Five for Friday

I always want to participate in DoodleBug's Five for Friday - but I always forget!  So, I'm proud of myself that I actually remembered this week!

1.  10 Days Left 

Thank god.  I'm so done with this year.  It's not like my kids are bad (they're sweet, mostly) - it's just all the drama with our school that I'm totally O.V.E.R.  I am completely drained of always having to deal with everything.  Does anyone else think it's a little terrible that our Principal never told us Happy Teacher Appreciation Week?  I'm pretty sure he either (a) hates us or (b) can't be bothered?  Kinda a sad feeling, or maybe it's a man thing and he doesn't realize?  Anyway.  Summer vacation can't come fast enough!

2.  C02 Cars

My class finishes its elective year by making C02 cars.  I'm usually covered in sawdust from using woodshop tools and I make a lot of cars that are affectionally known as "doorstops."  So, it's soooo wonderful when someone is creative enough to make this:

Turkey Leg!  Too funny, right?

3.  Up-cycling my Ugly Cabinet

I have one of those white plastic organizational crate that probably every teacher has.  Mine was a hand-me-down when I moved into my class back in 2006.  It's old and kinda trashed.  I've debated about just throwing it away, but then I remembered this pin on Pinterest.

 and the one where you paper the inside of your plastic crate.

I couldn't paper the crate because mine had this weird handle lip thingy.  So... I decided to paint the inside instead!

My original.  This is ugly.

I had some acrylic paint in cute colors to use!

Improvement!

(almost) Final product!  The yellow needs another coat of paint, but I'm quite happy with my little 40 minute in class project!

4.  Saturday School

I have to go tomorrow.  I absolutely DO NOT WANT TO GO.  But I will.  Miss OCD Teach will be there suffering too.  I have a list that I have 23 kids tomorrow, which is a major improvement over the... 45 I had in April.

5.  GO KINGS GO!

Game 6 tonight, baby!  I will plant myself on my couch, make my next I Have... Who Has cards and watch my boys.

(PS:  That's Bob Miller the LA Kings long-time play-by-play announcer.  We love Bob!)

Teacher Appreciation Day Sale!

Teacher's Pay Teachers is hosting a HUGE Teacher Appreciation Day sale on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Remember to add TAD13 as your extra 10% discount - that will bring all my items to a total of 28% off the original sales price.

Time to shop 'til you drop!!

I Have... Who Has...

I've been working on this for awhile now, since I Have... Who Has... cards are all the rage.

 I've created this set for Fractions and Decimals.  I know that it's difficult for our 6th and 7th graders to master how fractions and decimals change back and forth.  This game will give teachers the extra opportunity to practice this skill without doing more worksheets!

This item is available for $3.50 in my Teacher's Pay Teachers Shop!

May Currently!

Hi everyone!

Yay it's May!  I'll let you in on a secret - tomorrow is my Birthday!  Whoo hoo!

At my school, we are 15 days away from the end of the school year.  It's always been tough for me at the end of the year, because I usually never know what's going on for the next year OR I know about half of what I need to know.  Then, I go crazy because I can't plan and I just want to move my classroom and be set up and ready.

{deep breath}

I think it's just because I'm SO OVER MOVING CLASSROOMS.  I know, some of you guys are super heroes with moving all the time.  I've moved either a subject, grade level or classroom for the last 5 years now and I'm just spent.  I'm also a bit of a neat freak and I HATE not being able to find anything at the beginning of the year because I have no clue where I moved it to.

On to Farley's Currently!

My big item on the Summer Bucket List - to get my son swimming with confidence.  Living in So Cal, there's a pool in 75% of backyards and I hate that worry about him not being confident in the pool.  We made big strides last year, but this is the year I think he'll gain independence and I won't worry as much!

I also want to start prepping Common Core and 7th Grade ELA.  I think that's what I'll be teaching and I want to get the ball rolling on Common Core even if my district is a little behind.  

And... relaxing is always good too!  Blogging - I can fit it in better during the summer. :)

Teacher Planner Notebook

There have been lots of teacher planner notebooks floating around Pinterest lately.

