Five for Friday–On the Weekend!

I know, I’m late.  Nothing new!  At least when I am blogging.  I think I have a couple thousand posts waiting to be read on Reader that I just need to let go of because I have no free time!

I’m linking up with Doodle Bugs 5 for Friday Linky!  This is the clipart rather than photo edition.

1. 200 Followers!

Yeah!  I finally topped 200 followers! ( I wonder if the system will change when Reader is removed.  So not happy about that!)  I am, however, so happy to have 200+ followers!  I have never been super focused on followers because I really blog more for myself and am not super regular. I love to share ideas and printables, but the reality is that I can never remember to grab my camera and take pictures and have so little time to think about it. Finding my writing style has been a process and I keep learning how to inject my real personality into my blog. Thank you to all of you who check in with me every once and a while.  I know I love checking in with all of you!

I thought I would do a sale on TPT, but this week is the TPT Teacher Appreciation Sale.  I have 20% of in my shop, so check it out if you are interested. If I get a breather some time this week, I will try to post a few freebies and plan a sale for a week when there isn’t one!

Here are the linked images to my items:

Best Seller

New Items

   

   

Other Items

2. Crazy Week!

Oh my goodness!  What a crazy few weeks!  We have had state testing for two weeks and a week of craziness!  Three weeks ago we had a bonanza of ELA testing and two weeks ago we had Math testing.  This past week was just full of random craziness.  I was a scoring leader for scoring assessments on Monday.  Tuesday was a somewhat normal schedule, but Wednesday we had a wonderful field trip to the art museum in our area.  Boy did that bring back memories for me from elementary school! I think Thursday was somewhat normal.  Friday was Grandparent/Visitor Day and roller skating.  Oh my craziness! 

3. Movin’, Movin’, Movin’!

On the professional side, I found out that I am indeed moving to second grade next year.  I am really interested in second grade, even though it is the only elementary grade I have not taught. I have received a nice welcome from several members of the team.  I am always a little nervous about learning an entirely new curriculum and becoming part of a new team.  It is hard to enter into a tight team and feel like you are part of it.  As I said, I am feeling welcomed, but it is just finding my spot in the whole picture. I figure if I’ve taught first and taught third in the last few years, second should give me the best of both worlds!  I may still have a chance to stay in third if I want to because there are a few movements that could happen.  However, right now I am feeling like I would stay with second because I know it is a choice that I can make that won’t change in the next few weeks/months.  Plus, it’s not a testing grade!  I never remember being so stressed when I was in a testing grade years ago, but the expectations and impact of the results have changed so much that you can’t help but be anxious. Any how, I guess I can add to my “Teacher Story” posts from last summer!  I guess my career has never been boring! (Check them out if you need reassurance that teaching is a tough profession, but you can survive it! The first post leads to the others.)

4. APPR Binder

Oh, I remember what was big about Tuesday.  We had to hand in our APPR binders.  New York State has this five part teacher evaluation system right now and at our district, we have to create a binder to prove that we do what we do.  It was so challenging because one artifact could be meaningful fro several qualtities, so it was  nightmare to organize.  I think I spent 14 hours on it and still feel like I could have done more.  I go t to the point where I just drew the line because I actually had life things to do – I know, crazy right?!?  Who has a life when they are a teacher!

(haha!  In searching for a graphic, all these choices for cover pages and dividers that teachers have made and are selling.  How did I miss all that?)

5. COLLEGE!

On the college front, I finished my second class – yeah!  I am just finishing up my research project and paper.  What a doosie!  I have loved it, but my brain is tired!  All the philosophies and theories boggle my brain.  As I am finishing up my qualitative project, I am beginning the prerequisite to a quantitative research class, which is a software class.  Four hours on a Friday night is brutal!  Plus, there is an expensive software program needed to do our homework.  So the choice is to either stay and get it done in the lab or shell out the bucks.  So, I stayed and got home around 10 after teaching, grandparents, roller-skating craziness, and four hours of class.  I crashed right away!  Some day, I hope to have all of my college papers and books put away neatly and to actually have an organized house again.  I guess I have fallen into the stereotypical grad/doc student mold where everything around me is a mess because I can’t possibly think about anything like dishes and laundry and day-to-day stuff like cooking real meals!

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Since I am packing – again! – I thought that I would try to do a series of posts on how to pack your classroom.  Goodness knows that I have become an expert!  I know there are sure to be many teachers moving rooms, buildings, or districts.  Maybe there are even some readers who are moving into their classroom for the first time. I also need to work on finding some new books and game for my students this year.  I have lots of first grade things and lots of third grade things, but second grade can sometimes be it’s own little in between word.  I need to get some easy chapter books and my classroom games have been destroyed this year.  Maybe a set of posts about getting materials for your classroom that are free or super cheap?