A little bit of this...A little bit of that

I have so much on my mind that I want to share...but I am going to try and keep it short and sweet. :)
First...Coach and I REGISTERED OUR LITTLE GIRL FOR PRE-K this month!!  Our sweet oldest baby, Emma Lou will start school next year. And on top of that...our sweet youngest baby, Ezra will be moving up to the 3 year old room next week! It is crazy how times flies (especially once you hit that 6 month mark with a baby...when we had our first child, everyone always said that the time will just FLY by...before that 6 month mark-I thought EVERYONE had gone CRAZY about how time flies by-months 1-5 DO NOT FLY BY)!!

The Sass and the Wild Man (yes-he got into his sister's play makeup and the ONLY thing I can get it off with is MY moisturizer-I guess he will have good, no wrinkle skin if he keeps that up)...

 

Watch Out World...Here They Come!

 

 

 

 

 

I am reminded at this time in our lives when Ezra throws his HUGE-I mean HUGE- fits and Emma Lou hits me with her Sass and back talk-and while they are growing up quicker than I could ever imagine- that I must boast in my weakness (and remember others who suffer MUCH greater sufferings that me). Because in my weakness, Christ's power may rest in me.

That verse goes on to say "therefore I will boast more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

Thank our Good Lord that I am strong in Him in my weaknesses.

 

 

Now let me tell you a little about what we have been working on in room 523! TIME (which the Coach would say I needed to work on because I'm late to almost everything)!! I got a lot of inspiration from Amy Lemons post on time as well as one of my very good friends and coworkers, Kim Patton (who has some really awesome products in her TPT store!)! We did a class timeline where everyone got a different time of the day (some were on the hour and some were telling time to five minutes). So basically, everyone got a blank clock- made by the AWESOME Workaholic NBTC (which by the way-these clocks fit 2nd grade standards PERFECTLY!!)- and a premade mini sentence strip with a time.

 

As a class, we went through and made the human time line first. We started with 6:00 am. For each time, I handed the card to the student and asked what they were doing at that time during the day. Then I would ask if it was am or pm. As each student answered, they went and found their place in the timeline. It worked beautifully! They loved it!!

 

 

 

 Once we were finished making our day time line come to life, they went back to their seats and wrote either am or pm beside their time and had to show me the time on their clock. Once they showed me the correct time on their clock, I passed out a blank face clock and they drew the time from their card onto thier blank clock.

 

I then passed out a half sheet of paper and black piece of construction paper. They drew a picture of their time on the half sheet of paper.

 

Then we hung them on my back wall to show a day in the life of a second grader! :)

 

 

 Anyway...here is a little preview of the WHOLE unit that I did with my class:

 



At the beginning of every math lesson, I would put a time on the board and sing (to the tune of "What Does the Fox Say"-which by the way my kids LOVE)-WHAT DOES THE CLOCK SAY?! Let me just tell you-it was the highlight of the entire unit! :)

Happy Teaching!!

 

Good News and Bad News (well bad news for some of us)...

Sooooo...bad news first...
Our snow days were a few weeks ago but I checked the weather last night and you would NOT believe what I saw...MORE SNOW (which I am sure by now has been changed to rain again) and REALLY cold temperatures! We live in Georgia and we just aren't used to these cold temperatures for this long! We were so excited to get snow a few weeks ago. And then a couple of weeks later...ice came. Now there is talk about MORE snow! Here is where we were enjoying our snow a few weeks ago... (Me and The Coach, Little Man Ezra, and Princess Emma Lou-who had to pretend she was Elsa in the snow)

Well if I'm being honest with you-the thought of more snow makes me...well sick. We were teased this past weekend with beautiful weather-I mean gorgeous-stay out all day in it-weather. On Saturday we went to my husband's soccer tournament-he coaches high school girls soccer. They hosted the tournament which meant he had to be there all day and it was perfect weather for all of us to stay there with him! We had a blast!

 

They both were able to get new soccer shirts and Ezra thought he was Spider Man in that shirt! :)


Then we have some sweet brother and sister lovin...which only lasted minutes seconds!

Anyway...now onto the good news! I FINALLY FINISHED MY SECOND GRADE DAILY MATH!!! I have been doing this with my students since day 1 and decided that they did so well with it and have retained so much from it...I would finish the year and put it on TPT. You can find it here (I included 4 weeks worth in the preview so be sure to check it out!)!!

I use mine for morning work. I put it up on my promethean board:

 

 and my students get out a sheet of notebook paper and fold it...

 

And complete their morning work without using any copy paper (once we get into measurement I will make copies for them)!!

 

My students have been extremely successful using this model. We are still able to review standards that were taught in the first week of school!

Happy Teaching!!



Dang-Dang

It has taken a great deal for me to post this. I couldn't decide if I wanted to just write all of this for me and my family or just put it all out there. I decided on the latter for a couple of  reasons. Number 1-I want you to really know me-not just me as a teacher-but me as a person. Number 2- my grandfather was an AMAZING man-why wouldn't I want to share him with all of you?!?! Soooooo...here goes....

A LOT has happened since the last time I blogged. At the beginning of December, I talked about Christmas being the most wonderful time of the year and how much I LOVE Christmas! While I still LOVE Christmas, there is now a connection with Christmas that will always be extremely hard for me. My wonderful grandfather, Harry Cook-who we endearingly called Dang-Dang, went to be with The Lord on Wednesday December 11, 2013. I just want to share with you a little bit of his amazing life.

1. He was one of the most incredible men I have ever met. He was a man of love, humor, and integrity.  And I'm going to tell you this-He loved Jesus. Almost every single memory I have of him is leading our family and church in worship and prayer.

2. First and foremost, he loved Jesus. But secondly, he loved his family more than anything else. This is a picture of Dang-Dang with our oldest, Emma Lou- who is named after his wife, Patty Lou (but we called her Granny-and I am here to tell you-Granny and I were so so close...but that is another story for another day). His love for his family was the most important part of his life. Every year we have our family reunion-and this could possibly be Dang-Dang's favorite time of the year! He LOVED visiting with family-especially all of his family from out of town. He loved hearing the laughter of everyone around and reminiscing of times past. One of my most favorite memories of family reunions is visiting with Dang-Dang's brothers and sisters and hearing stories of when they were younger. Dang-Dang was a twin and was extremely close to his brother-and man oh man-have I heard stories of them from their WILD teenage years! 

3. He loved to sing. One of my favorite stories that my mom has shared with me is that when she was growing up, she and her sister and their 2 brothers would all decorate the Christmas tree. As soon as they were finished, they would turn the lights in the room off and turn the lights on the tree on and they would sing Christmas carols. Once they were through singing Christmas carols, they would run outside to see what the tree looked like from the road. His favorite Christmas carol was Silent Night and they would sing it EVERY year.

These are only a few things about my grandfather that make him special....but these are my favorite things about him.