Sunday, December 27, 2015

Reflections of 2015

Happy Holidays, Friends! I hope this post finds you semi-rested and enjoying your winter break. As promised, I have spent my break so far drinking hot coffee, going to the bathroom when I please, and wearing yoga pants and leggings at all times. After finishing my Christmas shopping, I've been binge watching reruns of CSI and wrapping gifts with Annabelle's help. Hubs and I just got home from spending the holidays with our families, we had such a wonderful time hanging out with everyone!

Kristin from A Teeny Tiny Teacher has invited us all to write a post reflecting on our past year. I thought it would be fun to look back at all of the wonderful happenings of 2015. Make sure to check out the link up in the picture below to read everyone else's reflections.




Favorite memories:
1. We started the year in Dallas for the Cotton Bowl that our Baylor Bears were playing in. While attending the pep-rally the day before, Hubs and I ran into our university president. He is a well liked man on campus, sort of a celebrity you could say. Anyway, we asked for a picture and he was so kind to take a selfie with us. Our whole trip was worth it for that picture!


2. On Spring Break, Hubs and I enjoyed a week long cruise to the Caribbean. 7 solid days of relaxation--it was amazing! 



While we were there we got to visit a baby sea turtle farm, it was definitely a highlight of the trip! 

3. In April, my Kinder class hatched baby chickens! I highly recommend this project to anyone who is able to make it happen. Seriously, getting to watch my class see a baby chick hatch was something I will remember forever. 




4. Over the summer, I moved schools, to one much closer to home. I love my new place and all the people that go with it. 



5. In November, our best friends had their first baby! I am a proud Aunt Fairy to a sweet baby boy. We recently got to meet him for the first time. My oh my, he is something precious!






Favorite TV series
This one is a three way tie--hubs and I love all three of the "Chicago" shows!



Favorite restaurant
Hubs and I found a super neat place in downtown Austin called Max's Wine Dive that serves the most amazing Gluten Free Fried Chicken. We have enjoyed going several times this year. 


Favorite picture

Before dinner one night on our Spring Break cruise. 


Goal for 2016
My goal for 2016 is to be more organized at home and at school. I always start out the school year strong in the organization department, but as the year goes on I just smash things into my cabinet and put paper into those dreaded piles. I tell myself, "I'll deal with it over the summer!" I am going to try not to do that to myself and have promised that I will try to put things back where they go each Friday afternoon. As far as our house goes, we are going to do a lot of culling and clearing of things, we don't need so much stuff! 2016 will be clean and organized!

Well, that was fun! It has been a fun year for sure. Be sure to check our the other bloggers who have linked up with their 2015 reflections! Happy New Year!

Friday, December 18, 2015

Hello!

Hello from the other side! Of the screen that is! It's been over a month since I blogged and that makes me SO sad! We all know how insane the months of November and December are in the classroom world are. Today is the first full day of my Christmas break. We got out at noon yesterday but I spent the rest of the afternoon Christmas shopping. I have a long list of to-do today as well, but I thought I would sit down and catch you us on what's been happening in our classroom!



The week we got back from Thanksgiving, we got a delivery from the North Pole! It was precious, our counselor brought a "frozen" box down to our room and told the kids someone had just delivered a package for us! I use my elf in a little bit of a different way than some. She just comes and simply just watches the kids and reports back to Santa. She doesn't make messes or any of that--(I DO NOT have time for that!) The kids love it and it doubles and as a good behavior management tool!




My campus principal is so great. She came up with the idea to have a "theme" for each day of December that the kids and staff could participate in. We had jingle bell day, ugly sweater day, cowboy Santa, reindeer day, snowman day, elf day, Grinch day and several others! It was a lot of fun to see what the kids came up with and it definitely kept the spirits high! Here are a few pictures from our fun days!

My teamie and I came to school accidentally twinning! We did not plan this AT ALL! 
It was hilarious!

Ugly sweater day was a blast. Y'all--my sweater lit up. It was so awful  awesome!

 Grinch Day! Those super cute hats are from Amy Lemons at Step Into Second Grade. You can find them {HERE}.


We have been learning all about graphs in math in December. This is one of my favorite units to teach because it is so hands on! I saw this cute idea from First Grader at Last and just knew I had to do it! I asked the kids to tell me if they had white or colorful lights on their tree at home. We made a tally chart of it, then decorated lights to make a visual. Then we hung them in the hall and it was PRECIOUS! I am doing this every year from here on. 




Too cute to handle. 


So a few weeks ago, Hubs and I were discussing what I wanted for Christmas. I kinda, sorta, not really jokingly told him I wanted a kitten. He was totally down for it--because he's great like that. So after Christmas, he is taking me to the shelter to pick out a new family member. I am super excited! Annabelle loves cats so I am sure she will be happy to have a playmate in the house. I will post pictures as soon as we adopt the sweet little thing!


I have been looking forward to this weekend for weeks now! Our best friends had their baby about 3 weeks ago and I have been dying to see him in person! My friend Kelley has been sending my teaser pictures weekly since he was born and I can't wait to finally hold him! We also have a wedding of a good friend to go to tomorrow, which is always fun. Pictures to come next week!



Have a great weekend, friends! I hope most of you are on Christmas break by now! Here's to two weeks of going to the bathroom when you want, not wearing real pants, and drinking coffee while it's still hot! Enjoy your break!



Friday, November 6, 2015

Five for Friday

Happy Friday, Y'all!

It's been a great week--lots going on and most importantly--one week closer to Thanksgiving Break! ;)



This is technically from last week but I have to show off AB in her Halloween costume. How cute is this loofah costume?!? It even had a rubber duck and the string on it! Too cute to handle. 



