Tired. So Tired.

Things have been pretty busy this last week and I have not been able to get on here and blog. My husband took our two older girls to Michigan for several days due to the fact that his grandmother passed away. They are getting back tonight. I was not able to go because I had to report back to work on Wednesday. I could not miss those three important teacher days. My toddler stayed here with me. I was very upset that I couldn't go but it was just not possible. My husband went back to work the Wednesday before I had to so I have not been able to get all the work done in my room that I would've liked to.

Fast forward to today - my room is pretty much done. There are still a few things I have to do and school starts in 2 days! It looks like I will have to make a visit to my classroom tomorrow. This is the first year that I have felt really truly panicked about not being ready for the first day. I have 23 students - the highest of all the third grade teachers. This is because there was a student placed in my class that was a special request. Not a big deal at all. Last year I had 23 students at one point so I can handle that. 13 out of my 23 students showed up for the Meet and Greet yesterday. This was the best turnout I have ever had.

Pictures were taken of my room on my phone. My husband has the camera. When I go into my room tomorrow I will take pictures with the camera and post them. I am loving the polka dot and sweets theme. I went and bought four boxes of candy (one dollar each at Walmart) to place at each of my tables. Each table will have a candy name. I have to be sure to empty the candy out first. Hopefully I don't go and eat it. Especially since finding out I lost 2.8 lbs this week!

Since I have no pictures to post and I am trying to get as much done as I can before my hurricane, I mean toddler, wakes up, I am going to get busy. Stay tuned for pictures of my uber cute classroom! :)

Goodbye Summer!

I am linking up with Sheree at Peterson's Pad for her Goodbye Summer Linking Party.

Here are the rules:
Share 4 things about your summer!
1*a place you have visited
2*a book you read (either for fun or for school)
3*something you did or made for your school class
4*a fun thing you did

*Grab the picture above and share it on your blog.
*Write your post then come back here and link up.
*PLEASE comment on the 2 links before you and the 1 after you.

1*At the end of June we went to Disneyland!

2*I read the Fifty Shades Trilogy this summer. Not quite sure how I feel about it.

3*We made lots of things for my classroom this summer.

Teacher Tool Box

No Name Board

4*The fun thing I did this summer was go to Disneyland. We did not do a whole lot this summer so spending time with the kids was my fun thing.

My daughter now has a toddler bed. We took out the crib from her room since she wasn't sleeping in it anyhow.

Fun at a friend's birthday party

The Lied Museum - fun in a hurricane simulator.

So I am about to bid farewell to the summer of 2012. Here's to a great school year!









Back to School Jitters

I am linking up with a Turn to Learn for 

Surprisingly enough, I have not had those back to school dreams yet. My first official day back is Wednesday and then school starts on the 27th. Every year I tend to get those worries that are beyond my control. I do that at home too so this year I am hoping to make this a goal. I could not even say how many awesome things I got from TPT. Now if my printer would cooperate it would be perfect! I am mix matching what I got to make a great back to school packet. I've been worrying so much about getting my room all cute that I neglected to start my lesson plans for the first week. Guess what I will be doing over the next few days?



The Ticking Clock

The clock is ticking as we get closer to the new school year. I report back to work in 8 days and school starts in 13 days. My husband is coming with me into my classroom today to help me put up my bulletin boards. I totally stink at getting my boards up straight. We went in last week to arrange the furniture. I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like.

Office Max had a great deal these past few days! It was Teacher Appreciation weekend. If you spend $5 or more you could get up to 20 free composition notebooks. Teachers also got 25 percent off. Needless to say after several trips I ended up with 75 free notebooks! I think that composition notebooks will last longer than the spirals. I already made labels and the notebooks are ready to go. Now I am just waiting to see if the folders, which are 15 cents right now, will go down any more.

Please go check out Tori's Teaching Tips today. I am featured on there with some good tips as well as a good activity to teach point-of-view. We are going to be headed out to my classroom soon. The air conditioning has been out in my house since Saturday afternoon and someone is coming today to fix it. Can you imagine no air in Las Vegas temps of 112 degrees? It has been torture! We have been staying out of the house and wouldn't you know I ended up in Target yesterday. I might as well just hand them my paychecks. :)

Have a great day!

Monday Made It & Other Goodies

I am linking up with Tara today for Monday Made It.

This week I have been hard at work getting things ready for my classroom. My husband has too - he made these for me. One for each table. They will hold the supplies. This matches my turquoise on blue polka dot theme.

You can see that everyone was helping out.

I just finished working on my classroom job cards. I listed the name of the job, a description, and how many Isham bucks the job pays. Then I cut the jobs apart and taped each one on a library pocket. I got the library pockets from Creating Teaching Press. This also goes with my turquoise on blue theme.

Next, I started with cans like this. My daughter loves eating crunchies.

I painted over the label in the colors that match my dots on turquoise theme and made these cans below.

After the paint dried, I made these labels and used crazy glue to glue the labels on the cans.

I got these classroom printables from Teri at A Cupcake for the Teacher. You can get them at her TpT store.

These ideas came from Pinterest. This will be used in the Work On Writing center of my Daily Five. I Wonder prompts, prompts for the Journal Jar, and colorful pens for students to write with.

I bought Brain Breaks from Stephanie over at 3rd Grade Thoughts. You can purchase them at her TpT store. The can came from the dollar section at Target.

I purchased The Teacher Keeper from Mrs. Pollard at Tales of a Teacherista. You can purchase it at her TpT store. I bought the blue binder since it matched my turquoise on blue theme. Just follow directions to make the rest.

Here is the laminator I bought at Target. Best investment I ever made!!

As you can see I have been busy. On a different note, we took apart my daughter's crib and put a toddler bed in her room. She has not slept in her crib at night for over a week. She screams bloody murder when we try to put her in the crib and she ends up sleeping with us. Well when we tried to get her to sleep, she just wanted nothing to do with it. Finally at midnight we just brought her in here. I don't know why she refuses to sleep in her room but it is very frustrating! This is her below. We thought that putting in a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse video would help but it didn't.

Have a great Monday!





August ... Yikes!!

Busy Friday morning! We took Miss Rebekah to the daycare she will be starting at when I go back to work *sob*. After clinging to me for a few minutes she got down and was playing. As a matter of fact when I took the toys away from her and we left she started screaming. I am hoping she will be okay once she is there without me. Then we went to Old Navy. Let me see there are some awesome Back to School sales! The girls got lots of school clothes.

It is August .... 19 more days until I have to report back. I have been using my new laminator (OMG) and it is so wonderful. I was like a little kid at Christmas as I was laminating stuff for school. Crazy glue was also really helpful as I put together my classroom numbers and Brain Break cards. My husband finished the last piece of furniture for my classroom. I am saving that for Monday Made It. Remember that Creative Teaching Press contest I talked about before? Well I was one of ten winners that received $50 worth of CTP stuff. So exciting!

I am linking up with Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade for this month's Currently.



I am bound and determined to create something for my TPT store. I've been experimenting with making things for my room using the new frames and borders I bought. I was thinking of a back to school themed unit. We will see how that goes. There is still so much to do before we all go back to school. I'm waiting and watching diligently to see when Walmart and Target have the really good school supply sales. Is it wrong that I get all giddy when those two words (school supplies) are mentioned?

On a last note - make sure to stop by Christina's TPT store and pick up the Collaborative First Day Handbook. It started as a shared Goggle Doc on her blog. Now it is a great handbook full of tips and routines from experienced teachers. If you have time, check out the blogs of the participating teachers.

Have a super Friday!