1st Two Weeks

I survived the first two weeks of school.
We have been busy. I am implementing so many new things in my room this year. I spent a lot of time this summer reorganizing all of my things and preparing them by standard. Our district finally gave us the go ahead to teach and do what we know is best for our kids. Such a novel idea...so we are about to start training on project based learning. I will keep my thoughts to myself and relish in the few weeks I got to do what was best for my students. I have gained an enthusiasm for teaching again in being allowed to TEACH! I love it!

We worked on classification of plants and animals for two weeks. We broke out our little eyes as we call them and got some closeups of our leaf margins and vein patterns.

We created crazy hair self portraits. We are finally getting an art unit and I am so happy. I do the best I can with art, but I will gladly hand that task over to a trained professional. 

One of the first days, we read Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon and talked about the importance of being yourself.  We then talked about what all we could offer each other in our little (25 strong) classroom community. The students drew flowers and wrote a sentence about themselves on each petal. They were instructed to do no less than five and no more than 7.  Easily, I could see who could follow directions. I also knew who could write sentences. 

 We worked heavily on math centers, rotating, volume, and directions. I do math centers all year so having a strong foundation in them is crucial. I need them to be able to work in small groups with each other while I have a group. We worked really hard on this. We also began number talks and were focusing on making tens which tied right into our review of place value and building numbers through 1000. We also threw in some rounding and they GOT the rounding rap! I LOVE the rounding rap!!!!

 We are using our space to it's max. They have a strong foundation of our rules, my expectations, how to celebrate each other, and we have already learned so much!

A Work innnnnnnnnn Progress

So far, we have completed a few projects around the new homestead. We still have a great deal to go, but it is looking and feeling like ours!

The Living room before and after. It got a lot of new blinds, shelving, and I am still working on the walls. 

 The dining room is currently my work in progress. We didn't even have a dining room in our other house so it has been a real work!

 Asa and Jude's room before and after.

The Twins bathroom before and after. It just needed paint, the shower sliding door removed and some decorations. Titus' it needs more. Everybody is sharing right now!

 

 The office space upstairs...still a work in progress

 One day this ugly chandelier will be transformed or replaced...one day!

 This bathroom is my next project. Coming September 2015! Will probably be blogged about in 2016 at the rate I go:)

Before and After of Titus' Room

 Titus' Bathroom....Still hasn't happened....

 Before and after of the kitchen. The cabinets were 50 shades of brown stain that literally wiped off on your hand and the island was dark brown and chipped in a million places. I redid ALL wood in the kitchen and antiqued it a little.

 Master Bedroom Before and After

Master Bath. The corner of the counters is showing in the before(left) the whole thing was white. The wood was chipped. It looked terrible. I stained the vanity. Painted the walls and replaced the shades on the lighting. We also added blinds above the tub, scrubbed the grout back white and painted the toilet room.

Master Bath HIDEOUS green walls and shutters that some animal had shredded and were from the 90's...BEFORE. After.  The picture is dark, but the walls are a silver grey and we have a custom set of wood blinds that fit the window!

 Laundry Before and Yellow. AND laundry after.

 

Front door color change. 

Before and after of the porch. I painted it a dark grey, added a rug and some curtains. We repainted the swing. It is eventually getting new screens, a new swing and different furniture!

Before and After of master bath toilet room

We painted, added hardware, scrubbed, painted, peeled, painted, caulked, scrubbed, painted, changed out fixtures, added, covered, bought blinds, bought more blinds, bought more blinds...we are getting there. We knew there was work to be done. It is a fixer for sure, but we love it. Oh, and the backyard. That is Davids territory. So far, we have lost some trees and I have planted around the patio and porches. I am working on creating front flower beds. He has tree and weed duty:)