TGI{almost}F

{Thank Goodness It's Almost Friday...at least in my world!}

When you have a 4 day week with kids, Thursday is your Friday! For me this even applies when you have to be at work on Friday morning... but it's sans my 30 crazy kinderbabies which is both sad and happy!

{not even going to lie, after my

long 

LONG

L.O.N.G 

day it is mostly happy!}

Since today was so much, I decided to use up a couple of the majorly ripe bananas on my counter and cook up some Chocolate Banana Bread! {*please note, I did not use full amounts of the sour cream or butter listed... I almost replaced the butter with applesauce, but decided to splurge!} This does a few things: 

1. Baking always puts a smile on my face, and I haven't done it in such a long time that I am especially happy I did it!

2. I get to splurge on something sweet and happy! {and yes, I am pretending this is not as bad for me as it really is because there is some fresh fruit in it!! ;)}

3. I get to share the leftovers with some of my favorite coworkers tomorrow! I wouldn't love going to school so much if they weren't there with me! {too bad the one that is always referred to as my sister or my twin is out for the end of the year... but at least she has a cutie patootie baby to spend time with, who has the best name ever!!}

 

I hope all of y'all out there on the internet have had a great week so far!

and if you are having hot and cold days {like this lady in sin city, then make yourself a loaf of Chocolate Banana Bread trust me it helps!!}

P.S. I cannot wait to conduct a few ice cream based science experiments with my kinderbabies tomorrow!!

random musings...

FYI if you do not want to read about some of the random thoughts running through my mind at the moment, or any moment in the past two days just keep scrolling down, this is not the blog post for you!

i don't know about y'all but sometimes you just have to let your little brain relax and watch all of the silly reality shows you love so much! Calling the television a "boob tube" is certainly an accurate description of what happens to my brain when I flip it on after school each evening.

There are currently a couple of silly shows that I am an avid viewer of and The Voice is one of them!

I love this show! I remember being so disappointed when it was released that Christina and Ceelo weren't coming back to the show this season. But holy cow! I think Usher is a great addition to the show, just love him! I think watching Shakira is pretty interesting. In the beginning I had reservations about her, and during the blind auditions it often felt like she would turn her chair when she saw others turning theirs... {just an opinion}. Now during the live shows, it is quite interesting when Blake, Usher, or Adam have performers on stage Carson will go to the other two men and then the coach. It totally seems like they are avoiding going to Shakira for her opinion on the other artists. Just an observation, if you disagree or think Shakira is the bee's knees I certainly don't intend to offend!!

This weekend I decided to try a new recipe... Thanks to one of my favorite bloggers, I found this delicious and not super healthy recipe for a tortilla stack! it was so flipping good {of course I loaded it with immense amounts of salsa at each bite!}

When I heated up some of my leftovers, I used one of the avocados in my kitchen to whip up some avocado cream... wow! this is incredible!! of course once again loaded down with salsa and paired with the tortilla stack! Yuum!

{I replaced the sour cream with greek yogurt and it was great! anything with greek yogurt is fine by me!

I have made my bed for the past three days, if you know me and my lack of bed making desire then you will understand that this is quite the feat for me! I guess this is what happens when you hear your alarm clock going off and get a bit nervous that you will sleep through it entirely if you hit the snooze button and get a few more minutes of shut eye.
and it certainly is nice to fold back the covers and sleep in a freshly made bed... maybe this is one small thing that I will try and make habitual!
And I did my laundry!! who am I?! a small pat on my back for productivity at home! Now to get back in my class and be productive at school too!

Now a "teachery type" thought...

What do I do for my kiddos as their end of the year gift. I know it's late to be thinking about this, but with everything else I have to do I would like them to leave the year with a little "yay! you survived kindergarten!!" gift. I have seen some cute gifts, like crayons and a little bow; but I gave each of them a heart crayon for Valentines day. I would make the same frames and word art that I made for my class last year but I'm afraid it would not be something that 5 and 6 year olds would be as interested in as fourth graders were...

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

And if my favorite coworker ever finds this blog I want to give her a little shout out, happy day of birth to little Linky!!! so exciting!

Can you say random babbling?! goodness I need to find a focus for my next post!

thanks for taking your time to read!

