Happy Holidays!

Hi there, sweet teachin' friends! I am so happy to be back here tonight posting on this little blog of mine. It is so hard to believe that the holiday season has already come and gone! I've been out of school for a week now and I still feel like I'm catching my breath! I hope everyone in this bloggin' community had a happy and safe holidays! If you're like me, you're already gearing up for our return to school in just one short week!

Tonight, I hope to share some of our wonderful Christmas activities with you. Unfortunately, I left most of our precious little projects still hanging up in my classroom, and completely forgot to take pictures! Fortunately; however, I got a brand new camera for Christmas, so I will be sharing those as soon as I can get my booty back into my classroom! Until then, I will share with you what few photos I was lucky enough to snap!

As I mentioned in my last post, the late-ness of Thanksgiving this year totally threw all of my Christmas teaching plans into chaos! I must admit, I am definitely overly ambitious when it comes to planning for Christmas. It's just that there are SO many wonderful, Christmas themed texts and activities that there is just NO time to fit it all in! Therefore, we were forced to squeeeeeeze gingerbread week into one teeny tiny day! It was exhausting but so FUN! 

We began the day by reading several different versions of "The Gingerbread Man" and talked about the many ways the books were similar and different. Next, I split the class into 4 groups and assigned each group a story element (characters, setting, problem, and solution). The kids then worked with their group to compare/contrast their story element in each of the texts. It was so great watching the kids work together, and they were so engaged in the activity, I not once had to re-direct them! When they were done, each group shared their findings with the class and we displayed their answers on a GIANT gingerbread house (picture to come), that I stole from here. It was so fun and such a great visual! Our gingerbread house is now safely hanging in our hallway at school awaiting for me to return and take its picture to share with you ;)

When we were done, we taste-tested gingerbread cookies and then used adjectives to describe them! I used this wonderful snack as a springboard for discussing similes. I recorded all of their responses on the following anchor chart. Yes.... that is an "ou" and not an "a" in delicious. Can you tell my cursive is rusty?

Some of their adjectives just astound me....scrumptious, crumbly?! I was so impressed! When finished, the kiddos created their own simile to describe their cookie and then got to make their very own {construction paper} gingerbread man.

Unfortunately, the template for these fellas are also in my classroom. I will post it with all the other missing pictures.

 The rest our time together before break was spent attending our first field trip of the year, practicing and performing in our annual Christmas concert, and celebrating the holidays with a class Christmas party! Whew! It was a whirlwind!

Although this is only my second year of teaching, I have already discovered that one of the best parts about being a teacher this time of year is all of the sweet letters I get from my students. This year, I got one that especially melted my heart:

I'm telling you, I just about cried when I saw this. Notes like this help me remember why I became a teacher in the first place. Now, I'm using all that inspiration to get ready for the upcoming weeks of school. To do so, I have put together a couple units that I hope will be helpful to you as well!

For a closer look at either activity, you can click the pictures and it will take you right to my little shop! Please feel free to e-mail or message me should you have any questions! As always, both items will be on sale until tomorrow night! Go snag em! 

Have a wonderful Monday, friends! Enjoy your break!
Happy teaching!

Rewind.

Hey there! I'm FINALLY back! This girl definitely enjoyed her Thanksgiving vacation way too much to even consider blogging. But, it's back to reality, and I am excited to be back here again to share with all of you! We definitely have some catching up to do…

To start, I wanted to share an activity from our Thanksgiving unit. Before starting any unit, I always like to use a KWL chart of some kind, just so I can get a grasp on what the kiddos already know. The kids also really love this time, because they get to show off all their smarts! Here's our KWL chart for our Thanksgiving unit..

This picture was taken towards the beginning of our unit…hence the lack of information in 2 of the sections. My kids loved referring to this chart during all of our writing activities, and it was helpful for keeping track of all we have learned!

