My Classroom

I am really excited about being in a new school this year. I have had fun setting up a new classroom and getting things ready for the upcoming school year. I was in my last room for 8 years so it was a bit of a challenge to decide where things should go in my new room. I put alot of time into planning how to make my room the most efficient and "user friendly" it could be while still being a place where students were comfortable. I am pleased with the way things worked out. I hope I will continue to be pleased when I actually have to use the room with students in it!

This is what I walked into... white, empty, booorrrrring



 See all my boxes stacked above the lockers?

More boxes

More white, empty boooorrrring

A sad little blank bulletin board :(

That sad bulletin board was the first thing I had to fix!

I unpacked all the boxes and put my labled tubs with science supplies above the lockers.

A closer look at the labels on the tubs.

I organized my book shelf with more supplies. (I don't know why this picture is weird, I tried and tried to fix it and then I just accepted it. I hope you will too.)

Vocabulary Wall

Standing at the front of the room.

Standing at the back of the room.

Anchor charts, tubs for science notebooks and tubs for science folders 

My desk area...not that I ever get to sit there!

And finally...this is how I worked at home this summer on lesson planning, always always with my helpful assistant, Chester. 

  

Nicole



Back to School and Back to Blogging

It's time to say goodbye to summer and hello to the new school year. I returned to school last Wednesday but won't have students for another week. We have still managed to stay busy every second of the day ALLLLL day beginning VERY early in the morning. I came home on Friday and slept for 16(!!) hours straight! I was so tired. It never ceases to amaze me how the summer months can just zap me of my teacher stamina. I better get it back quickly because back to school WITHOUT students is the easy part! My summer was a much needed break filled with alot of relaxation and adventure. Here is a recap (except for pictures of me in my pajamas, much of summer was spent that way !):

A big step in our house remodeling: FLOORS!!

Zombies



Lots and lots of this.....

Planting, caring for and watching flowers grow all over our yard

Ready for vacation! (Clearly, she loves it when I take out my camera!)

 

Rain Forest Cafe

Chattahoochee River

 

Atlanta Aquarium (Can you see me?)

Making more friends at the aquarium (from a distance)

The Zoo!

Exploring Caves and Caverns

 

Sooooo Awesome!

I'm an official spelunker...I even have a picture to prove it.

 

A baby shower with this pretty girl (please focus on my beautiful daughter and not the remodeling that is going on all around us)

 

 

I now bid farewell to summer until we meet again in 2014 and hello to a new school year. It is time to put my spelunking lantern away and take out those notebooks and crayons.

 

Nicole

 



July

Could someone please explain to me how June walked so quietly out the door and July has arrived? Can it be that I have spent an entire month doing...uhh...well...let's see...nothing? And by nothing, I mean NOTHING. I have spent most of my days sleeping late, wearing my comfy pjs all day, reading books (not one of them educational), watching Dr. Phil and Lifetime movies and eating grapes. And strawberries. And nectarines. And more grapes.

Clearly, I am a teacher who enjoys her summer.

June is a "de-stress" and "de-school" month. June is a necessary mental health month. But as happens every summer, when July rolls around, I start getting excited about the new school year. At this point, I am not quite ready to start TEACHING 5th graders all day every day (not to worry, that is always an August excitement!) but I am excited about DECORATING, ORGANIZING and SETTING UP my classroom.

In honor of July's arrival, I was able to turn off the tv today, put "real clothes" on and go to our local "teacher" store to get a few things for my new (I am moving to a new school after eight years at my old school) classroom. You know you were meant to be a teacher when you walk in to one of these stores and you just want to cry from all the happy. The borders! The locker tags! The calendars! The stickers....oh the stickers! THE NEON SHARPIES!! The store I go to is called Teacher's Heaven... and boy oh boy is it!!

Before going to the store, I decided to use a red, black and white theme and incorporate polka dots. I am so happy with the things that I was able to find and plan to go to my classroom next week and start putting everything together. A few days of pjs and Lifetime left and then it's time to turn my attention to polka dots, bulletin boards, labels, folders, buckets and baskets for a while.

Until then, could someone pass the grapes?

Nicole







Back From Vacation

Sometimes I feel like I need a vacation AFTER vacation! We had so much fun doing so many awesome things. We showed people how it was done at Six Flags. We started our morning with a death defying ride on the Titan followed closely behind by the Texas Giant. Oh my...that's the way every day should begin. They're not called "thrillers" for nothing! We headed to Atlanta after our stop in Arlington and continued the fun with a beautiful walk along the Chattahoochee River. Stunning!! We also visited the Atlanta Aquarium as well as the zoo. We were able to hear some great live music at a fun little dive place and had the best hamburger in the world at a restaurant where we had to walk through a SKULL (!!) to get inside. While we were being entertained by the river, the beluga whales, the panda bears and the skull, Gracie was living it up in Italy...as a matter of fact, she still is! Laurel is sending me pictures everyday of their adventures. It looks like they are LOVING Itlay.

