Honeydew Punch

I am currently doing a happy dance and a big hooray for the weekend!! The school district that I work for has alternating Fridays off, and this is my short week.  I just love it.  I had a some great days in the high school, and today I got to teach Grade 12 Calculus and Math 11.  It is always nerve racking thrilling arriving at school and frantically trying to remember logarithmic and exponential functions before the students arrive.  I AM a risk taker (at least I tell myself that) Hehe.  But I did manage to remember the information I have not used and HELP students, WAHOO! Hopefully my next week on call is just as successful.

Recently I have been working on positive behavior punch cards.  I absolutely love these in the classroom, and have found that they can make a huge difference with many students (I even saw them at the high school this week too :) ).  As I was creating these my "Man of the House" became curious about what these are and how they work.  I explained to him that when I catch the students doing something good or displaying positive behavior I reward them by giving them a punch.  When they fill up their punch card they can cash in their card for a special reward.  Well..... my "Man of the House's" eyes lit up and he asked "Can I have one?" as if this was the best thing since sliced bread.  I responded with "So you want me to punch you every time you do something nice? Sure honey, I would love to do that!".   Thinking that my man is crazy, I decided to tell my friend this story and you will never guess what she did.... her eyes lit up and said "Can I have one for my man? I really think he would benefit from a punch card.  He really likes games, so maybe this would work for him too!".  So the teacher in me is having a great laugh because I always get picked on for treating people like they are my students.  But since I was asked, I am delivering!  Here is a Honeydew Punch, specifically for your "Man of the House".  Now when they shovel the driveway, put the seat down in the bathroom without reminders, give you a back rub or say sweet nothings you can give them a well deserved punch!

Onto other more serious things.. I have made a word collector for your students.  When students are reading and they come across JUICY words they can record them in their word collector.  If this is a word that they know, can explain, and can use it when they speak and write then they can place it in the first column.  If it is a word that they know something about and can make a connection, then it belongs in the second column.  If they have heard it before or seen it, then it can go in the third column.  The last column is reserved for words that they do not know and need help on.  Students can then use this as a tool to expand their vocabulary everyday! I hope everyone has a great FRIDAY!

You know your a teacher when...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines yesterday! I am sure the kids will still have some sugar left in their systems so today may be interesting.  I am heading into a high school today to teach science and biology to Grade 10,11, and 12.  Should be a fun day!

I am also linking up with Kindergarten Lifestyle and their "You know your a teacher when...".  If you want a good giggle you should check out their pinterest site and see what all the other teachers are coming up with.  I had a few "yes, sadly that is me" moments.  Especially to this one "You know your a teacher when... your husband tells you to stop pinning and go to bed!".

So here are two that I came up with:

Happy LOVE Day!

I hope everyone had a great day with their kiddos.  I think spending the day with 26 elementary students makes my VDay rock! I love to watch them go crazy and open their cards and thank each student.

I found a neat craft on pinterest today and I thought I would share it with you because it was soo amazing. If you want some more information on the craft check out this link. 

Here is what you have to do:

• Heat the oven to 250 F 
• Take  pieces of crayons that can no longer be used
• Put them into a baking mold (hearts, XOXO)
• Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the crayons are melted (it is a good idea to put a baking sheet underneath the mold just in case some spill over)
•  Let them cool, and remove them from the mold. You can smooth them out by rubbing them on a piece of paper. 

Now they are ready to color your world!

I love this craft because it recycles crayons that I would normally throw away, and students can now have a fun crazy colored valentine heart to use.

As for my Valentines day... I would love to go and see the movie The Vow.  It is based on the true story of a newlywed couple recovering from an accident that puts the wife in a coma. She wakes up with severe memory loss and can't remember any of her life with her new husband... so he has to fight to win her heart all over again. Has anyone seen it yet?  I am doubting that I will be going to the movie for a couple reasons.

1. I never hinted this to said "Man of the house"
2. He would probably complain the whole way to and from the movie (kind of defeats the purpose)
3. I would probably end up watching it with some girlfriends that would laugh and cry along with me.  

 Oh well...

I hope everyone has a great day!

What I want in my Dream Classroom

So I spent a little time Sunday afternoon on Pinterest... it is very addicting, and I found some ideas for my future classroom (this will happen one day).  One thing that you need to know about me before you read the rest of this post is that I am CRAZY about organization.  In every student teaching practicum that I had I eventually reorganized my mentors room (for some reason I always got the type of teacher that had the "desk" that you can never find).  They were always amazing teachers and I learned a TON, but I always spent some time with my label maker in their room.  So here are some of the things I want in my future classroom.