Before the holiday break, we also got to get together as a school to celebrate our recent success. Our test scores last year brought my school up a letter grade in our state-wide rating system. Needless to say, we were proud of our students and excited to share the news! What better way to do so than with a balloon launch!

Clearly, the weather was horrid. But that didn't stop our fun! I wish I could share pictures of my kids faces when they saw all the balloons in the sky. Precious ya'll. I wish I could re-live it again just so I could catch it on video. 

Now, we are heading full blast into all things Christmas, and I couldn't be more excited! Unfortunately, Thanksgiving landed a little too late in November this year, and we only have 2 and a half more weeks until we are off again for Christmas! 

Imagine the horror when I realized I wouldn't have enough time to devote a whole WEEK to our gingerbread unit. 

*GASP* Say it ain't so! 

Seriously though…I am struggling to squeeze in all the wonderful literature and activities I had planned. I wish I could just add another hour {or two} to the school day. 

With no time to waste, my cuties and I have been working over time to fit in all the fun! Our latest project was making text-to-self connections. We started out by reading The Snowglobe Family by Jane O'Conner. If you haven't read this yet….what are you waiting for?! It's a precious book with so much potential for so many skills! After comparing/ contrasting the characters in the story and discussing point of view, we made a little craft about what we would do if we lived in a snow globe. I used this activity last year but decided it needed a little something special this year…

TA DA!

Holy cuteness. I was so excited when I saw how these turned out, that I completely forgot to take pictures of their writing. Shame on me!! 

To make this activity I took a picture of all my kids, printed and cut them out. Then we laid out contact paper and placed the pictures, snow globe outline, and snow on the back. After that we folded the remaining contact paper over and…VOILA! 

We are now preparing to celebrate gingerbread day tomorrow! The time crunch forced me to condense a whole week's worth of activities into one day, but I have faith we will get it all done! If anything, we will definitely be enjoying some delicious cookies…

If you're looking for new word work or Christmas activities, stop by my store! I will be back soon to give more details about the recent products I've posted.

I hope you all have a wonderful, stress-free, and happy week! It truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

Happy teaching!

November, already!?!

Hey, ya'll! Where the heck has the time gone?! I feel like just yesterday it was the first day of school! It's hard to believe the first half of the school year is coming to close. I feel so lucky to have such a sweet and hard working class. They make each day fun, and I have a feelin' that's why this year has zoomed right on by!

Enough digressing... I hope you and your loved ones had a Happy Halloween! We have been so busy the past few weeks wrapping up our studies on owls, bats, spiders, and pumpkins. Like most of you, I'm sure, we celebrated Halloween by having ourselves a little pumpkin investigation. My cuties did such an amazing job counting out their seeds and working together to find the right strategy to use. None of my groups ended up counting the same way, and I loved that! It made for such great discussion at the end of the activity.

Needless to say, they LOVED the activity and certainly did not mind getting their hands all messy! 

Another fun activity we completed for Halloween, was pumpkin book reports. For this project, I let each student choose one book from the class library. At home, they had to illustrate or draw (depending on their level) the elements of the story. Then, they got to create the main character using a pumpkin. The final products were TOO CUTE ya'll. Just take a look below.

We had the whole gang in class: Duck, Sam I Am, The Stinky Cheese Man, Marley, The Gym Teacher from the Black Lagoon, and so much more!

When I sent home the instructions for the project, I stressed the importance of having the students do the brunt of the work. While I acknowledge that parents are needed to complete some more dangerous difficult activities {hot gluing, cutting, etc}, I wanted to make sure my students got to be the creative directors, and let me tell you....they sure did. I have never seen my students more proud of their work than when they presented their pumpkins to the class...and I have probably never been more proud as their teacher. 

You could definitely say it was a win/win!

