Back to School 2014- Who

I'm so excited to be linking up with Blog Hoppin' Back to School 2014! This is perfect timing since we go back to school tomorrow. 

So...

Welcome to Monday...all about ME!

Last week I linked up with Falling into First for a Meet the Teacher Blogger link up and it was super fun. I loved getting to know more about you all and it was fun sharing about myself. 

Head here first and then read on my friends. 

I'm a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi...I did attend the Gulf Coast campus (the main campus is in Hattiesburg), but was actually living in California when I graduated.

In the Meet the Teacher Blogger link up I mentioned that my husband and I were living in Mississippi. We were there courtesy of the Air Force. My husband was active duty for 9 1/2 years. During that time he deployed 3 times...the first time was only 4 months after we were married; the second time was when my boy-boy was 5 months old (he made it back for his 1st birthday!); and the last time was when I was pregnant with my little love bug. She was 4 months old when she met her daddy for the first time. 

I'm super-d-duper proud to have been able to support my husband during those years of service. 

After the separating from the Air Force my husband got a civilian job with the Army in a town outside of Boston. We got to live there for 7 of the coldest, snowiest months they'd seen in, oh, only 30 years or so.  The hubs decided to take a job back at the base we had just left...across the country twice in 7 months...not ideal.

But we had a blast living in MA! So many highlights I could picture you all to death, but if I had to pick one really cool thing it was getting to see the Boston Marathon. 

We lived maybe 10 minutes from Ashland, which is where the race starts. We got our spots on the sidewalk and waited for the action. It was a great thing to experience!

2011 Boston Marathon

Go check out Blog Hoppin' for more Back to School 2014!

Five for Friday

Happy Friday!! Linking up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for another...

Been in my class every.stinkin.day this week! Here's a sneak peek at some of the colors I'm using. There's some purple thrown in too!

My honey and I will celebrate our 12th anniversary in a few weeks and so I sent him this screenshot:

A girl can dream!!

Did all the school supply shopping for my little 3rd and 1st graders. I sent this pic to my mom so they could see (they were visiting Grandma this week!) and all I got was "eh, they're okay." I see a return trip in my future.

Leaving in about 20 minutes to go get my two little loveys from my mom's house. Can't wait to smooch their faces! 

Whipped up these word wall headers this morning. I love how they turned out. I'll get them on TpT sometime next week...maybe...

Head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and check out all the awesome Five for Friday links. 

Mega Management: Series Kickoff

I'm kicking off a series of posts focused on classroom management...an area where MEGA planning is required. Since school is fast approaching, this series will post frequently so I have time to cover it all. Fasten your seat belts and hold on folks, it's time for....

So why all the focus on classroom management? Well, I remember being in college and having to type up a 1-2 page classroom management plan. The directions were vague and included things like how you would arrange desks, how you would collect and return papers, where would you store materials and how would students access those materials, etc. The paper was hard to write when I was considering an imaginary classroom with an imaginary group of students. 

Photograph: Tara Moore/Getty Images

It was during my student teaching that I realized that my 1-2 page little paper wasn't even scratching the surface of what I had to plan for to make my class run smoothly.
 
As I was thrown into my first year of teaching under really extreme circumstances mid year, I realized I was more disillusioned than I thought. I didn't have time to put a lot of thought into classroom management. Sounds crazy right? And like horrible teaching right? Well, consider this: I got my curriculum books on a Sunday night and I started in the class at 8:30 the next morning! I just had to make a quick decision and get things going.

The next year wasn't a ton better as far as time to plan. I was at a new school in a new state and was hired with only 5 days to prepare! Again, I had to just get a plan together and go with it, and as the year progressed I knew a lot of things were falling through the cracks. 

This last year was a bit better, but again, some things were just not running as smoothly as I knew they could. And even worse, there were some things that I hadn't really thought about at all. I had no plan for certain circumstances that would occur in class and that led to confusion and disorder. 

See that lady drowning in papers? Yah, that is how I felt at the end of oh so many days!

When it comes to classroom management we all know that what works really well for one group might not work so great for the next. On the other hand there are some parts of a classroom management plan that stick around from year to year. 

So this summer I have spent a lot of time thinking about all those things that I've done successfully, things that I would like to implement, and things that I'm going to keep in my arsenal of tools to implement for those "special" students, parents, and circumstances. 

See you next time with my first topic:

Classroom Tour

The fact that I'm just now (after a week of school) posting pictures of my class is a sure fire indicator that the last two weeks of my life have been absolutely crazy!

I was putting it off because I kept coming up with things that I still needed to do, or wanted to fix, or wanted to add to. I finally realized that if I didn't just share it now, it might be June before I really finish everything I want to do. 

You can see the before pictures here. 

This next picture is from the main front door.

 

This next one is from the opposite corner. 

 

 

Attendance markers right when you walk in. 

This is the side of my filing cabinet. 

 

My group table. The bookshelves could really use some work.

 

My board for jobs. The little signs says, 

"We're going out on a limb to give a helping hand." 

I am going to put little hand cutouts with their name in 

each of the little job title pockets.  

 

 My cubbies got a new paint color!

 

 

My student center right on the other side of the filing cabinet. I saw this idea on another blog, but have no idea which one. If you have a student center, link up in the comments!

 

 My calendar/schedule boards. 

Below is a picture of my favorite back to school activity that we did this first week. These darling Bagpack getting to know you crafts can be found on TpT if you visit Mrs. H's store from Once Upon a First Grade Adventure.

Happy Back to School everyone! 

Back To School PowerPoint Presentation

Meghan over at Third Grade in the First State is flippin' out after reaching 200 followers and is having an awesome giveaway. You don't want to miss this one!

 

I'm also flippin' out because she's so sweet and let me be part of her giveaway. 

One of her prizes includes a customizable Back to School PowerPoint presentation made by ME! Yay!

The presentation includes 24 slides setup so you can input your own information.  Here are a few of the slides included. 

Now hurry over to enter Meghan's giveaway and then make sure you have these two fonts installed and ready to go, ya know, just in case you win!

Minya Nouvelle

(dafont.com)

Digs My Hart

(kevinandamanda.com)

*If you don't have these installed, I'm pretty sure PowerPoint 

will default to a potentially way less cute font.

Keep the cute. Install the fonts.