Mighty Monday

{this type of post is 100% inspired by Babbling Abby from a few years ago! Thanks for the inspiration for Monday postings when it can be so hard to find motivation to do so!}

Here are my *might have* posts for today and beyond!

I might have gotten to have a sub in my classroom today so that I can continue to assess my kinderbabies on their knowledge of the Common Core State Standards.

I might be playing a one way version of phone tag with one of my little sisters...{you know who you are!!!}

I might have gone ahead and bought my mom her bountiful basket so that she could have fresh fruits and veggies this week!! {her site keeps getting sold out before she can get on to buy a basket!!}

I might be excited that we are almost down to single digit numbers in counting down to the end of the year!

I might have been offered to do a week long worm study with one of my awesome coworkers, but was way too grossed out by touching the worms to allow this to happen... creepy crawlies are not my thing! Having caterpillars in my class is probably the closest I will get! Yuck!

I might be about to fast forward through all of the weather reports on the Today show today so that I can watch Willie Geist then Hoda and Kathie Lee! What can I say, I know what interests me and  watching POI being made is not something that I feel like watching today!

I might be excited to have three fun science experiments planned {one for each of the next weeks! Thursday, next Friday, and the last full day of school!}

I might also be starting some yummy salmon for dinner in the next few minutes! FOOD!! YUM!!! ***It was delish***

*I might also love the fact that I only know who Paul Anka is because of a Gilmore Girls episode from a while ago... {FYI that's what they named their dog! for those of you that weren't cool enough to watch my favorite show!}

And I might be.... scratch that! I am definitely relieved that my long time friend Brittany is safe and sound! Scary things are happening, and it is always a sigh of relief when you find out people you care about close by are healthy and in one piece!

I hope you all have a MIGHTY fabulous week! and those teachery-type of readers out there, I hope you have a fantastically quick last few days of school!!

P.S. Feel free to post your own similar type post! Leave a comment and link and I will be sure to ch-ch-check it out!!

instafriday

Life this week has been crazy... This weekend I found some motivation for the remaining days of school! {Thank goodness for TPT sales, and the amazing ideas they share and inspire!}

This week I am linking up with Jeannett over at life rearranged, for her instafriday linky!
Check it out

I started getting to work on the fun centers for my students to practice new skills and review old skills, and this began with cutting, laminating... and more cutting and laminating!

And I also enjoyed my first Sonic Soda in 5 months to keep me working in my classroom! It certainly helped!!

ahhh! at least it was diet {no calories} the other problems associated with diet coke are being ignored for the time being!

Not only did I work on the stuff that I purchased on TPT, but I used the G.R.E.A.T. Cara Carroll as inspiration to create a few new "Ice Cream and Popsicle" themed items for my crazy kinderbabies to work on during center time!

my fun *HUGE* ice cream cones and popsicles to measure!!

the happy little worksheet I made for my kiddos to use when measuring the larger and smaller then life ice cream and popsicle shapes!!

With this newly reinvigorated teaching outlook I have, I have even started making fun crafty things to put in my classroom... still trying to decide if this new addition was so wise to add to my classroom full of 30 five year old goofballs!

I am so proud of my hand painted leopard print! Cannot wait to leopard print it up for my classroom next year!

On Monday morning, about 15 minutes before I needed to go outside and pick up my kiddos I decided that I needed to fix the insane pencil situation that goes on in my classroom. I quick sharpened 32 brand new pencils, printed out a list of my students first and last names {only their first last name, since many of them have 2! One even has the same last name 2x! insert little giggle here!} quickly cut and taped their names to the end of each pencil and put them at their desks! Here's hoping they last through the end of the year, but in the meantime the amount of "he took my pencil"'s being blurted during the day has decreased! *Phew!*

Wednesday, I couldn't take it much longer... My {ONE} child... Every classroom has at least one like this, and if you are not a teacher just use your imagination {picture the child who screams and throws huge fits in the middle of the mall surrounded by people and cannot be soothed... oh wait, that is something I did growing up! Sorry Mom and Brother!}! Because it was one of those days, I treated myself to a Sonic Drink!

