Donors Choose

If you are a teacher you NEED to know about Donors Choose.

If you love to support teachers and students you NEED to know about Donors Choose.

Basically, Donors Choose is awesome.  End of story.

Donors Choose is a website where teachers can post projects that they would like to have funded in their classroom.  Teachers can request things from materials, books, furniture, guest speakers, and even field trips.  Other people can read the projects, and then choose to fund them in part or all of it.

Go check it out here.

Amazing huh?

Personally I have had several projects funded.  My brother was the first one who told me about this site, and I have to admit I didn't believe it until the very first box of materials came to my classroom.

In return for the donation, teachers are asked to create a thank you package which includes letters from the students, a letter from the teacher, and pictures of the students using what was bought.  (With signed permissions slips from parents of course!)  But what teacher wouldn't want to send a thank you?

So one of my latest projects was probably one of my most expensive because it was a piece of furniture.  Anyone in the teaching world knows that furniture costs an arm and a leg, so I honestly didn't think this one would get funded.

But on Saturday my amazing parents decided to fully fund the rest of the amount.  Talk about thankful! I love them so much and I love that they support me in teaching.  Both of my parents are/were accountants (my dad actually works for the FDIC now).  They have never once made me feel bad about wanting to serve as a teacher.  They have supported me 100% of the way.  I am forever grateful to them for that.

So this is what I'm getting!  I'm so pumped!!!

So, go check out Donors Choose and good luck!!!

Little by Little ;)

The school I'm transferring to next year is Little and that's how this organizing process is going - little by little.  But it is getting there.  :)

My hubby was off work last Friday and was able to keep K so that I could go sweat it out at school.  I spent a little over six hours there and was able to get a lot of organizing done.  I still have some more to do, but I made a lot of progress.  I moved furniture around a lot and was able to start seeing how our classroom would function.  I'm itching to start the actual decorating part, but I won't let myself until everything is put away for the most part.

This was the very first shelf that I organized.  It's the new home to most of my art supplies.  Labels will come soon!  :)

For the time being my picture books that don't fit on the big shelf had to go above my lockers.  I don't love it, but it is what it is for right now.  See the hanging shelf?  Yeah, it's broken and it almost knocked me out cold the other day.  Oh the surprises that come with a new room!  This is when I'm very thankful I'm married to a man who is quite handy!

See that new cabinet?  I LOVE it!  My friend from high school (who is a kinder teacher) saw my pictures on facebook and asked if I wanted a shelf she had in storage.  Best $20 I've spent in a long time!  I put lot of math materials inside.  The best part?  I can close it!  :)  And that flower garland most likely will not be staying up there.  That was my attempt at taking it away from K without hurting her feelings.  ;)

My desk is hidden behind all those boxes and such.  The kiddos' mailboxes are there, my dry erase paddles, and my listening station books/cds/tapes are in the plastic tubs under the printer table.  My mom and I went fabric shopping the other day and found the cutest jungle print fabric for a curtain to hid the plastic tubs.  I have more storage under that table, but I'm not sure for what yet.  Trust me - I will use it though!  I also cannot wait to cover that chalkboard with paper.  I hate that green with the green on my walls!

One of the things I did on Saturday was tackle this baby.  Apparently the teacher who moved out of my room took most of her curriculum because it was organized in her cabinets and such.  So the teacher whose room she was taking dumped brought all her stuff to my room.

I managed to get it down to this.  I boxed all the decodable readers that I HATE.  Seriously - what kid wants to read books like, "The fat cat sat on the mat."  Ew.  Not sure where those are going yet, but I do not want them in my room!  These were the books that stayed in my keep pile.  

I rubber banded them up and shelved them.  Much better than being all crammed in a box.  It's like I have my own little slice of a bookroom in here.  :)

I still have all these to go through that the other teacher brought over.  SIGH.  

Here is my new rug that I bought at Ross.  I.  LOVE. THIS. RUG!!!!

Mama/Daughter Outing

Last Friday I took K to get her haircut.  Now, some might think I'm crazy, but I take her to Southlake to get her haircut.  There is a place there called Sweet and Sassy and it is beyond awesome!  I took her there for her first haircut - they do a big hoopla for the first haircut and I loved the way the treated K.  Their haircuts are still only $14 for 3 year olds and they add spray glitter, a little heart glitter thing for her face, curl her hair a bit, and give her a sucker after.  To me, K feeling that girly and special is worth the little extra drive.  Plus it gives me a reason to shop in Southlake.  :)

One of my favorite places in Southlake is the Vera Bradley store.  (Angels singing!!!)  Now, I wasn't introduced to Vera until college.  It just wasn't as big in Texas as it was in Louisiana back then.  Girl meet bag.  Girl fall in love with bag.  Girl has been hooked ever since.  :)  

So K and I headed in pre-haircut to kill some time.  I honestly had no intention of buying her anything until I saw the sweetest little purse design called Caitlyn.  Now, how do you pass that up when your daughter is named Kaitlyn and loves all things girly?  I lost all willpower, hence K getting her first Vera bag.  She loves it and has been taking it everywhere we go.  

Something tells me I have quite the shopping partner in my future!  :)  

Locker Tags

I haven't been up to my classroom in several days.  This is mostly because, believe it or not, it's not really that fun to take a 3 year old up in a MESSY room with no air for long periods of time.  Shocking I know.  My dad also recently had surgery, so I spent some time at the hospital and at my parents' house.  Luckily he is on the mend!  

So while I have been out of actual room, I've tried to take time at home when K is busy playing, napping, etc. to work on what I could.  I've almost finished making all the labels for my new binder spines, I've starting putting together my lesson plan binder for the year, and I made these locker tags.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to renumber the lockers due to the layout of my room, so I needed something to cover up the existing locker numbers.

