School, Showers, and Singing!

It's been awhile since I was last able to post! So much has happened this month!! After spending tons of hours in my classroom it was ready for meet the teacher. Before Meet the Teacher night I threw a wedding shower with my sisters, we hired a new teacher for kindergarten and a couple days after Meet the Teacher I got to see my friend perform! All I can say is that I have finally caught up on my sleep after going to bed at 9:00 last night. Here are some details: 

With less than 100 days before the wedding my 2 sisters and I threw Eden a "Kitchen Themed" wedding shower. Guests included our side of the family, bridesmaids, Eden's mom, and friends of my mother's. We played 2 games: "Guess the Spice" which was given to me by my good friend Rachel; and a sort of Newlywed Game. For the second game we had asked Craig (our brother) to answer a few questions about his relationship with Eden, and also some fun questions. Both games were awesome! For every question Eden got wrong on the 2nd game she had to chew a piece of bubble gum. Here are a few pictures from the shower: 

Sisters! 

Eden with my mom's Sisters- Aunt Jill and Aunt Jenny

Our side of the family 

Me with Eden

After the weekend of the shower and family it was time to start professional development. School is approaching FAST and enrollment is up in the district! There was even a news report about the rapid growth of Frisco ISD and how we are such a great district! I'm so honored and proud to be a part of such a great school district. With that said we had to add another section of Kindergarten! Here is the 2013-2014 kindergarten team: 

Meet the Teacher night was so amazing! I loved seeing many of my former students and of course meeting my new students. It is going to be a fabulous year!

I worked so hard for 3 weeks that it was time for a day off... even though I thought about my classroom the entire day. My BFF was performing at the Eismann Center. The Richtones is an award winning chorus. Celeste even gets to dance as she is singing! The entire show was great and I even feel a little less stressed after attending. It was a very fun afternoon!

 Street Corner Symphony performed with the Rich-tones. They are a wonderful group who were on the show: The Sing-Off. I got their autographs and this fun picture.

Now it's time to get ready and finish setting up my classroom for Monday! Ready or not, 18 kindergartners will be in my room in less than 24 hours! To all my teacher friends - good luck and rest up! 

The Way Way Back

After a week of classroom stuff I received a phone call from my sister Christy. Of course I missed it because I was making copies... She asked if I wanted to go to dinner and then to a movie. Well, I missed dinner because I listened to the voicemail almost an hour after she left it. I did however get to see a movie with them! We went to the Angelika in Plano and saw "The Way Way Back" which is from the same people who made Little Miss Sunshine and Juno. Already I was excited to see it! I had never seen a preview to it but it has Steve Carrell and Alison Janney and Toni Coletti. If you want to see a funny, heart felt movie go see the Way Way Back! It is PG-13... nothing too bad in the movie. Here is a link to the preview:
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thewaywayback/

Before the movie we went to this little French place across the street (I don't remember the name of it). I had a Fruit Tart! It was AMAZING!!!! My sister had this chocolate thing with vanilla and strawberry mousse layers and my dad had a Tiramisu. Mine and Christy's was really great. The Tiramisu was gross! It tasted like milk that had expired! Yuck!

Next week The Butler comes out! I really hope it is as good as I am anticipating!

Big Books

Just whistle while you work... That has been my motto for a week now. Except that instead of whistling I've been listening to Pandora. What did I do before Pandora!?!? A week ago I walked into my 80 degree classroom to find this: 

I had to move classrooms and start all over with a blank room. My first task was to put the walls up! Then I had to arrange the furniture and make it look like a working classroom again. Kids are going to be learning in this room in 3 weeks! Here is what it looks like today: 

First look from the doorway -

Learning area and work area in the middle. I haven't opened the blinds yet but I have a big window in the back.

My desk area. You can see my Nemo stuffed animals and Mike from MU! The "calendar" area on the board and the birthday cakes.

Guided Reading area/Small group instruction. Good Work wall, math, science, and reading Bulletin Boards.

Word Wall, motivational posters, computers, and you can see the writing wall on the right. 

There is still much to do but the room is almost organized and stuff is put away! Now all I have to do is get everything ready for meet the teacher and plan for the beginning of school. I love Kindergarten!! 

Now for the newest addition to my room. I asked my good friend Matt if he could make some Big Book boxes. I hate how they stuck out of the back of this thing: 

And here is what it looks like now!

 

And here is the amazing Big Book box that Matt made for me!!! It has handles and is stained/painted!! I seriously have the best friends in the world. Thanks Matt!!!

Here it is in its nook! Look how neat and tidy it looks.

Back to School. Back to School. To prove that I'm no Fool...

It's that time of year again. August. Vacation is officially over. I've been home for over a week now and I already miss the road. I now know that if I wasn't a teacher I would want to be a professional traveler/planner. But, I am a teacher!

The building officially re-opened for teachers on August 1. I have never been so ready to get back to my classroom. June and July were awesome and I didn't really do work for school. Once we got back from vacation I was ready to get back and organize/set up my room. I had to move classrooms so I got to start from scratch on my walls. I quickly found that I have no idea how I cut the fabric for the walls...  There are small pieces and full pieces. It was like a puzzle and I didn't really do a good job putting it back together. What does that mean for the classroom? It looks a little different but it is still me.

Last week and this weekend I have watched a couple shows on Netflix - Continuum and Pretty Little Liars. Continuum is pretty interesting and I believe can be found on the SciFi channel. It is a show where in the year 2070 some terrorists are about to be executed but they time travel back to the year 2012. One of the officers gets caught in the time travel bubble and is brought back to the same year. Her goal is to capture all the terrorists who are trying to change the past which will change the future. Pretty Little Liars is just a guilty pleasure show. ABCFamily has some crazy shows and this one is pretty crazy. Just know that if you have a crazy stalker who is trying to hurt you and your friends and some people are being killed you need to go to the police right away!

I'm off to make stuff for school and peruse some teaching blogs! Have a wonderful Sunday/week!