Birthday Week

My birthday is next Saturday so I thought it would be fun to have a linky party to share what types of things you do in your classroom to celebrate birthdays!

Throughout the week, I will be posting different ideas that I have found in blogland. Some might not necessarily be from educational blogs, but hey can't everything be adapted to fit into a classroom?

 

This whole weekend has been jam packed for me! I feel like I just left school. My sister, Lexi had a dance recital Friday night (she did A-MAZING), I hung out with my father-in-law yesterday while my hubby and mother-in-law went on the hunt for a new wagon, and today Lexi has a soccer game & it's ladies night out at church. Busy -busy!

I will post the way I celebrate birthdays in my classroom tomorrow!

Until then, have a great Sunday!

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Friday Freebie for TBA

Hi!

Welcome back to my world of crazy!

Since today was my designated day to post something for Friday Freebies over at the fabulous Teaching Blog Addict site!

Ever have those times where you wish you had a quick print out to give your students when you want to celebrate a birthday or retirement? Or what about when a student has been out sick? Or lost a family member?

I learned the best idea from my supervising teacher while I was student teaching. She had these pre-made templates for special occasions that she would just copy and pass out. Then the kiddos would fill out the sheet and place inside a large piece of construction paper. Staple along the side. Decorate the front and back.

Voila-you have a very special and meaningful book that those students or adults will cherish forever (at least I hope the do-I am basically basing this assumption on the fact that I love receiving special notes so why wouldn't everyone else??)

Click here to find a whole packet of special notes!

The file contains:

Welcome to Our Classroom

Welcome to First Grade

(Welcome to all the grades up to 6th grade)

Goodbye

Thank You

Happy Retirement

Happy Birthday

Get Well Soon

Thinking of You

Hope you enjoy & don't forget to visit TBA for an amazing resource of teachers!



Hard to title post...

Ok well it's been a long time since I posted anything. Over a month if you're keeping track. I'm sure all my followers have since moved on to bigger, better green pastures. But if you are still putting up with my neglect, then here's a big ice cream treat from me to you!

Now for an update on my life...

I officially have no job for next year.

I mentioned in my last post that my union president was very convinced that I had a case against my administration for wrongly terminating me. Everyone told me it was an easy case with an obvious outcome..me winning.

However, the steam has passed and my union president isn't as ambitous now that the end of the school year is here. I was told that the school would simply "lawyer up" and retract their statements to me. Then just come up with a more specific reason for letting me go.

I don't really have a whole lot to say about it anymore....I've cried my tears, yelled my angry words, prayed until I feel as though I'm hurting God's eardrums, and now I'm left with unemployement. I'm also left with the 100% belief that I was not meant to be at that school. In comparison to most other districts, this one can be summed up in one word *crazy*.

I haven't told my students yet...I don't know how. They keep asking me why I'm taking things off my walls when I will just have to put it all back up next year. How do I respond to that without bursting into tears? I don't know that answer yet, so I try to ignore. Not the best choice, I'm sure but it's all I can manage right now.

I have applied at one other school. I know, you're all thinking only one school! That's all that's out there in my area right now. And since we just moved back last year, we don't exactly have the excitement to up and move a hundred some miles away again. But if any of you know of some promising employement opportunities in your districts, I wouldn't be opposed to applying.

I'm praying that the Lord will guide my steps. He brought me back to NY for this job, so I know he has a plan.

In other news, my hubby is playing at Oakmont in Pittsburg, PA on Mon & Tues!! This is a huge deal. The US Open was played there a few years ago and according to the mister, it's a pretty intense course. SO lots of prayers that he plays his best and continues to be a good testimony on the golf course.

Also, he beat Arnold Palmer's grandson at the qualifying round. He didn't seem too excited about that, but the way I look at is his name was probably maybe mentioned in a conversation between a golf legend and his grandson. Which is a giant deal!!!

Only 10 more days with my firsties. Very bittersweet. Check back tomorrow for some freebies!

I'm still here...

I have sat down & started typing this post maybe a hundred times over the past two weeks.

I just couldn't do it.

My hearts been heavy (as have my eyes from the stress & tears).

I feel like a complete failure.

Like I chose the wrong profession.

 Like maybe I didn't follow God's plan for my life.

Shortly after break I was told that I was being let go after this school year.

I was told that it was for budget reasons by one person & teacher performance by another.

I have never received an unsatisfactory mark on my observations and was told I was making good progress towards our school's teacher development plan, which ultimately decides our tenure.

In all honesty, I was trapped in the middle of something that I couldn't control.