Besides being totally wrapped up in the chaos of planning, teaching, and tracking data (yuck!), I have had several sweet surprises lately that have helped remind me of the purpose of Thanksgiving. One of those sweet little surprises was this precious wreath:

 

Ok, ignore the filthy dry erase circles. Those puppies only get a good wipe down every Friday {if I'm lucky} and we sure use them to death! Anyway, how stinkin' cute is that wreath!? A precious parent of one of my students last year made it for me for NO.GOOD.REASON. Just to be nice. Can you believe that? If that doesn't make you thankful I don't know what will. Thank heavens for kind people!

Now that October has come to a close we are diving head first into all things Thanksgiving! One of my absolute most favorite times of year! To prep ourselves for the month ahead, I've worked my self to death thrown together a little math and literacy unit! Because my little learners are so diverse and have so many varying needs, I tried to make this unit as thorough as possible. I wanted to be sure it would provide you {and me!} with enough activities to last the month, and I wanted it to cover a wide range of activities. 

This packet is filled with 10 math, 10 literacy, and 1 writing activity. For a closer look please check out the preview picture in full. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me! As always, it will be on sale the first 2 days it is up in my shop! 

I'll be back soon with more classroom updates and a peak at our Thanksgiving happenings! 

Until then, happy teaching!

Halloween in full gear!

Hello again, friends! I hope you're Monday has treated you well. If today was in indication of what the rest of the week will be like, then I am in for some trouble. If you're like me then you had school today despite the fact that it is Columbus Day. It wasn't all bad;  however, because it was the perfect teaching moment for our U.S. Symbols and Heroes unit. Luckily, I found this precious packet from Tangled Up in Teaching.

It gave me all the tools necessary to properly celebrate the holiday with my kiddos! They adored making their Christopher Columbus hats, and their "Stick Stories". Too fun!

In other news, we have just started our new math unit which focuses HEAVILY on making "friendly 10s" to add. Luckily, all I had to do was whip out my Spiders Sums activity and we were good to go! I also prepared a little Candy Corn Addition activity to get us used to making 10. For the activity, I provided each student with a recording sheet and an 10s frame mat with two 10s frames each. The students would then read the addition problem (ex. 9+4) and would place 9 regular candy corn on the first frame and 4 candy corn on the second. This was the perfect lead-in to a discussion on strategies we could use to compose 10. It was so awesome to hear them explain how we could take 1 away from the 4 and move it to the group of 9 to complete the 10s frame. 

Proud teacher, right here!

Once they figured out how to make 10 on the 10s frames, we recorded the two problems on the recording sheet. We wrote the answer using the original problem and the making 10s way. If you'd like to snag a copy of this easy activity, you can click the link below!  

And, last but not least, my October unit is FINALLY posted! I have worked my tush off trying to finish up this latest unit. In fact, the whole reason it hasn't been posted until now is that I was too busy printing and laminating the activities so I could use them in my own classroom. 
Why can't there be a couple more hours in a day!? 

The unit is filled with 16 math and literacy activities that are bat, owl, and spider themed. Each activity is correlated to a Common Core Standard, and the standard addressed is displayed on each recording sheet. In addition, I have created 2 versions of several of the activities to suit the needs of the many different learners in my classroom {and hopefully yours, too}! If you'd like to take a closer look at this packet, you can click on the picture below. Let me know if you have any questions! 

I've also posted some October themed "cut, glue, and solve" word problems in my little shop. I'll be sharing a post later this week to give you more details on those!

 

To celebrate this new product and my October Word Problems unit, both items are going to be 20% off for the next 2 nights!

Have a wonderful night, teachers, and a very happy Tuesday!

Updates and a Freebie

Happy Tuesday, friends!

I don't know about ya'll, but this wonderful fall weather has left me in the BEST mood lately. I love the way it feels when all of the holidays start rollin' around, and I am getting SO excited preparing for them in my classroom! 

We are still knee deep in all things creepy. For centers, we have been using all kinds of activities from my Things That Go Bump in the Night packet {I know I said it'll be posted soon, and I promise it will be!} We also began practicing our subtraction skills and used this little diddy I threw together to help us learn our facts. 

