 4 weeks later).  Here are my stats...

The first challenge was to revamp products to make th more appealing to buyers. This is something I had been planning to do this summer so it was a nice "nudge" to get moving. Check out my before and after pics below.  Hopefully I will have a blogpost up about this today or tomorrow.  This product can be found here in my store.  

This is our first official week being home during summer. We spent last week on vacation. We have gotten the chance to catch up with friends and have play dates. My child has loved playing with all her friends toys that she does not have. 

                                               

My baby got her first haircut Wednesday. She does not like to leave the ponytail on her hair in order to keep it out of her eyes, so it was time for a haircut.

                          

On Wednesday night my phone started displaying messages around 10pm that a church in our downtown area had been the victim of a shooting.  9 people were killed while attending a prayer service that evening.  I still can not grasp the awfulness that took place in such a holy place.  Luckily the shooter has been arrested.  I am proud of the way the people of Charleston came together in this terrible tragedy in prayer vigils.  Please keep the families of the victims in your prayers.  

Teaching with Intention Chapter 3 Book Study

I am once again joining in on the book study, Teaching With Intentions put together by Kindergarten Smorgasboard.  You can find Chapter 1 here and Chapter 2 here if you missed them.  This week host's are Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching, Surfing Through Second, and The Learning Chambers.

This chapter talked about Classroom Environment.  One of the key points that Debbie Miller made was that classrooms can always be changed throughout the school year.  I am constantly changing up my classroom in little ways throughout the year.  I generally keep the set up the same as far as furniture from year to year.  This past year I did rearrange some shelfs to make more space for the blocks center and to provide a bigger shelf for students to store their materials on.  I also created signs for centers that hung on ribbon.  This helped me to organize materials more precisely and also helped students know where to go for specific centers.

I like her idea of "clearing the decks" and getting rid of things that we do not need.  I moved schools 3 years ago and still feel that I am throwing random stuff away each year that I discover the previous teacher left.  I am also going through my own teaching materials and getting rid of items that I have not used in a while.  This past year I shifted to using centers more than anything else.  I plan on creating a system to organize them all this summer.  My ideal organization system would have the centers categorized by standards so I can easily meet standards that are presented within our units.

I love the way Debbie Miller closes this chapter "Classroom environments are organic-they grow as we do.  The best of them reflect the hearts and souls of those who inhabit them.  They're never really finished.  They're never really "done".  How could they be, when every day students and teachers learn something new?"  I love this idea of having the environment grow throughout the year to accompany my own needs as well as the students needs.

Check out what other teacher's thought about this chapter by clicking here.  Have a great Wednesday!

Five for Friday

I am joining with Doodle Bugs Teaching again this week to sum up my week in their Five For Friday weekly linky party.  I have had a relaxing first week of summer vacation with my family and our friends in Destin, FL. We rented a cute house just two blocks away from the beach.  Here is a snippet of how we spent our week....

The house we rented had a pool in the backyard.  It has been a wonderful thing with a one year old!  She has enjoyed climbing in and out of the pool, swimming in her floatie, collecting the rocks around the deck and playing with her toys outside of the pool rather than in the actual pool. 

Being two blocks away from the beach was a lot of fun and allowed us to walk there daily.  The baby enjoyed playing in the sand and burying her toys.  She spent a long time building sandcastles with us.  

It rained all morning on Thursday.  After breakfast, we went exploring to see what else was around the area and discovered an outlet mall with a Vera Bradley Outlet Store.  I had heard of these stores but never been to one.  I was so excited to go in there!!!  All of their products were 50% off and some were even 70% off.  Much to my husband's dismay, I left with 2 purses, a wallet, lanyard and 2 pairs of sandals.  

Spending time with our friends was so much fun!  Each night after the baby went to bed we would eat dinner then play games.  Two of our favorite games were Bananagrams and Cards Against Humanity.  Bananagrams was so much fun!  Cards Against Humanity was hysterical and disturbing all at the same time.  

 

The guys went deep sea fishing on Monday morning and caught a huge amount of fish.  We froze several pounds to take back home but also cooked some throughout the week.  It was nice to have such fresh fish.  

I hope that everyone had a great week!  Check out Doodle Bugs Teaching Post to find out what other teachers did this week.  See you next week!

Theresa