After meeting with my union president (& his meeting with our union rep for NYS), it was determined that what my school is doing to me is illegal.

 It's a long, messy story & as much as I would love to vent and share it with my fellow bloggy friends ( I wish I could so that I could get some honest advice), I really can't just blast all the gory details over the internet. Never know who reads this lil 'ol blog of mine.

Now the choice is mine whether or not I want to pursue the option of keeping my job.

A whole lot of prayer and longing for the Lord's guidance has been going on.

How will I know if I'm making the right decision?

Just in the time since I was told about my job, the Lord has brought some pretty amazing people into my life. People I never knew shared my faith. Isn't that amazing how He knows just what to send our way when we need it most?

My first thought was oh no, what will this mean for my husbands dream? We had just decided to take a huge leap of faith and let him pursue his dream & here I was losing our only income. Satan has made every attempt to break me. I'm struggling, in all honesty. This is hard. I'm trying to be a light in such a dark situation. I'm trying not to let this affect how I am with my firsties. I'm trying to answer everyone's question of "what next, what now, where are you applying" with a kind heart and soft words. It's really hard.

I know there is a perfect plan for my life and this is just a speed bump. I appreciate all of you and your uplifting posts. I haven't been completely gone. I just haven't been in the right mind to post anything happy.

I'm hoping I can turn that attitude around because I have fallen in love with this blog world. I look forward to checking blogs on my lunch break & rushing home to check them after work. You are all such an inspiration to me & you could never know how much you have helped me these past few weeks just by doing what you do. 

Just amazing teachers sharing their passion with the rest of us.

I hope I haven't scared you all away with my rather emotional post.

 It was time to write this.

Time to put it out there.

 Time to admit that things aren't always perfect in my life.

Time to admit that I need prayer.

I need support.

 I need a smiling face.

So, thank you all for being those things for me.

Later Gator!

Oh my goodness! Talk about exhaustion.

We are back at school and moving right along.

I'm (mostly) teaching from my chair right now.

I can't walk my class to lunch or specials because of the stairs.

 I have to teach my math lesson with an ice pack on my knee.

After 8 hours of school, I get to go suffer 1 hour of physical therapy (NO FUN).

I'm pretty much a mess, not to mention completely wiped out and it's only the 2nd day back to school.

Ok whining is over...now on to the good stuff :)

A fabulous gal that student taught at the same time I did was at a conference I went to and let me tell ya...I need to get this girl a blog. She is incredible. I think it's safe to say I'm very jealous of her ideas. I could probably write 100 blog posts specifically for her ideas.

One of her stellar ideas is to have one of these babies.

A Later Gator board.

You all know how little time we really have to teach skills at a mastery level.

This is one way to help at least get those kiddos heading in that direction.

After I'm done teaching a lesson, I always have little ones saying I'm confused or can you show me a little more please. SO here is the solution to that problem, since we also know that it's impossible to stop everyone else who understood the lesson to work with the one struggling (at least not for an extended period of time)

When this happens, I simply say "tell me later gator."

Then they go over to this board, write their name & question on a post-it, & pop it right up on the board.

During DEAR time & at the end of the day during snack, I will pull any student who posted something on the later gator board and work with them on the skill they are struggling with.

It's worked great so far---I only started it yesterday, so I guess I can't really offer up a huge opinion about it yet. But my super teacher friend swears by it. I'll keep you posted on how it's working in my classroom.

(By the way: how awesome is my hubby? He draws everything for me-it's amazing!! AND he is game when I bring home different projects and ask him ever so kindly to get to work :) Yea..he's great!)

Description stickers for new behavior plan

Silly me didn't really think this whole post sequence thing out. I should have waited until I had everything finished and posted it all together. But I didn't. So here is the (hopefully) final piece of the puzzle.

These are the stickers that I will place on the pockets of the shoe organizer. Since I have 19 students and only 24 pockets, some pockets will have to have 2 stickers (which means 2 different color cards). No big deal though.

For some reason, the words all seem to have a gray glow. Google docs is doing something funky with the colors obviously, but I promise when you download the original, you will get the true colors.

I printed these off on Avery White Shipping Labels (48264). The template number is 5164. (If you aren't sure how to set up this label template in Mircrosoft Word, email me & I'll help ya out)

1st Label sheet

2nd Label Sheet





WOW cards

Here are the WOW cards that I'll be using with my new behavior plan.

Hope they can help some of you out who might be in the same "behavior" rut that I was in :)

Download here

Scribd Version