Cutouts from Mardel + numbers cut with my Cricut + lamination* = new locker tags!

*Yes, I have my own little laminator at home.  I'm a total teacher nerd. ; )

Ahhhh....Freak Out!

Please tell me you just sang that title...if not then we can't be friends...okay...now go back and sing it and then we can go back to being friends.  :)

Ever had one of those days where you just want to scream into your pillow?

Anybody?

Bueller???

Well, today was one of those days for me.  I had my annual freak out moment.  It happened.

My poor, poor husband.

It all started when I was trying to sit still in a workshop this morning.  It's the first one that I've been to this summer and usually I'm pumped about going because adult conversation is beyond amazing when you spend most of your hours listening to the latest three year old drama about Rapunzel and Flynn.  Plus, I knew some of my old teammates would be there and I love them dearly.

Now, for the record, I think the presenter was a wonderfully nice lady and she wrote a pretty darn amazing math book that I plan on using a lot this year.  But I'm not programmed at all to sit still - one of the main reasons I don't expect it from my students either.  If a student has to stand up in the middle of their work I'm totally cool with that, because there is no way I could go without moving for long periods of time without driving myself crazy.

So - you've got the me not being able to sit still.  You've got the freezing temps in our professional development center.  And then to top it all off I answered a math question in a way that confused a whole lot of other people.

Sorry.  I can't help it that my brain just works a bit differently.  Get over it and move on people.  But one lady just couldn't let it go.  She made this scrunched up face and said my way made no sense.  Then we watched a video where a 3rd grader did the exact same thing I did.  Boo to the yah lady.  (I'm not sure what that says about my math brain if I'm thinking like a 3rd grader, but oh well.)

So I was not in the best of moods.  Luckily I was able to go to lunch with a dear friend who I haven't seen in a few weeks so that made my day better.

The calm before the storm if you will.  At least the calm had carbs...lots and lots of carbs.

I'm not sure when exactly the next part happened.  Maybe it was the heat.  Maybe it was the bad drivers around me.  Maybe it was the fact that I couldn't get Spotify to play over my car stereo like I normally do.  Maybe it was a fancy combo of all the little things.  But I worked myself into a pretty bad mood.

I'm driving K home from seeing my parents - my dad recently had surgery and we were checking in on him.  She started complaining about being hungry, so I called Cody to see if he was already home.  My plan was to pick up something on the way home for dinner - you know, working on that mom of the year award again.

I'm not exactly sure what Cody said, but something set me off.  It was something along the lines of where do you want to go or where do you want me to meet you.

Pretty normal husbandy type question don't you think?

But for some odd reason it set me off.  I wanted him to say, "Don't worry about it babe.  Let's go to (insert name of any Mexican place here)."

So I lost it.  Literally - yelled at the poor guy...in front of my 3 year old.

I know, I'm awful.

It ended up being this all out cry after I got the first few sentences out about how I don't have enough time to get my classroom ready.  I don't know where I'm going to put everything.  Blah, blah, blah.

I hung up the phone and cringed.  What did I just do?  I took out all my stress about my classroom on Cody and he didn't deserve it at all.

K had been quiet this whole time and heard everything, which I hate.  I gently told her I was sorry for yelling and asked for her forgiveness.  She just looked at me with her sweet little face and said, "I love you Mama."

Bless that sweet girl.

I hate that it happened.  I would like to say I calmed myself down and was fine when I got home, but I was still pretty snippy with my poor hubby.

But now that the big freak out has happened I'm hoping it's all better from here.  I still have so much work to do, but it could be so much worse.  I know I need to stop counting the things that stress me out and count my blessings.  I have far more of those than I even deserve.

Here's hoping I can do just that......because I do have another workshop tomorrow.....

Target Toy Clearance

Today was the day I've been waiting for - the day all the money saving mama blogs said that Target would put several toys on clearance for 70% off.

I first heard about this day last year when a friend I grew up with posted a picture of her finds and talked about how much money she saved.  I remember asking her about it via facebook and then quickly grabbing my keys and driving to 3 (yes, 3) Targets that night.  I came home with some cool finds for Christmas and some birthday presents.

Now, for those of you who don't know, Target does this twice a year.  Once in January and once in July.  They do this so that they can clear some space for the new toys coming in that season.  The markdowns usually happen slowly, but eventually all the toys they want to get rid of get down to 70% off.

So I was ready today.  Since it's Thursday K had school.  She goes Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summertime.  I normally take her about 9:30 in the summer, but because today was THE day I took her a bit earlier.  I hit up my first Target a few minutes past 8:00, and was finished with my fourth Target a little after 10:00.  Not bad if I do say so myself.

I was able to find a lot better things than I did last year.  When I added up all the original prices, it ended up being $213.  I paid $68.  I'm pretty darn proud of that!

I was able to get 3 upcoming birthday presents and 2 Christmas presents for some kiddos in my family in addition to some things for K.

I love a great bargain shopping trip!  I seriously get way more excited than I probably should.  :)

Retail: $213     Paid: $68

The Madness Continues

Painting - check

Organizing - NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

In attempts to start the organizing process, I thought it would be best to start getting the big pieces of furniture in roughly the areas I wanted them to go in.  Have I mentioned that there is zero air during all this?  That's right - we painted with no air on.  So I went up late one night and started moving things around...again with the absence of air.

I managed to get the desks how I like them for now.  I'm going to stick to my Kagan "teams" and partners next year, so I kept that in mind.  I've never had desks before - I've always had tables.  I think I might like the extra storage desks have to offer.  We'll see.

So here's what the craziness looks like now!

There are zillions of little readers everywhere!  I'm hoping I can share the wealth and maybe keep some and "donate" to the bookroom.  Surely the rest of the teachers don't store that many in their rooms!