July Currently!

I have to laugh - I noticed that Farley put up the July Currently a little early and I thought to myself... really, how many people noticed to put up their Currently?

OMG!  Already over 180 bloggers!  It's really something that EVERYONE in the educational blogging community comes together at the beginning of every month to Farley.  It's a nice window into everyone's blogging home life.

Can I tell you something?  It's HOT OUTSIDE!  The entire Southwest is in a pretty ugly heatwave right now.  It was about 107 today?  We had to go and visit Mr. Life in Middle school's younger sis at her volleyball carwash.  HOT HOT HOT!  I was dying as we waited.  It's like, Love ya sis, but wash that car faster!

Next, I'll fill all of you in on my bitterness/anxiety.  Usually, I love the summer because it's this pure planning time.  You get to plan on a new year and it doesn't matter if your last year was great or awful, but you get a fresh slate.  This year, I've started to plan and I end up just pushing it all away because I start to get upset (already) about next year's staffing.

At my school, for the past four years, we have always reduced our staff by at least one person.  I've either barely scraped by or like in 2010, transferred to a different school.  I'm back on the bottom again unless we have an opening filled by someone that has less seniority then me.

So, I'm getting bitter over the whole thing - why should I plan, I'm going to do all this work for nothing,  I'm just going to have to pack up all my stuff again...

My wish/hope/prayer for this year - scrape by again, I guess.  I know that I have to rock my plans regardless of the bitterness lurking in my heart because I have to re-prove to my principal that I can teach Language Arts.

Am I being silly over the whole thing?

And finally, my TpT tip is... if you make something for your class - you should put it on TpT. Why not?  It's also a nice place to keep all your resources - there's nothing to lose.

June Currently!!

It's already June, I can't believe how this year has already flown by!  June marks the 10 year anniversary of my college graduation.

I'm old!  When did this happen to me?!

So, here is my June Currently.  I always wonder where I'll fall in the numbers on the Linky.  Maybe in the 100's this time, it's only June 2nd.

If you're new to the blog... I'm a hockey fan.  I actually met my husband playing hockey 16 years ago.  The Kings are in the Western Conference Finals - again!  This marks the 3rd time in the their history that they have made it this far.  Since my classroom walls are covered in my Kings posters, we're obviously anticipating the game later today.  Hopefully, they can score more than 1 goal because Jonathan Quick can't stand on his head all the time.

I'm obviously so happy to be free on summer vacation!  I'm looking forward to making some of the cool teacher ideas I've been seeing on Pinterest.  (And a few of my own creation too!)

I think I'm always wishing for the Magical House Cleaning Fairy to stop by.  I wish House Elves were real.  I would totally pay mine, give them nicer clothes than a tea towel and vacation too!

My needed vacation items are AC - where we live in So Cal, it will start to hit 100+ every day in July and August.  You need the AC to survive comfortably...  the worst days are when it's already in the 90's by 9am.  YUCK.  I also need my goofy little family and all the fun places we go.  It's definitely time for some Disneyland trips!

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. :)

September Currently & Book Study Part 2

Wow!!  It's already September!  I can't believe that I've already finished my first 4 weeks of school.  However, if it's September, that means it's time for an Oh Boy Currently!

My favorite things?  

1. My computer classes and my computer lab are SO number one at the moment.  I've been telling my friends that I'm never going to go back to the stress of a "content" class with testing, test scores and all that jazz.  One day, I took pictures of all my students (about 140 of them) and then we did fun green screen backgrounds!  My kids are all happy to come to my class and I just love it!  It's nice to see after my hellish year last year.

2.  My husband and I are Dancing with the Stars junkies.  We've been watching since season 4 and we even got to go to a taping last year.  (SO FUN!)  We're excited about this All-Star season coming up.

3.  My new lesson planning format that I made I just LOVE!  It has everything that I need all in one place.  Now that my principal checks our plans = stress!  It's nice to have something that he's okay with and I don't have to write out 7 step plans everyday.

In my previous post, I asked about people wanting to do a book study for Teach like a Champion. It seems like there's a fair amount of interest and I'm sure it will grow once we get started.

I was thinking that we could pick a strategy a week to focus on - like No Opt Out and then on Saturday discuss how the strategy worked during that week in our classroom.  Does that work?  Any ideas?  Let me know in the comments?  (PS - I got emails and comments, so I thought it would be easier to reply to everyone back here! :) )  It should be easy to keep up with - the strategy sections are small and we can keep up with one topic a week.  If bloggers want to jump in or out we can do it at any time.  Also, I think I have some people that want to participate, but don't blog... I think you can just comment on my original post?  That could work, or I could host all your comments on my blog too.

Maybe, I would set up the inlinkz for each week, so readers can jump around and see how the strategies were used in different classroom settings?

Feedback?  Still want to join?  Let me know in the comments!

July Currently!

Hey hey!  A currently finished on July 1st!

I'm rocking!  Maybe it's because it's summer, my son is sleeping and my husband is entertained playing video games...  But here's my July Currently!!

My reading selections: (one) I had to choose the Llama Llama books for my FAVORITE books to read aloud to my son, because I just love the rhyming and saying "No More Llama Drama!"  I'm sure as he gets older, my favorite will change to the Harry Potter books because I've always envisioned reading those to him.  

(two) I bought Flip Your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.  It looks really good, but I haven't read more than five pages.  I like the idea of having my students watch the video and then react to the content, I think it will work nicely in a computer lab!

And THANK YOU to everyone who liked my Beach Math Formula set!  The first three commenters will be receiving their files shortly! 

June Currently!

Yay - time to participate in Farley's June Currently!  So far, June is shaping up to be pretty awesome... Kings in the Stanley Cup Final, NO SCHOOL, and my ISTE conference at the end of the month!

For my wish, went and want...  I WISH my family could go on our "Wander around the USA" road trip where we can see the entire East Coast, hit Florida and Disneyland and then zoom around to our heart's content.  But since we're not super rich, it's not happening any time soon!  In May, WENT to Phoenix to see our Kings play the Phoenix Coyotes for Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals.  And I WANT to hit New York next year, like we wanted to this year, but it didn't work out.

May Currently

Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade has posted her May Currently!  These are always so exciting, then I forget to do them.

Regardless of my scatterbrain-ness - I love May!  It's my birthday month (May 4th) and the month I get out of school!  Only 15 work days left and I cannot wait.

January Currently

Things have been crazy this week... but a GOOD crazy.  My 8th graders from HELL are making progress and my 7th graders did a pretty good job with their rotations this week.  I feel like I'm making my way back to my usual style of teaching.

Also, here is my January Currently from Oh Boy 4th Grade!