I have been revisiting some of my favorite blogs, starting from the beginning! It's pretty funny that I do this, but I am a nosey rosey and love reading about the lives of people I will never meet! haha!  In revisiting BabblingAbby I happened upon a post she did and borrowed it to do with my kinderbabies! It turned out so cute and the babes loved guessing it!

our chart well before it was done... each one had three crayons that belonged under it!

the beautiful rainbow of crayons!! I love that one is called "purple mountains' majesty" because we are singing America The Beautiful! which btw the babes are amazing at singing!! LOVE it!!

the goal for the day was chugging coffee and writing about our fabulous crayon colors!

It was quite the busy week, and I loved every minute of it!
I like to include the day we are on when counting down with my kinderbabies so that I will not be disappointed... according to our countdown chain there are only 12 days left! {as I ask my students, How do we write the number 12? a 1 and a 2!} I sure am gonna miss these sweet faces next year!

at this exact moment...

Outside my window... completely dark! I think the lack of hot sun has finally started to cool down my little pink house!

The time is... 10:24pm. Going to bed might have been a wiser choice then staying up watching one of my FAVORITE MTV shows!

Today I feel... like I didn't get nearly enough accomplished, or enough students assessed during my day! Hot Dog!

I am thinking... You Can Do It!! I need to get through assessing SO MANY kiddos tomorrow!

At the moment, I am thankful... that I enjoy going to work in the morning, one of the best things in life is loving what you do and who you do it with!

 I am going... to bed as soon as this ah-mazing show is over.

I am wearing... PJ's, shorts and a tank top. This is what one wears when they avoid turning on the AC until the last moment of the night.

I wish... that spring weather lasted longer in Las Vegas, Nevada! One day it's 80 degrees, the next day it is 101 degrees {I'm Melting!}

I am reading... all sorts of random stuff, but I am currently reading a book of my dad's suggestion, Chiefs. Check it out if you are looking for something other then the typical romantic-comedy!

I am working on... deciding on my ELA and Math centers for the next fifteen days of teaching Kindergarten in 2013!

I am hoping... that tomorrow doesn't have too many freakouts in my classroom!

*Fingers Crossed*

I am hearing...  Jenna Hamilton on AWKWARD!

I bet cha didn't know... That I am obsessed with watching entire series of TV shows on Netflix, often in a ridiculously short amount of time become I get hooked like no other!

*Currently: The West Wing* {Charlie and Sam are my favorite!}

One of my favorite... things to do is to cut out lamination. There is something so incredibly enjoyable about it! much more enjoyable then cutting my grass {with scissors}!

My weekend plans include... organizing science experiments and fun activities, so long as these enjoyable assessments get finished!! 

*fingers crossed!*

Happy work out wear Wednesday (in an hour!)

Currently May {It's about time!}

I might or might not be over a week late in posting this... But better late then never, right?!
I'm Linking up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade!!

I don't think any of these require any extra explanation... However, if you are like me and have to record all four hours of the Today show in order to watch small portions, I feel your pain! Let me just say, if you don't watch the today show every evening while you are waiting for your nightly shows to come on you are missing out! Willie Geist is my favorite! 

I have so so many crafty things I am hoping to get accomplished but would like to organize it on paper before getting started.. let's just say it's the OCD in me! I love making lists and crossing items off of them! {Not going to lie, sometimes I totally add items to my list that I have already completed so that I can cross things off!} 

Happy Monday! 

16 days to go!!!

hello world...

my name is Sarah...

A lot, and I mean AAAA LLOOOTTTT has happened since I last posted on this bad boy!

I was teaching at a charter school near my new casa when all *h-e-double hockey sticks* broke loose. In the chaos that went on I decided that for my own personal security and joy I needed to find a place that I would not have to go through the madness that I was at the time. {If you have any specific questions about what went down let me know!}

I was fortunate in having a variety of job opportunities open up for me when I started looking for one, and found myself very lucky to to find a Kindergarten teaching job in an older, more diverse area in Las Vegas. I couldn't be happier! I love my school! I love my staff! I love my Kindergarten team!!

Wow!

The huge age change I have experienced in jumping down from 4th grade to Kindergarten was quite drastic! I am so happy I was able to move down to the primary grades, because that has been my hope for so long!