As I read the story I also used some great {and glittery} black spiders I got from Wal-Mart for a whopping $2 bucks! My kids LOVED going along with the story, and they didn't even realize they were using math! Since it worked so well my kiddos, I thought maybe ya'll could use it too! If you'd like to download my "Ten Little Spiders" story and the corresponding center activity and recording sheet, just click the picture below! This is PART 2 of my October mathtivities. 

Speaking of spooky....the other morning I waked into my classroom to find this little surprise....

                                                         Oh the horror, the horror!

Your eyes don't deceive you. It is most definitely my beloved Scentsy in pieces on the floor of my classroom. That Scentsy was just about the only thing keeping my classroom smelling great. Naturally, my students blamed it on our Halloween ghost and I have to admit, I was pretty freaked out myself. Looks like I know what I'll be putting on my Christmas list this year...

In other {non-spooky} news, my cuties have become SO into reader's workshop. Our stamina has grown and we have FINALLY made it to reading with a buddy stage...and let me tell you, it is by far the kids {and my}  most favorite time of the day. Nothing makes this teacher happier than looking around at a class FULL of students reading together and talking about their books. 

 Ignore all the  creepy happy faces and enjoy...

 

*Sight*  It's a beautiful thing.

Before I leave you today, I thought I'd share something with you that made me smile BIG this week. One of my students lost a tooth and wrote a note to the tooth fairy. Naturally the "tooth fairy " wrote back, and here's what she said...

I just about DIED when I read it. How cute! Luckily the parents laminated the note so that the whole class could enjoy it. Of course all my kids ate it right up and loved thinking that their teacher has a secret identity. I have to admit...I may have given them the idea myself. :)

Have a great rest of the week, sweet friends! Get out and enjoy the weather!

Happy teaching!

October Fun!

Happy fall ya'll!! Mother nature was very punctual this year, because the weather outside feels GREAT! Too bad it won't stay that way for long! In celebration of the first day of my most favorite season, I have some finds and freebies to share with you today!

I've been gearing up to get my class ready for our next unit....Creepy Creatures! Since we can't officially "celebrate" Halloween, I try to find other ways to make the season fun. Throughout the next few weeks, my class and I will be learning ALL about pumpkins, spiders, bats, and owls! 

To prepare myself for one of my most favorite units of the year, I stopped by the Target dollar section and Dollar Tree, and boy did I find some treasures!

As soon as I saw all these creepy creatures, I just knew I had to snag them and find a way to sneak them into my math tubs for next week. I'm currently tying up the loose ends on my newest TPT unit, but until it's ready to be posted, I thought I'd share a few of the math activities with you as freebies.

Both math activities you'll find in this little packet use the manipulatives you see above, or the ones I provided for you to print! Both activities focus on addition {since that's the concept my sweeties are currently studying}. In the first activity, students use the ice cube 10s frame OR the one provided on the paper to make a sum of 10. Students roll the dice, place that many orange (or black) spiders on the 10s frame and then add the other color until they make 10. When finished, the students record their number sentences on the recording sheet. I have provided two different recording sheets for you to use, depending on if you use ice cube trays or the 10s frame provided for you on the page. I have also added some spider manipulatives in case you don't have any of your own!

Here's a look at the recording sheets:

Here's the sheet to use if you don't have ice cube trays of your own:

The next activity I created using the Target Dollar Section stickers (or any creepy creature stickers you can find). Students will place the stickers on the recording sheet and make a matching story problem.

To download your own copies of the activities you see above, just click the picture below!

I hope that these activities help you in your classroom this month!! Please check back soon, as I will be uploading more creepy creatures activities in my newest unit...

Have a great Sunday!

Happy Teaching!!

Favorite Pins Friday!

