Summer is Nearing the End

Summer is ending soon for our house. I go back to work next week.

The twins turned six the day school got out and we've been going and having fun ever sense.

We went to eat with some baseball friends and got to see there little farm and all the animals.

The following week we had VBS in the park with our church. The boys had lots of splashpad time this week.

We've spent lots of time lounging and playing with our friends, the Eflo's.

We've pet snakes and hissing cockroaches and all sorts of other animals. We've been swimming. We've played with bunnies and had balloon sculptures made. There have been faces painted and yard sale adventures. We've rode horses and spent days in my classroom. We've been to Atlanta to a mets game and of course visisted Ikea. We've been to McWane and shot fireworks. We have colored and built and worked puzzles like crazy. I've learned a thing or two or fifty from the littles about how to use a Kindle. We've caught frogs and had tons of icees and icecream to beat the heat. We've eaten fancy popsicles and spent 8 days at the beach. We've shopped and laughed running through the sprinkler. We have found worms and caught lightening bugs. Cops and robbers and Avengers have been played more times than I can count. We had a sleepover with a friend and learned to swim. We had rode go carts and trains and airplanes. We played putt-putt and swam in the ocean. We had friends birthdays and family birthdays galore.

We have had fun and we are not ready for it to end. I cannot believe we will have two first graders in a few weeks and I will have my tenth group of students in my class. It has been a blast this summer and I love being home with the boys, but it is time to regroup and get in school mode.

This seems just like yesterday. Time flies when you are having fun. Even in the seasons of life that are challenging and hard, the days still pass just as quick. They may seem slow at the time, but you will blink and have kids in school.

Third Grade

There are so many new and exciting things in my TPT store.
Our curriculum....well, I don't like it. I love teaching how and what my kids enjoy WHILE teaching to the standard. Who likes a scripted curriculum? BLAH!

After years of being forced to follow it to a T, we were finally given the freedom to TEACH. Imagine that. I have enjoyed it so much.

Just a few of my favorite things. New little readers. Foldables. My kids LOVE these. My parents LOVE these. They are easy to make, and pack a HUGE punch with home-school. They are wonderful! 

Check out my TPT store

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sunny-Jae

Magnificent Monday Shenanigans

You know those days where your filter isn't working. Today is one of those. It is blah. My kids at school were loud and I have a headache. A couple things that have peeked in my thoughts today scrolling through FB and Instagram, driving to work, and just walking around....

1. Pants are not to balloon out of your boots. If there are more wrinkles above the boot than on a bulldogs face, we have a problem.
     1a. See pinterest for correct ways to wear ankle boots. 12 layers to get to them            makes you all choppy.

2. For the Love...I've said it once and I will say it again....Tights are not pants. If they don't have pockets, they are meant to be covered. It is not ok. It is not ok on an adult, it is not ok on a child. Butt cheeks should remain covered in situations of no pockets and in situations of those pockets being stretched to their max.

3. Don't beg then brag. Nothing is more annoying.

4. Talking to 3rd graders about drugs is not in my realm of expertise. Me: "Don't do drugs. They make your face look bad, your skin is all nasty, your hair looks gross, your teeth rot, it uses all your money and it is against the law. Just don't do them. Now, we are all going to design a tshirt...." I proceed with instructions. One child, "So, is it a drug if it is free, like if you grow it yourself?" "Is a cigarette a drug because my dad gets them at the gas station with his other stuff." "Some people cook their own drugs in their kitchen and blow up."   Me:"Everybody just write 1. "Drug Free Way to Be 2.Don't Do Drugs   3. pick your own slogan, decorate and you can't ask me anymore questions or tell me more stories." I'll post some of the pictures later.

5. Nobody cares how much money you have on hand. If it is all in your hand, chances are there is none in the bank. Stop making pictures before you get robbed.

6. Bicycles should never be driven in the middle of a lane on a two way road. Get out of the way. If I have to cross lanes to avoid hitting you, you need to move it.

7. You cannot get ON tomorrow. Tomorrow is just tomorrow. It just happens. You can't get ON tomorrow.


8. This man driving this train has managed to wake up Titus Skinner at 12:00 for the past two nights. I might go sit and honk at him tonight as he passes. A few toots will do.

9. The pumpkin cookies that you can decorate from Walmart.....the icing doesn't spread like the lovely photographs. It ends up goopy, splotchy, and FAIL!

10. In order to appease all people in my life under 4 ft tall I have read the Monster Underpants book a million times today. Several at school because they would laugh and not talk and once at home already.

This week is Red Ribbon dress up at my school, also at the boys school. Each day is different at both places, there is a full moon this week, Halloween is this week and apparently people carnival and fall festival every night for a week now, and it is the Magic City Classic so I am sure we will have nine billion kids in our classes on Friday due to lack of subs. I am ready for Friday!

I am going to make dinner. I might go to bed at 8. I am exhausted and it is only Monday!

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!