LuckeyFrog's Lilypad - probably is my favorite!

Modern Teacher - good for Texas teachers!

However, in typical Lauren fashion... I look at all the examples and think, "I can do this myself."  My son also likes to say the same thing when doing ANYTHING lately.

Here is the "Official" Life in Middle School Teacher Planner and what I used to put this guy together.  It's obviously a work in progress, since I'm in the process of transitioning from a computer elective to Language Arts teacher again.  (I've been told 7th grade.  I'm starting to plan for 7th grade.  I'm hoping 7th grade... I just cannot fully trust anything anymore until August 8th when I start my new year.  Sad aside over.)

Here is my cover.  I know there are a lot of backgrounds and covers online.  I decided to print the center Teacher Planner part and then glue it to a piece of scrapbooking paper.

Inside, I have my Weekly To Do List.  I have it inside a page protector, so I can write on it with an overhead marker, then wipe it clean at the end of the week or whenever I'm done with it.  It's my top page.

I believe this Weekly To Do List is from Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade.  (However, I can't find it at her website anymore...)

However, there is another version offered at 3rd Grade Thoughts!

Right after that page is my calendar section.  I looked at bunch online, but settled on Tiffany's at the Nest Effect.  I like that it's a vertical and not horizontal layout!

My tabbed sections break down as follows:

• Long Term Plans
• Standards
• LA/SS Ideas (for those papers, ideas, etc that you don't want to lose!)
• Pinterest Ideas (since Pinterest is blocked at work)  I'm planning on putting together something like this pin I found today.  
• Strategies

In my Long Term Plans section...

I have my planners that I made to reflect how my district wants us to Lesson Plan.  The inspiration behind the Lesson Planner is Ms. M's fantastic planner website.  If you want a fancy planner that fits your schedule, I would definitely go there.  I can't have her make me one, because I'd have to get it redone every year.  

Next, my long term planner.  Inspiration from this Pin - over at Dragonflies in First.  Obviously, my version is currently very simple.  It's another work in progress because I have to plan lots over the summer.  My district is one of the last dinosaurs - we haven't had too much to do with Common Core.  Maybe this will be the year?  I think it has to be?  Are we totally screwed?  (lol)

Oh and by the way, I bought the "cute" tab dividers at Office Max.  I love the pockets because I don't always have a lot of time to hole punch things right away.

I'm a little hesitant about writing on the tabs, but apparently... nail polish remover will remove it.  You can always just write on the white thingys underneath too.

My last section of my binder is all my teaching strategies that I've been collecting over the years.  I like to have them all in one place, so when I plan - they are all right there for me to get creative.

I have - Teach Like a Champion.  (Get the book people!  It's **amazing**)  I also have my list of GLAD strategies, Strategies from Moving Learning Forward and SDAIE Strategies.

I found this gem on Pinterest too.  HOTS from Hello Literacy.

Feedback?  What do you all think?

Award!

It was nice to wake up to an email this morning that I was chosen as one of the Top 30 Blogs for Teachers by TopTeachingColleges.com!!!

Here is their post about it!  Exciting stuff!!

And the pretty award!  Thank you to all my readers who read my posts!!

Pinterest "Pin It" Tutorial

Have you been noticing that on some blogs, you can directly pin their pictures when you hover over an image?

Like this:

I thought it was going to be so very difficult, but in reality - it's pretty easy.  Thanks to the people over at BloggerSentral.com, they created a tutorial to help you add the code to your blog!

I thought I would add in some helpful pictures of the process too.  

First, start here on the Template Tab for the "Edit HTML" button:

Now, make sure you scroll ALL the way the bottom of your code.

See... line 2028!  Not kidding around.  Remember after the close BODY tag, but before the end HTML tag.

Enter the code from BloggerSentral.com...

and.... MAGIC!  You have the instant pin button on all images.  They have extra steps for being able to not have it on some pictures, but on others too.

Edited... the last BloggerSentral link is now working!  Thanks to everyone who told me!