Hi, pals!! I hope everyone is having a very restful post-fourth Friday! Today I wanted to do a quick little post to link up with none other than CC herself (I like to pretend we are on a nickname basis) for Favorite Pins Friday! I wanted to link up in this post for a variety of reasons. Pinterest has definitely been a life changing sort of experience for me. Any time I want to try a new recipe, find a product, or get ideas for a teaching activity I instantly turn to Pinterest! It only makes sense that we all share all the treasures we've found surfing through the site, and I'm so glad Cara made that possible! So without further ado....

Favorite Teaching Pins

I found this darling idea a few weeks ago and immediately pinned it! Back to school night is always a little chaotic, and I thought this would be such a fun way to keep things interesting!

This next pin is on my to-do list before next school year! I thought this fabulous idea from Hooty's Homeroom is a great way to actually show the kids what you expect out of their writing. 

Favorite Food Pins

Pinning new food ideas is probably the most useful thing about Pinterest for me! My friends and I have monthly Pinterest parties where we each try out a recipe we pinned. It's such a great way to actually put all that pinning to use, and gives us a good excuse to get together!

I made this recipe for Skinny Broccoli and Chicken Alfredo from Table for Two a few weeks ago and all I can say is...YUM! The recipe subs Greek yogurt in for a lot of the not-so-good for you stuff, and you can't even tell the difference! 

Do It Yourself

Another great thing about Pinterest is that it gives you access to super fun and easy do it yourself projects! Since moving into a new house I have definitely tried to embrace my inner do-it-yourselfer! Here are just a few of the ideas I've tried or have on my list..

I made these wine glasses from Just Short of Crazy for my sisters for Christmas last year and they were a HIT! We still use them at all our family gatherings and it's a great way to keep track of our glasses!
 

I also made these beautiful Christmas ornaments from Flea Market Style last year. When I first saw this Pin I just KNEW I had to have them! They were pretty easy and cheap, and definitely looked beautiful on the tree!

Funny Stuff

I could spend HOURS on Pinterest just looking at all of the funny animal pins. Seriously...it's a huge time waster, so I don't advise trying it! Here are a few of my favs...

Makes me laugh every.single.time

 Well, that's about all the Pins I can handle for a day! I can't wait to see all the goodies you've found while Pinteresting! I'll be back again next Thursday to share some more of my Pinterest findings. In the meantime, be sure to link up with my girl Cara for Favorite Pins Friday!

Check back soon for more updates! Have a great one!

Let's Catch Up!

Hi, sweet friends! Long time, no see! I am so happy to be back to share a few updates on my classroom  this school year. 

I don't know about you but, back to school was pretty much a whirlwind for me. I traveled to Europe and returned a short 3 days before the kiddos were to arrive { What was I thinking?!}. Before leaving for my trip I had my classroom all ready to go, but when I got back I was offered a new classroom with a Smartboard! So, what's a girl to do?

Naturally, I picked the room with the Smartboard (duh!) and pulled a last minute switch-a-roo....with the help of my loved ones, of course. So tonight I have a few classroom snapshots for you. Unfortunately, I can't say that every.single.thing in my classroom is just how I want it to be, but it's pretty darn close. I feel like I am never 100 percent satisfied no matter what I do, but I gotta tell ya I am really liking the set up so far. I know things will change and be added as the year progresses, but I'm glad to have a good start. 

Am I the only one who feels this way?

As far as classroom decor goes, I typically like warmer color schemes and very little clutter. I am *somewhat* of a  freak for organization and labeling (just don't open my cabinets). That being said, I {shamefully} have not finished labeling everything in my classroom. Thanks to a sweet parent of one of my students, I was able to get this great cubby system to organize all of our math tubs and manipulatives. I actually have two cubbies side by side, with the manipulatives spanning the top 6 cubbies and math/ dessert tubs occupying the bottom two rows. 

