Showing posts with label Currently. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Currently. Show all posts

Saturday, October 13, 2012

She's alive... Currently.

Hey, yo!

I'm still here.

I have just enough time to log on to Blogger {every once in a while} and read a few posts, but not enough time to do any posting, myself. Not only that, but every time I think, "Oh, hey, I should do some blogging," I get blogger's block.

I'm sure you've had it.

It's kinda like when you are given a writing assignment in school and you get writer's block because you have no idea where to start. But I think it's worse. Because you, as a blogger, write on a semi-frequent-ish basis {sometimes}, and you started a blog because you had the desire to do so, for some weird reason. And other people will probably look at it and read some of it at some point, so there's more pressure.

For me, it goes like this......

I have free time?!
Yay! Internet!
I should blog!
What should I say?
I should share a resource!
What resource?
Have I created anything lately? Oh, what about....
Wait... Can I even post that as a freebie or will copyright law get me arrested and take all of my money?
Hahaha... all my money... good one, Claire!
Oh, I know! I should tell a cute story about a student!
Hey, that's a good one.... wait. No. That's not funny enough.
I bet it was a "had-to-be-there" moment and no one will like it.
I should go to bed...

Anyway, I've been hanging out at the hubby's grandpa's house all weekend now, and I've done every bit of work I could possibly do for school at this point, so I started playing pinterest, which lead me to some good bloggy resources for school, and I realized that it's October. And that Farley posted her new Currently!



 Let me break it down for you....

I'm listening to the Tigers game... Listening, not watching. The hubs is watching, along with his uncle and grandpa. So, obviously, I am playing around on the Internet. Also, one of the players (or someone) has a name that kinda sounds like Voldemort. Every time I hear it, I do a double take. Haha!

I love my hubby! J continues to tolerate my lack of housekeeping skills, still tells me how proud he is and that I'm wonderful, and still wants to snuggle with me. Score!

And I love my new school friends. Basically, the staff at school rocks. I have no complaints about any one of them! And I'm kind of a complainer, so that's really awesome. But really, I love my 5th grade team and the other teachers & paras I've been able to get to know are all super fun and sweet and helpful and supportive. Like a really amazing bra, but funner.


I have not procrastinated at all today! 
Check this out... 
I graded assessments
entered grades online
went through my class' behavior points to see who earned behavior rewards last week
made a rubric for another assessment
found some cool resources online
planned out next week's schedule
and I read through the science curriculum & experiment breakdown that I'll be teaching for the next week.
Woot woot! I am thinking I should treat myself to a new purse. Or a new phone. Which leads me to...

I'm really wanting to trade in my lame-o phone for something that doesn't make me feel like an 11-year-old. When anyone with an iPhone replies all to a text, my phone can't open it! And sometimes when I get a regular text it just blocks out all the letters and replaces them with empty boxes. Yeah. I feel like I'm in the dark ages. I know this isn't twitter, but..... #newworldproblems. Right?

I really need to join a gym. I try so hard to watch what I eat. Ok, that is a lie. Sometimes I try. Sometimes I don't. Seriously though, I haven't been good lately. And while I haven't actually gained any much weight, at least according to the numbers on the bathroom scale, I'm just feeling like I have. You know what I mean?

I have been really bad about eating crappy food lately. And I'm not working out at all anymore. Last week, my teammate, Katie, dragged took me to the gym with her. It was so fun! I remembered that I really do like working out and I love the feeling good thing that happens afterward. I just don't have a good place at home to Shred it with Jillian or do Yoga with Denise Austin. And until now I couldn't justify paying for a gym membership. While planning for our work-out date, I figured I'd join the gym Katie goes to, but then I realized that the location would only be good for going before (ha!) or after work, and would be really inconvenient otherwise.... so then I'd have to drive almost 30 minutes to work out on a non-school day. Not ideal, right? Anyway, I'm thinking I'll suck it up and find a gym to join closer to my house.

The Fall/Halloween/October book that I love best is Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I've been planning on using it as my next class read-aloud in celebration of Halloween. I think it's really good, and a little creepy, and I think that reading it aloud during the school day would be less spooky than reading a scary book at home. The kids were really excited when I told them my plan. Right now, we're half-way though The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis. They love this one, too, and so do I. I highly recommend it!

