Currently...

Woah, I blinked and a month flew by! People are starting to ask what happened to my little blog, so I figured Farley's Currently is a nice first post after my month hiatus. Thanks Farley for all the fun!

I found a $10 iTunes card in my wallet the other day...wooohoo... and bought the Tim McGraw single as well as Cassadee Pope's "Wasting All These Tears" and a Taylor Swift's songs from The Hunger Games...I've wanted those for a long time and just never got around to downloading them. 

I've talked about getting a laptop for a long time, but I just couldn't justify spending the money on a Mac, but my sweet darling husband (who has less of a problem spending money than I do!) surprised me with the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It's awesome. I L-O-V-E, love it! We just read Clementine in class; can you tell, hahaha.

Totally bummed I forgot a whole stack of papers in my classroom. Good thing is I only live about 5 minutes from school so I'll have to zip by real quick and grab them. I might have a rough time motivating myself to do that though, we'll see. 

Yep, my husband has not had a job to go to since the government shutdown. So ridiculous. To avoid any political debates, I'll suffice it to say that I really want him to have a job on Monday. 

My stinkin' Scotch laminator died. I'm so sad. Kind of frustrated too because I haven't had it all that long. I thought it would last longer. Anyone else have issues with the Scotch brand laminator? Any suggestions for a different brand? 

My trick probably isn't a trick to many of you, but when I found this out about the Blogger app I thought it was the coolest thing ever. In the past when I would take pictures on my iPhone or my iPad I would email them to myself and then download the pics into a file and then upload them to my new posts. SO time consuming! Then I downloaded the Blogger app.With the Blogger app on my phone and iPad, I can create a new post and put the pictures from my camera roll right into the new post and save it as a draft. I usually don't create the whole post from my phone or iPad. Then when I'm ready to do the actual writing of the post, I can go to my computer and ta-da, the pictures are already there in my draft. It has saved me SO much time! The Blogger app doesn't have the greatest reviews, but I've used it a bunch and have never had a problem with it...knock on wood.

Sure felt good to make a mark in cyber-space once again. Visit Farley and check out the long list of Currently posts...beware: you might get sucked into your computer and not be found for hours!

A Class Act and a Musical Linky Party

This year I'm going to be changing classrooms so that I can be next to my 3rd grade teaching partner. I don't mind because as a new teacher I have not accumulated nearly as much as the veterans at my school. 

I was excited to hear that my new class would be receiving a fresh coat of paint. The downside is that I've been anxiously waiting for 3 weeks to be able to get in there and start getting bulletin boards and things organized. 

With the limited amount of prep time I had before this last year my class decor left much to be desired. It was mostly a hodge podge of random things other teachers donated to me and random things I had picked up here and there. 

I am thrilled to be able to put some more thought and effort into getting my classroom set up nicely. And I love my blog design so much that I'm going to use it as the basis for my classroom theme. 

Here is what I have to work with.

Is anyone else envisioning a cubby make-over??
 

This white cabinet will be great for storage, but that gap at the top of the door is going to drive me crazy! Any ideas?
 

 

These are for the desks. The teal prints out much darker. More like a bright blue. I like it though!

Jo-Ann's was having a sale on scrapbook paper so I picked up these for $.35 a sheet. Not sure what I'll use them for yet, but perhaps a teacher toolbox or a file cabinet makeover. Have you seen those on Pinterest?! So stinkin' cute!
 

Here are the papers and things I've printed at home. What do you think? I can't decide if the pieces go together. I think maybe it's the stripes on the nametags?? I don't know, but I'm not quite sold yet.

 

I also want to take a minute to link up with Amanda over at Teaching Maddeness to share my musical favs. 

The first thing you should know is that I cannot sing. Well, I guess I can sing, I just can't carry a note in a bucket as my former "rock star" dad would say. Yup, ladies, my daddy-o was the lead singer in local band way back in the day. Long locks and the v-neck, bare chested polyester jumpsuit thingy and all. A real class act {wink}! Boy I wish I had a picture to share!

Anywho, I happened to snag my mommy's genes on this one and let me tell you, it's a terrible thing. Needless to say, I avoid singing in class if at all possible. Is that horrible of me to deprive my students of the potential learning afforded by using catchy tunes to memorize multiplication facts and other tidbits of useful information?

What I will do, though, is put on relaxing music while doing writing workshop or some other low key activity. My absolute favorite piano man is Jim Brickman. His music is so soothing and really quite beautiful. Click his album cover to check out some previews in iTunes.  

 

He has a Disney Songbook CD that I don't have yet, but is on my "to buy" list. You can check that one out below.

 

I teach at a Christian school so I have the privilege of being able to pray with my students, and encourage them in their walk with the Lord. This also means I can put the local Christian station on the radio and I can play Christian music in class, which is what I usually listen to anyways. I purchased this next CD for my daughter since she's the musical talent in our family. I LOVE IT! The songs are great with beautiful messages. I'm taking it in to class for sure.

   

What are you playing in class? Click on the Turn the Music Up link at the top and join Amanda in sharing some musical maddeness!