Since I teach K/1 gifted, a WHOLE lot of differentiation goes on in my little classroom....which means I also need a WHOLE lot of storage for all these center activities. It took a while, but I finally figured out a way to keep it all straight (for me and the kids). My higher students use the blue baskets as math tubs and my lower students use the green baskets. Of course, no one knows which group they are in, they just know what color math tub they are to use. The dessert tubs are in the purples containers to the right. I keep a folder in each tub with the recording sheets that correspond to each activity. The students know which math tub they are to complete on each day, and they are responsible for getting the necessary supplies from the tubs. I typically make 4 different math tub activities per week for each group of students (that's 8 in all) and I usually set out 3-4 dessert tubs each week.

 Needless to say, my "Sunday Fundays" consist of wine, Breaking Bad, and my laminating machine :)

The top baskets house our extra materials (glue, pencils, scissors, markers, etc.) and I use the three tier paper caddy to hold loose-leaf paper, construction paper, and blank writer's workshop papers. 

On another note, our school-wide back to school theme this year was "Wild Wild West". It was so much fun to get the whole school dressed up and excited to start of the school year! To celebrate the fun, my students and I read How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague, wrote about our own summer vacations, and finished up with a cute little cowboy/ cowgirl craftivity. It was a rootin' tootin' good time!

For the faces I simply used paper plates. I made a template for the hat and bandanna that I will be uploading as a freebie in the very near future. 

I can't wait to share more updates on my classroom with you, friends. 

In the mean time, enjoy your week!

 Happy Monday! 

Sunday Smorgasbord

Hey ya'll! I'm back again for the THIRD time this week....can you believe it?! Today I'm linking up with Fabulous in First for Sunday Smorgasbord! That's right, be prepared for a post full of random happenings...

First up, I wanted to share my Fourth of July with you. The weather was pretty nice in these parts, so we had ourselves a pool party. Everyone brought their own food to grill and, in true teacher style, my friends and I decided to get a little crafty with our food! We tried our hands at making homemade shish kabobs. I have to say, they were darn good!

That's them before they were cooked. They look pretty tasty right?

The next day was my nieces birthday, so we got to celebrate by seeing Despicable Me 2. I was probably equally as excited as the kids! 

This summer, I've also taken on a few new projects to keep me busy, and one of them was playing tennis. I've had a few lessons for about a month now and let me tell you....I am not good. Practice makes perfect though, right? 

However, my super cute tennis racket makes my lack of tennis skills slightly less noticeable...to me anyway.

 

Did I forget to mention it's pink? 

I've also been doing a whole lot of school supply shopping, and I recently purchased these little stools for my classroom next year. Seating is always pretty tight in my class, so I couldn't pass up these cute little stools at such a steal! I also loved the colors and the reviews were pretty great! I'm not exactly sure where I'll use them this year, but I was thinking they could be good for my small group table...any suggestions?

Welp,that's about all the random-ness going on in my life right now! Be sure to link up with your Sunday Smorgasbord over at Fabulous in First!

Thanks for visiting me today, please check back tomorrow for a post on new products and organization in my classroom. 

Have a GREAT day!

 

Summa Time!

Hello, long lost friends! I sure have missed you!

Let me start off by apologizing for my ridiculously long absence. I got so bogged down with the end of the year, finding/ moving into a new house, and teaching summer school that I thought it was best to take a small hiatus! 

But, I'm back now, and I am ready to party!

Hopefully you're like me, and you are enjoying every second of your summer! That's not to say this girl hasn't been busy, because that would be an outright lie. But I have found some time to do a little of this....

and a little TOO much of this...

I'm definitely still in school mode full force. With a trip to Europe scheduled for the end of July and my birthday almost immediately after, I am trying to spend every free second preparing for my new little friends I'll be meeting on August 12th.

To do so, I've been spending a little time getting know these new friends...