Earlier in the week my hair dryer totally bit the dust. I plugged it in, turned it on and it popped. Scared the beejesus outa me! I have always had the same type of hair dryer from Revlon. They are my favorite and super inexpensive. The last time one died I decided to go to Ulta and buy a big girl, more expensive one. It only lasted a few months! I decided to go back to my old faithful one from Target. 13 dollars, people! If you need a good hair dryer, I totally recommend this one. *Revlon is not paying me for this--I just LOVE this hair dryer!*




We have been studying food and nutrition this week! On Monday I had the kids draw one food that was healthy and one food that was "junk." Some of their responses were precious! Later in the week we found different food group items in grocery store ads and put them on our balanced plates. Super simple, but meaningful.




I have to give a huge shout out to Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills for their Guided Readers units. They have put so much work into the units and they are easy to prep and teach for us! This week we read Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes. We worked with using the text as evidence by sorting pictures into whether they were in the story or not. I LOVE these activities and the kids really learn so much each week. If you have not looked into these units, do yourself a favor and run to TpT! You can find the link {HERE}







We are headed to Houston for the weekend to visit some friends and watch my cousin play football. It should be a great weekend!



Saturday, October 31, 2015

Five from Halloween Week

Happy Halloween, Friends! It has been quite the week around here--needless to say, I am so glad to see the weekend!



To say it has be a crazy week would be an understatement. First of all, we all know that a full moon and kids never mix. There was one of those on Tuesday. Then, our AC decided it needed a vacation on Tuesday. Thank goodness for our admin--they saw that it was getting pretty uncomfortable in our rooms (mine was 86 degrees--yikes!) and brought in portable AC units. The thing was a monster, but it at least cooled us off a bit. The AC guys brought and plugged it in and when it started roaring, one of my sweating nuggets looked up in awe and said, "I always wondered what God looked like..." I had to laugh out loud at that one! I think we were all just glad to feel some cool air! Luckily we only had to listen to that thing for 2 days before the central AC was fixed.




It was Bat Week in our room! The kids had a great time learning about the parts of a bat, life cycle of a bat, and all other things bat related! They were even drawing and labeling bats in their free centers. That is when I know they are loving what they are learning. The art teacher even told me they were telling her all about echolocation in her class--she was very impressed!


On Monday, I channeled my inner Ms. Frizzle and wore these cute bat leggings I found a few weeks back. One nugget popped up Monday afternoon and said, "Mrs. Allison! We are learning about bats today, AND you have bats on your legs!" Yes, friend, that was my intention. ;)



We are lucky to live and go to school near a bridge that houses a large bat colony. They come out every night by the thousands for their nightly feeding and it is so neat to watch. I invited my class families to come watch one night and you would have thought I'd taken my kids to Disney World! The bats flew right over us and they kids were amazed! (The parents were too!) It was a fun mini field trip after school hours. 

Waiting for the bats!


We celebrated Halloween at my school by dressing as book characters! My sweet team looked so cute yesterday! We were Max, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Pete, Viola Swamp, Splat, and Thing 2. I am so glad I get to work with these girls everyday! 



Sadly, to top off the week, my room flooded yesterday thanks to a monsoon rain storm we had. Thankfully, it is not my entire room, just about a third of it. I was frantically moving furniture to the middle of the room yesterday, and my kiddos and I had to relocate to a vacant room for the rest of the day. Luckily, I had some room moms coming to volunteer anyway, and they happen to show up at just the right time. They jumped in and started moving things with me and helped keep the day as normal as possible. I am SO lucky they showed up, I don't know that we would have made it without them! Maintenance is sanitizing and drying the carpet today so that I can spend tomorrow putting my room back together. I am happily spending today with the dog and the hubs and not worrying about anything school related. We are headed off to the Farmer's Market for brunch!

Have a great weekend, y'all!






Friday, October 23, 2015

Five for a Friday (Soggy Edition)

Happy Friday, Y'all!

So sorry to have been blog absent for a few weeks. I finally feel like we are getting really good and settled into the school year and I have been busy and exhausted!

Here's what's been going on in my neck of the woods.



Here in Austin, we are prepping for a big storm that is supposed to come tomorrow. They are predicting 8-10 inches of rain. We are in desperate need of rain, but Austin tends to flood easily. People are still recovering from the Memorial Day floods so I know we are all hoping that this weekend won't be a repeat. 

Of course the rain started today right during dismissal. My sweet teamie/bestie captured this ever so flattering picture of me while I was directing traffic. My face says it all--exactly how I feel about downpours during dismissal. 



October has been a busy month in our classroom. Pumpkins, spiders, and bats have all been such fun units to study! We've been doing a lot of life cycles and practicing our labeling skills!



Last week, a local book store was hosting James and Kim Dean for author visit and book signing. If you don't know them, they are the authors and illustrators for the Pete the Cat books. My nuggets and I are OBSESSED with Pete so of course I had to go. They were such nice people! Mr. Dean talked about how he started drawing Pete, read us the new Bedtime Blues story, and then signed books and took pictures. He taught the audience how to draw Pete and even let me bring his drawing home! I was over the moon and am working on getting it framed for my classroom. It was definitely a highlight of my year!




Can I just brag on my hubs for a minute? I drag him around to every teaching store in a 50 mile radius and he never complains. The other night I need to run to Teacher Heaven because I was looking for table caddies in certain colors. I caught this cute picture of him not only carrying my said caddies around while I shopped, but he is just looking around--not ever telling me to hurry or that he wants to leave. Seriously, he is the best hubs eva. 




Honestly, I don't have a number 5. I am spending the weekend cleaning house and getting ready for Bat week! And then of course, next Friday is costume day! Woo! I can't wait to see of all my cuties dressed up!

Have great weekend!