I'll end my post with a funny quote from one of my students yesterday...

The day after I worked out with Katie, I was holding my hands up above my head, using a time-out signal (my silent attention-getting signal for the class). The kids were taking forever to respond with a time-out signal of their own, so I said, "Fifth graders, I am still looking for 100%... Mrs. B made me work out with her yesterday and my arms are getting tired."

Then one of my 5th grade boys said, in all seriousness, "It takes my mom a lot to finally go work out..."

I almost died laughing inside, but managed to say, "Oh, C, please don't ever say that to your mother."

The end.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Week 2, Currently

So, this was my second week in the classroom as a full time teacher. I'm loving it, but, man, I'm exhausted.
I'm still getting organized and what not, and I'm about to start writing up my first science unit so I can submit it to my supervisors in the next few days. This weekend will be busy.

Anyway, I'm sorry for the lack off interesting posts, but I know you are understanding. :)

I will attempt to make up for it by linking up for Farley's September Currently!
 
  
 


I've been all about Friends lately. Sadly, I haven't been home early enough to watch the evening reruns, and the late-night ones don't come on til 11:00! :(

J has been so wonderful and supportive and understanding! Today, he helped me make lunches... yeah, I know, crazy. Love him.

My feet freaking hurt! None of my shoes thus far are going to cut it if I want to keep this job... I still haven't found a teacher chair, and I'm still figuring out how to best utilize the space in my room. Also, I think my days of wearing flats, especially my super duper flat sandals are over.... Dr. Scholl's here I come.
 
Now that I go to bed at the same time as a 10-year-old {should}, I am going to have to accept that I won't be able to watch basically ANY of my shows anymore. :(
I'll have to catch up by using my Papa's On Demand while I visit over there... lol.
I think I might invest in some cable with DVR or On Demand capabilities in the next couple months...
 
I was up far too late last night watching Parenthood. SO GOOD! But it was so hard to get up this morning... hence the need for DVR. :)
  
I've been all into chocolate, coffee and snuggle time with the hubby this week. There's coffee & basket of Hershey kisses in the lounge, and an over sized bag of M&Ms in my desk, just in case. :)
 

Monday, August 6, 2012

August Currently...

I can't believe it's AUGUST! This is nuts.

Before I begin, let me remind you all to enter into my very first giveaway celebrating 75 followers!

Or scroll down two posts from this one. :)

Anyway, time to link up with Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade again for August Currently!






Love Gilmore Girls!
I've got the whole series on DVD, and I've watched it {in succession from beginning to end} so many times I've lost count.

I'm loving my summer school teaching job! It's so fun having "my own" class... And the kids I have are so great. We're studying fractions now, and it's so rewarding to see them get to that "Aha!" moment. Thursday, my 4th grade girls realized the "trick" to finding fractions of a number, so they decided to teach it to the 3rd graders who were stuck. LOVED IT!

My house is a mess and I still haven't cleaned up from our camping trip last weekend... oops? I'm just so not motivated. Maybe I should invite someone over so I have a reason to pick up.

I want ice cream. And we don't have any. And I'm already in my jams and don't want to change to go get some.

Duh... I'm needing a full-time teaching job.
What's new?

B2S Essentials: Well, considering I don't have to worry about my own class, all I need to worry about is making sure I'm mentally prepared and that our little classroom is cute & organized. I can't really start planning lessons since I don't know for 100% sure who will be in my intervention groups.

And so my back to school must haves are:

1. A massage {I carry ALL my stress in my shoulders}
2. Time to set up and organize the room and our materials
3. My handy-dandy grading scale.... I found this one at the Dollar Tree the other day for, you guessed it, $1!! My coworker had one last year, and I always used it... so I got my own. I'm pretty sure it's the same exact one, but oh well!





You slide the card inside to the total # of problems/questions on the assignment (this one only has 6-96 for whatever reason, but it was $1 so I'm not all worried about it), and then you find the number the student missed. Next to that number is the total % corrent. Yay! SO much easier than maually calculating every possibility before/as you grade.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Monday, Monday... & July Currently


Mondays pretty much suck.

I was so stinkin' tired alllll day today.

And it's month end....

I am an office assistant in the accounting department so that pretty much means that the next week will also suck.

*sad face*

**************************

Time to link up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for JULY Currently! I can't believe it's already July! I'm pretty sure I said that about June too...