Admittedly, I've had these books for quite a while now, but I am finally finding the time to really get into them. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am! I feel like they are really helping me structure my literacy block in a more effective way.  Yes, one of them still has the wrapper on it. But hey, summer ain't over yet! I still have time, and I fully intend to get every one of those books read by the time August rolls around.

I've also  been working overtime on the curriculum side of things. One of my major goals this summer is to get ahead on all of my units. You know, so I can actually have a weekend every once in a while. My latest pride and joy is definitely my most favorite unit to date! I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics today to share it with you in this week's edition of Monday Made It.

My Johnny Appleseed unit is definitely one of my best memories of the school year. For me, it marks the beginning of fall, my favorite time of year! It's also one of the units that I find my students get into the most, which makes it super fun to teach! Those are the memories I kept in mind while creating this newest unit. If you'd like to take a closer look at everything included in the packet, you can view it in my TPT shop or click the picture below.

And, to celebrate my return to blogging, everything in my shop will be 20% off until Tuesday night. So get your shoppin' on!

I hope to be back very soon with more updates, freebies, and findings for the new school year!

Happy Monday, bloggin' buddies!

The No Good, Very Bad Day

Excuse the title.  There is a chance that I might be acting slightly dramatic, but It's just been one of those days. You know, one of those days that never end? It has knocked me of my confidence and made my first year teacher-ness totally and completely apparent....well, to me at least.

Ok, so it wasn't that bad. But still, it was definitely not my most favorite day of the year. Things have been SO great lately. The kids have been so engaged in their learning and I have seen  a ton of growth from their little brains! I've really loved my time with them at school and I LOVE that I LOVE my job.  It's just funny how the littlest bad things can make me forget all of those huge good things. I find it so easy to get bogged down by all the paperwork and meetings and rules we are required to follow. Sometimes I feel like it completely overshadows the real reason I'm here...the kids. Ya feel me?

Anyway, I hate to be such a Debbie Downer, things truly have been rockin' on the instruction side of my classroom as of late. We wrapped up our camping unit last week and used TONS of activities from the fabulous Cara Carrol's Camping Capers unit. I feel like I should keep a tally of how many times I mention using her activities on here. That woman can do NO wrong! We also threw in some of our very own that they kids adored. I would love to post pictures, but that would require way more of my attention than I am willing to give right now.

I'm also linking up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for this month's CURRENTLY...

Listening:

Everyday I have three or four of my littles hang out in my class for a bit waiting for their bus. It's taken a while, but they have finally learned to use this time in productive ways. Meaning...they read instead of playing "fairy princesses" and destroying my classroom.

Loving:

My new lucite tray on Etsy. Have you seen these before? So stinkin' cute! I am moving into a new house in May and have been thinking of its decor since at least January. Nothing wrong with a little anticipation, right?

Thinking:

I should hit the gym after school. Spring break is just a few short weeks away, afterall. Luckily, one of my greatest friends (and fellow teachers) works out with me on the almost daily. It's so awesome to have a bud to keep you motivated!

Wanting:

A vacation! Did I just say spring break? Hallelujah! It is so soon!! I could use a second (or two) to catch my breath.

Needing:

A pedicure...in the worst kind of way. I just got into gel manicures and they are by far the greatest invention on earth. Now, I haven't tried removing one so I may take back my previous comment in the near future. I will definitely be treating myself to some spa time this weekend.

Like, Love, Hate:

Movies. I LOVE cuddling up and watching a new movie. Or even an old one...this girl ain't picky!

Macaroni n' cheese. My kiddos know this is by far my most favorite food. Such a comfort to eat!

Mondays. I dread them by Friday night. Is that sad? I promise I love my job, but Mondays definitely bring be down just a little.

Link up with Farley over at her blog if you haven't already! Please remember the rule of three! :) 

Well, that's about all the sharing I have for you today! I having been working like crazy on my St. Patrick's Day packet o' fun! Trust me...I know it is way past late. I hope to have it posted in the very near future!

Have a wonderful night!!