Uh oh!

It's OU/Texas this weekend and well I live with a Texan.  I am related to many a Longhorn fans, and my best friend is even one but to marry one?  When David first met my grandfather I said "Boppie this is David, he likes Texas!"  To which I got a look from David that said "thanks for throwing me under the bus like that!" I haven't stopped since :) I have tons to report about school but the BEST thing that has happened this week is that my girls volleyball team won their first game tonight.  I could not have been more proud, excited, happy, etc for these girls.  I was thrown into coaching but truly love it and love my girls.

I will leave you with this photo of what my house truly is

Things I am not...

I am not a good blogger
I am not a lover of mornings
I am not caught up on anything in my life
I am not organized at school (and it's driving me nuts)
I am not organized at home (and it's driving David nuts)
I am not home before 6 most nights
I am not a quitter
I am not a nice person if you anger me
I am not a petty person
I am not a fan of drama (but I do LOVE to say baby mama drama for no reason)
I am not a serious person
I am not a saint
I am not a fan of being told no
I am not a fan of not getting my way
I am not a fan of petty people
I am not a fan of rude people

I haven't been able to blog lately for various reasons the biggest being time which I have been lacking a great deal of! The other being I haven't been in a good mental place lately and I didn't think it was fair for my 12 readers to have to read some negative nelly posts so I decided to refrain but then I remembered part of the reason I blog is to share my feelings.  I am happy to have readers, but I am happy to have a place to vent my frustrations from the hour,day,week, month or whatever!  With all that being said I am back with a vengence.  I have finally gotten my much needed school supplies for my classroom, along with being less scared of volleyball coaching and am slowly learning to juggle my crazy life.  I will be back tomorrow to share the things that I am. 

quick quick

I haven't written in a while because things have been absolutely, positively nuts around here!  I started coaching volleyball which means I am not home until almost 6 every night, plus I do morning scanning duty so I'm at work by 8:30 (when you are normally at school by 8:50 it messes with you!)  Yes I am blessed to have a later start time.  Trust me I know! My personal life is a mess right now too, and I just haven't felt like writing because I feel like I'm just one big negative nancy.  I promise to start writing again after this weekend but until then have a fantastic Friday and BOOMER SOONER!

school 20 - ms.l - 15

I have been in school for almost two weeks and have yet to receive my MUCH needed materials!  I am teaching two 90 minute, reading intensive classes and the reading intensive items haven't shown up yet.  I love public schools.  I have found a few ways around this issue by letting my students start their new routines, and read their own books (which is allowed!) and then later on we practice reading together while I read Frindle to the class.  It was one of the few class sets our library had that wasn't super duper long.  I hate being unprepared and am so stressed out.  If being unprepared isn't horrible yesterday the ac in my classroom broke!  I teach in Oklahoma people, we are having a major heatwave (oh wait normal August weather) and my classroom today was almost 90 degrees.  I am one of 9 teachers in my building with no ac and while I know that schools haven't always had air, blah blah blah I want my air back!  It is miserable trying to teach while you are melting, and they are miserable.  I have three fans going but I have a HUGE room so that's not working.  Speaking of things not working apparently my brain wasn't when I decided to become the new girls volleyball coach.  Do I play? Do I have cordination? Do I know what the heck I'm doing? NO NO NO! (I'm not even certified yet!) We had our first game tonight and it was cancelled due one of our generators at school being hit by lightening. 

I am sure that this post has typo's galore and unfinished thougths but I am so tired I can't think and I figured it was time to share with the world again.  I hope everything is going well in your life!

Ten things even I can't believe

1.  I am teaching 3 classes this semester!  2 are 90 minutes, 1 is 45 minutes long.
2.  My largest class has 23 my smallest class has 13.
3.  I had a student last year who asked to go to the restroom and never came back.  I have him again!
4.  I have NO materials for my 90 minute classes so the first day they spent staring at me for 20 minutes.
5.  I am the new volleyball coach.
6.  I am 5'2, clumsy, and broke 4 bones before I was 11.
7.  I have one of the largest classrooms in the building.
8.  Last year I was back in the corner by myself, this year I have neighbors.
9.  My students think I am mean.
10.  I love that my kids think I'm mean! 

I will post more soon, but I haven't had five seconds to breath lately. 

Silent Sunday

Creative Classroom - Belated (Of course!)

In the past week I was given a classroom four times the size of my old one, given four new books to read before school starts (teacher manuals but it sounds cooler if I say books) and have been babysitting my younger cousins since Thursday night.  Needless to say I've been swamped with work, and exhausted at the end of the night but I have enjoyed reading the other blogs so I wanted to share so hopefully my ideas will help you too!

When I was student teaching I had some students who really got into the activities (South Carolina history!) or just talked quite a bit so I started giving most of the students sticky notes. On the sticky notes they were allowed to write questions, comments, notes, things they had wanted to blurt out but weren't allowed.  It surprisingly worked quite well, if I didn't have the sticky notes on the kids desk by the beginning of class they asked for them.  You go through quite a few sticky notes but being able to get through power points without the same three kids answering made it worth it.  

I also use file folders for almost everything! At the end of the school year we were working on CRT (our big "what do the kids know" test) review.  We had daily power points which meant daily review too.  I put all ten of the worksheets in the order I wanted, labeled them so the students knew in which order to do them, stapled five sheets to each side and said start working.  It went extremely well! When students had questions I could stop the entire class and say flip to worksheet #3 and everyone knew which worksheet to look at.  I lucked out on the cost because my aunt's friend donated six boxes of file folders to me.  I also used them to keep the reading logs, writing tips, group assignments, etc.  This way all their work was in one place and they were responsbile for it.  The folders never left the room which helped too!  

The last "tip" I'm giving is that I number everything!  I teach seventh grade and this past year I barely had a class set of most of the books needed, so I started labeling them with numbers.  When going through reading I would call out a number and that person would read, answer the question, etc.  I made them responsible for their desks, workbooks, and this way if the workbook was damaged I knew which five students to start with.  

Hopefully these will help!!!