Yesterday was my official graduation day from New Mexico State University... Crazy to think that I am finally *OFFICIALLY* done with my masters degree! {I felt like I was done in November when I found out that I had passed my culminating exam after traveling all night and taking a three hour nap! But that's another story in and of itself!}

I am so excited that I will soon have that pretty official diploma in my hands!! Come on NMSU get on it!!! I cannot wait to get it framed and hang it in a place of honor in my home office!! yippee! 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The school year is almost over! Yay!! We have a count down chain going on in my classroom that we get to tear a link off of every day, count and record our new number! It is so exciting that these kiddos are almost done with their first year of school, and that I was able to have a part of it!

Last week, for Teacher Appretiation Week, there was a great sale happening on Teachers Pay Teachers. I was looking for some things to help me get through the last 3.5 weeks of school with the kinderbabies. Oh my goodness! Did I ever find fun things that would not only excite the herd but also stuff that I am soooo looking forward to doing!!

I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!

this product was created by Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade

 This pack is so awesome! I was working on getting the pieces together so that my kiddos will have fun centers to keep them engaged while I am working on getting my CCSS testing completed this week! Hopefully I will be able to snap some pictures of my kinderbabies enjoying these fun activities all week! 

I also bought the following items and cannot wait to dive on in to using some of it before the conclusion of the school year!!!

{and a couple of others, but my computer is starting to act all goofy!}

Thanks to the great ladies who created all of these awesome items!!!

  

       

August Already?! The 8th?? I think I'm a few days late!

I cannot believe how quickly July flew by. I'm not exaggerating when I say if feels like the first of the month was last week... oh goodness!

I did have a mighty eventful month of July and was fortunate to get to spend some much needed time with the people I care about the most. I got to go back to New Mexico for about 5 days, although this trip was bookended by some mighty long 11 hour days spent driving in the car. At least on the way there I got to enjoy some of my favorite fast food that does not have a location in Las Vegas, Nevada. On our way back my poor Mama got stuck crammed in the back of the car with a brand new large {and well priced @ $20} rug for my big 'ol carpeted bathroom! {Um... who carpets bathrooms anyways?!}

I cannot believe that in 5 days we {the teachers} will be required to be back at school and participating in the regular events and work that we get to go over every year at the very beginning! I have been going to school for the past week. It has been an interesting start to the new school year in that as of last week they announced that one of the kindergarten classes {there are 4 and were recently moved off campus into their own building} and because of this there had to be a huge shift in classroom assignments! Luckily the classroom that was going to be my new room for the upcoming school year didn't end up changing, but I had to wait until the first of the month to find out for certain.

I am so excited for the year to come! I feel like I have slowly but surely gotten a lot of my stuff done for the school year, which is a huge accomplishment for this year as opposed to where I was at this point last year. I can happily say that I have completed my "4th Grade Rocks!!" packet or as I lovingly refer to it as welcome to the madness that is my classroom! I cannot even express the sense of relief I have knowing that this is not something I will frantically have to put together right before parents and students {eekk!!!} show up on open house/meet the teacher night!

It has certainly been a work-filled last week of my summer vacation. I wish I was one of those teachers who could go in the week before {at my school they like to fill our week before kiddos show up with meetings and presentations} and have everything done in time for open house the Thursday before school starts. I am most definitely NOT that person! I am a very particular slow unpacking person! I wish I was more swift in this but it just is not me... it especially throws things off for me when I am completely changing the way I set up my classroom! ahh!!

It is now time for me to paint some clothespins {like pencils} to look like the pencil clip chart I made inspired by a find on pinterest! 

Hopefully next week I will have some fun pictures to show ya on this little site!

Happy classroom decorating!!

currently July

Thought I'd give joining the linky party with Farly over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade... a shot. I always admire those awesome "currently" forms she puts out and have often thought about linking up with them but this is the first opportunity I have had.

Anywho, here goes it:

*please take note, I am that person who had every intention of posting this yesterday {Yep, I made this about 24 hours ago}! I am definitely joining my former class mom at the Karate for adults workout class this morning, definitely killing time at the moment!