Bin labels, I love everything to have a home.  I really like these cute labels that the Clutter Free Classroom has made.

I also thought this was a great idea.  It is a teacher tool box, and it is available at Lowe's as a hardware organizer.

This is from The Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher and I love it.  I find extra papers from students that were absent can easily disappear in a pile, now the students can be in charge and check the file for missed work.

Book Bags! I had this in my last practicum because the students had large tables instead of desks.  I found this to be useful.  We had to limit the number of books, but when it came time to do Daily 5,  they would bring their book bag with them and they were ready to learn.

This was just for a giggle, I really do wish this spray worked because I would buy it in bulk!

One of my favorite things is a functional and home like reading space in the classroom.  I love the themed bins in the bookshelf, and the bright colors.  It feels very inviting, and I think this teacher did a great job with the amount of space available.  Another thing I would add to this space would be some Daily 5 items.

This Daily 5 example is from Ms. Durbin at 3rd Grade's a Hoot! I absolutely love how she has clothes pins for each student and they can indicate which station they are working on.

The rest of my Sunday was spent hiking.  We live on the side of a mountain, so I have easy access to many trails.  We started to hike up to Mt. Fernie, but the elevation is very high, and when there is a ton of snow to walk through you wont get far fast.  I am going to finish this hike one day, but I think it will have to wait until the summer (and I will be prepared with my bear spray).  But we did manage to see lots of animal tracks (possibly a moose, lynx, bunny, and of course deer and elk).  

What do you love?

Ok, I have linked up with Funky first grade fun, thanks to Sheri at 1st Grade Rocks for leading me to this site! And here are my loves:

My First Award!

A big thank you to Kristina at Coloring Books and Funny Looks for my first blog award! It's the Liebster Blog Award, and it's for bloggers with fewer than 200 followers. Kristina is in her fourth year of teaching kindergarten and has a really cute blog with some awesome ideas!

Here's the award rules:
Thank the award presenter and post a link back to their blog.
Put the award on your blog.
Pick 5 blogs with less than 200 followers, let them know about the award, and encourage them to pass the award on!

So here are some blogs that I found that I really like:

Caroline at Tupelo Honey, just looking at her blog makes me want to go into the kitchen and cook like crazy!

Fumbling Through Fifth, this is about the journey of a new teacher starting out in Grade 5!

Sheri at 1st Grade Rocks  

The Crafty Community, I love all of the great crafts this blog has to offer.  There are also lovely pictures to go along with the crafts. 

Ebuck at Second Grade Silliness

The BaSiC essentials as a sub

I dont know about you, but I am soo happy that it is the weekend! I had a couple long days in the classroom, and for some reason a lot of the kiddos are terribly sick.  I even had to send one poor boy home because I thought his lung was going to jump out at me when I was trying to help him understand the 24 hour clock  (YIKES).  He did go home at lunch, but I guess we were having too much fun that he had to come back for the rest of the day... what can I say ;).  Now I have decided that as a substitute teacher there are some essentials that you have to bring every day and I have complied a list:

1. Hand sanitizer!! Those kiddos are vessels of sickness (I still love them just the same).  I prefer to use Bath and Body, but it is always a good idea to have an unscented sanitizer just in case the school is scent sensitivities.
2. A whistle.  This is for basic classroom management.  You never know if you are teaching gym all day, so be prepared to do so.  I also do not like the idea of using borrowing another teachers whistle.  This relates to point number 1, ewwww.
3. A note book.  I usually keep one on hand so I can write down students names that worked really well, had a note for their teacher, or students that need more attention.  At the end of the day I am usually exhausted and cannot for the life of me remember which student was a star and what I should highlight in my lovely notes to their teacher.  I also use this book to write down neat ideas I see in their class, I am convinced I will forget things so I am a stickler for note taking.
4. My ipad or a good book.  I swear I am a grrrrreat teacher, but I have had some sub calls where the first hour is a prep.  I find I have ample time to prepare and do any side projects for the teacher, so having another tool is great to keep along.
5. Chocolate.  Depending on the day, this trumps all 4 and is the only thing I need to survive.  My reasoning for this..... Grade 8.  There is something about that age that forces me to consume chocolate, I am not sure if there is a connection yet.  I will do some more research and let you know ;)

Those are my main essential items that I cannot leave the house without.  So what are some things that you just have to have at your job?

I also want to give a big thanks to Ann at Mrs. Greene's Kindergarten Korner for the lovely post about my blog! I appreciate it :)