Ok, so I can't pick favorites...

My all time favorite read-alouds are:
 The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
 &
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

This may or may not be because they're two of my favorite books... but there really is a ton that you can do with both books as far as enrichment activities go.

Right now, my go-to professional books are Math Workstations by Debbie Diller and Classroom Instruction That Works by Robert Marzano.

Ok, I'm going to go finish unpacking from our camping trip reading Catching Fire now. :)

But not until I'm done visiting & commenting the two people who linked up before me... I'm not exactly the rule-breaking type.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Camping & Currently

I'm a girly girl... not in the always made-up way, but surely I am not a tom-boy.

Normally, I HATE bugs and grass and mud and woods, but when I'm camping it totally doesn't bother me... as much.

I'm not an outdoorsy girl, by any means, but there is something about camping and going out on the lake that I just love....

Maybe it's the disconnect from the world (unless you've got a TV with cable or a smartphone to tempt you)...
Maybe it's that I can read for hours on end while enjoying the cool breeze...
Maybe it's the s'mores... (very likely... though sticky marshmallow fingers are one of my biggest pet peeves...)
Maybe it's spending time with family & friends...
Or maybe it's relaxing out in the sun (or shade) and enjoying the beauty of God's creation.

Either way, I love it.

 I got to spend part of last weekend camping with my husband and in-laws, and it was absolutely wonderful. For the morning, we had a nice breakfast & relaxed outside. Then we spent the day out on the lake. I slathered on the sun screen and STILL got a tan. Ooh ooooohh! And, more importantly, I was finally able to really get into the book I'm reading, The Debutante. I'm at least halfway done now and very exited to get home and read s'more -- ba-dum-dum-ch!!  (Sorry, that was my cheesy joke for the day.)


And now it's time to link up with Farley @ Oh Boy 4th Grade for June Currently! Can you believe it's JUNE already?!?! I sure can't!


I love John Mayer. :)

Justin's and my 2-year anniversary is the 12th. I'm so thankful for him. :)

We have just under two weeks to finish testing, compiling lesson plans, writing up reports and otherwise documenting all of the teaching we've done this year. It's a lot to do, but my goal is to me 100% done with testing & writing reports by next Monday so on the last 3 days of school we can organize our plan binders, and clean, organize and pack up the room.

I almost always want venti non-fat vanilla latte. In college, I was Big Sister Venti Non-Fat Vanilla Latte for my last year in Sigma Phi. Good memories... :)

I'm still needing a full-time job for next year... I heard back from the recruiter at the school where I had the interview, and I didn't get the job. I'm really bummed, but I'm staying positive... it's only June 5th and maybe I'm meant to be somewhere else. I'm giving it up to God, because worrying and wondering isn't helping me much. :(

As for my Wish, Went, Want...

My wish is basically to travel the world... more specifically, I'd love to travel around Europe for a summer and spend some time in every country... or at least Italy, France, England, Ireland and Poland. That's my dream one day... I better start saving, huh?

Over spring break this year, I went on a cruise with my hubby, his sister and their parents. We had a wonderful time! It was so much fun. We spent two of the days at sea, sailing across the Caribbean and doing some of my favorite things: swimming, taking pictures, relaxing, reading, eating, and laying out while applying sunscreen every 45-80 minutes... lol.
The three days in port were spent in Key West, Grand Cayman, and Ocho Rios. We parasailed, walked around and shopped in Key West (yes, I know that's still in the US, but it's sooo much fun down there!). In Grand Cayman, we went snorkeling, explored the beach, ate some delicious food, snorkeled again, and shopped some more. Then we climbed the Dunn's River Falls, danced, and shopped yet again in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
Best vacation ever!

This summer, I want to visit Chicago with Justin. Neither of us have ever been, and we're so close! I've heard that it's totally worth the trip to take a long weekend to enjoy the city. I'm not sure if I'd prefer going just the two of us, or if we'd like going with friends.... Any thoughts?

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

May Currently

I'm linking up... again! Am I computer-literate or what?!?!

Anyway, I'm joing the lovely Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade with her May Currently Linky Party. I've been trying to figure out how the heck to do this one for a while, but I finally got it (thanks to my lovely cowoker)! Ooh oooooh!




My bed is calling me... Over and out...