The first book I chose is:

 

This book is supposed to be my favorite "read aloud" and it is in a manner of speaking. It isn't the type of book that you sit in your favorite author's chair and share with the students; however, it is a book that I slowly read throughout the year. I use this book as the guide to how they will act in the classroom. It is fun to share the stories and get my 4th graders thinking about why "The Essential 55" are important to remember for everyday life! 

Last year I made a model on powerpoint that I simply printed out and hung on the wall as a reminder, but this summer one of my goals is to jazz up my "Essential 55" signs by using nice paper and laminating! {I love laminating!}

The second book is:

This book is definitely my go to professional book. My mom purchased "The First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide" the Christmas before I began my student teaching in college. Who would have thought at the time that this book would be a necessity when I am at a loss for resources. It is SUPER helpful and one that I am happy to pull out on a regular basis. {It certainly helps that the cover matches my classroom theme!!}

If you are interested in what some other educators are choosing as their favorite books check back on 

and become uber obsessed with Farley's musings!

Tata,

end of the year awards

the school I work at is a unique one, we are a small close knit community in a large urban city. I love the fact that teachers and parents at my school are encouraged to have positive friendly relationships. It doesn't happen with all of the families but in some sense we are encouraged to walk away from the school year feeling like we are friends {as much as possible when you are responsible for educating their children} with the parents in your classroom. Not only this but at the end of each school year each classroom teacher is encouraged to have a class award ceremony where each student is recognized for the positive attributes they brought to the classroom throughout the year. 

I was lucky this year to not only have a fantastic team {thanks Liz and Terri} but to also get to spend my days with an incredible group of 9 and 10 year old kids! I'm not going to lie, I am very sad to not have most of these kiddos for another school year! I decided to have a little bit of fun in creating their awards and hopefully develop something that they would be able to keep for years to come and remember the fun we had in 4th grade! 

The finished product:

 

Anywho, here are the steps I took to create the end of the year awards for my awesome kiddos. For me one of the thoughts when putting together these awards was to not spend an exorbitant amount of money on each award because when you multiply it by 26 the number appear quite daunting! {oops!} I began searching for ideas online and I found one that talked about making a collage of words and giving that to the students, I found a site that did something similar called Tagxedo that takes self created lists and combines them into any formation you choose and color scheme. 

The Image

To create the list I made a questionnaire for each student to fill out including but not limited to: their best friends, their favorite color, their favorite subject as well as an achievement they are most proud of that they made during the school year. After that they flipped their papers over and we all sat in a circle around the room, each paper was passed to all of the students in the room to write {Only kind things} about each other. 

I took the papers and added most of the words {from each side of the paper} and plugged them into Tagxedo making sure to add some of the things that reminded me of the kids, funny sayings they said throughout the year {one of my students was responsible for collecting "jean money" from the teachers every Friday so I was sure to include that in her collage}.

When I was done typing in the lists I saved them onto my computer and sent them over to Walgreen's Photo Center to print them out on photo paper. 

The Frame

My goal in finding something to mount the pictures to was that it would be around $1. I had high hopes for my frugality, and Wal Mart was good in supporting this frugal goal. After hunting throughout the store for awhile I finally found what I was looking for, some plain wooden frames, and the best part was the cost they were only 98 cents!! I was not a huge fan of the plain wood and instantly decided that I needed to paint them. Not too daunting until I realized how many there were to paint. So I quickly decided to set my students to work on giving them each a nice rich coat of black paint! Only had to buy one bottle of black washable paint, that is easily diluted with water to make it go on more smoothly. 

Then it was time to start figuring out what awards I would give each of my students. They were a unique group of kids, and most of my boys thought they were comedians and had "moves like Jagger" but I couldn't give them all the same award. This was one of the more time consuming parts of my award creating. 

When was finally done with this step I used these awesome paint pens to write the award on each frame and tied a piece of teal ribbon around the frame.

Giving the awards was fun, all of the 4th grade teachers got together and gave our end of the year awards as a grade level {this is the way our team works, we are good friends and like our students to feel like we are all a team}. 

I hope all you out in the bloggy world enjoyed reading about my end of the year award creation!

And just because I miss my family and had such a great time with them all out in Vegas visiting, the following is a picture of us standing in a lineup at the Mob Museum downtown.