Gracie in front of the Colosseum

Awwwww!! This panda is eating his bamboo for dinner :)

Nicole

My Kind of Day

After all the "floor laying," Gracie and I decided to spend the afternoon getting pedicures and manicures. We had so much fun and it was a great way to spend the day.

We are leaving tomorrow for vacation so manis and pedis were followed by some intensive packing. Packing for vacation is a WHOLE lot more fun than packing up a classroom! However, I ALWAYS pack wayyyyy to much. I am never sure what I will need, so I just take LOTS. Gracie and I are driving to Dallas tomorrow with Britton and two of his sons, Tanner and Hunter. We are going to hit up Six Flags on Thursday!! On Friday, we are scattering all over the place. The boys are driving back home. Britton and I are flying to Atlanta to visit his brother, Patrick, and his girlfriend Marki. We went to Boston with them a few years ago and had so much fun so we are really excited to get to spend some time with them in Atlanta. Last but not least, Gracie is going to be flying to ITALY!!! That's right...ITALY! She is sooooo excited even though her Mama is a little nervous.  She will be in good hands though with my sister, Kami, and Laurel. The three of them went to Paris last summer and had a blast. Clearly, we are LOVING summer!

Nicole

Hello Summer

Friday was my last day of school. A bittersweet day for me. I successfully moved ALLLLLL my "stuff" to my new classroom. It is neatly stacked (as neatly as you can stack stuff after coming in and out and in and out and in and out of the 104 (!!) degree heat) in a corner of my new classroom. What have I been doing during my first three days of summer you ask? Well installing a hardwood floor in our house. Isn't that what all handymen teachers do in their "off" time? We have been remodeling our home for about a year. Yes. A YEAR. I'm talking knocking down walls, putting up sheetrock, laying a tile countertop in the kitchen, sanding down and staining all the kitchen cabinets, laying new carpet on one side of the house and painting. In an effort to save money, we have done most of the work ourselves. When I say "we," I mean "he." Britton has done most (ok, 97%) of the work while I have cheerfully rooted him on from the sidelines.

Then came the wood floor. We (he) pulled up the tile on the kitchen and dining room floor as well as the carpet from the living room floor. This was done several weeks ago. Concrete. That is what we have had on our floor since the removal of the tile and carpet. Concrete. We decided we needed someone who was an experienced professional to put in our beautiful new hardwood floor. We called "the man." We have been waiting on "the man" to come and lay the new floor and free us from the concrete. We waited for "the man." And waited. It seems "the man" was too busy to lay our floor. This is where it gets tricky. Britton and I decided the two of us could put the floor in. How hard could it be? We are educated people. So on Saturday morning we began. "This isn't so bad," we said. "This is kinda fun," we proclaimed. We worked for 12 hours on the floor only calling it quits then so we would be fresh and ready to continue Sunday morning. Except....when Sunday morning came, we could barely move. Oh. My. Our knees. Our Backs. It is now Monday night and we have worked THREE days on the floor. We are almost finished (it is a HUGE area...the entryway, living room, dinning room, kitchen and laundry room) and it looks AWESOME if we do say so ourselves.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

Who needs "the man?" We got this. Has anyone seen the Ibuprofen?

Nicole

Last Week of School

When I started this blog, it was my intention to post daily, or at least every other day. However, this past week has been so busy EVERY day that all I could manage to do when I got home was sit on the couch and try not to drool. This is the last week of school, which of course means I have been packing up EVERYTHING in my classroom. I don't have a list of "Things I Most Dislike," but if I did, packing would be in the top three. It's not just the packing, it's the loading it in the car. I live in Texas and it has been 90-100 degrees every day as I have made trip after trip after trip after trip to my car. I have one last load to put in Britton's truck tomorrow morning and then he and I will get to take ALL the boxes out of TWO very large vehicles and put it all in my new classroom tomorrow afternoon. The UNpacking of the boxes will not take place until MUCH later in the summer as they will not be thought of again until at LEAST August.

In addition to packing (loading, hauling, sweating, tripping once and skinning my knee) my teaching team and I also took all of our 5th graders to the park on Tuesday.  We lined up like ducks and walked to the park carrying coolers full of water, basketballs, frisbees, and a wide assortment of "fun stuff." We all had such a good time and were exhausted when we returned to school in time to sit in the air conditioning for a few minutes before dismissing.

 Lined Up and Ready to GO!

A Little B-Ball

 

 Swinging (talking, giggling, fixing each other's hair)

 Time Out For Some Cold Water...

And a Snack!

It was hard to top our super fun Tuesday at the park, but we managed to do it with a trip to our local amusement park on Wednesday!

 Waiting for Pizza!

 SO FUN!!!

Sweet Girls

 Hang On!

 Splish Splash!

My Teaching Team and Me...

It would be impossible to describe how much fun I have had with these two!!

Nicole