Ramblings of a Thirty-Something

 I'll let you in on a little secret:  I'm excited to go back to school. Now, I know what you're thinking. Surely this is a typo and she meant to say "terrified" or "depressed" or "frustrated."  And I'll tell you another secret:  I am also all of those things.  But I am  excited! Do I have a million questions? Yes, of course I do. Do I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat after having a work-related nightmare? Yes. Does it worry me that I don't actually know what this is going to look like? Absolutely! But no one knows what this is going to look like . We can plan {and we're teachers, so we loooove planning}, we can strategize, we can educate ourselves, we can try to foresee the issues so we can be ready at the drop of a hat when something changes, as it absolutely will--more than once. If you really think about it, we never really know what the school year is going to look like. Sure, we have a bit of a templ...

It's that time of year again. The pencils, sharp. The floors, newly waxed. The crayon boxes still contain all 24 colors. The posters on the walls are perfectly arranged. Neat, orderly, clean. For about another day and a half. My classroom theme is the same as it was last year:  superheroes. I've got some pretty awesome pictures of some pretty cool things which you will find below. I got to thinking about superheroes and teaching and such things recently {part of that is because I have been watching the Marvel movies that I somehow hadn't seen yet}, and it made me realize something. I'm not the superhero in my classroom. I'm Alfred, giving my students the space and tools to create what they need to create to make their little minds stronger. I'm Pepper Potts, reeling back in these kiddos when things get out of hand. I'm Aunt May or Martha Lane for some kids, the comforting shoulder and presence. I'm SHIELD, keeping an eye on...

I've decided to resurrect an old favorite {or something I did, like, the first three weeks my baby blog existed in this online world}. By now, I'm sure you know of my affinity for lists, and as I may {or may not} have stated back for the first FRIDAY FIVE, five is a good number for lists. It offers enough for a quick read without getting too many items on topic to make your reader bored. And I don't want you to be bored. Seriously, it keeps me up at night. Okay, not really. But still! I'm sure you, dear reader, appreciate my mission to keep you boredom-free.  Today's re-inaugural FRIDAY FIVE is on a simple topic. It's not one in which I feel I'm an expert because, believe me, sooo many of you have sooo  much more to juggle than I do. But it's still something I get asked every once in a while. How do you stay so organized? Sometimes, I don't feel organized. But most of the time, I do. I pretty much know 90% of what is going on in my l...

Happy Grammar Day, everyone! As a teacher--specifically a 4th grade English teacher--I pride myself on having decent grammar. I think it is an essential skill to have, especially as a teacher. Every year, I teach my students about nouns and verbs and subjects and predicates. And every year, as I strive to instill in these 4th graders the ability to speak and write coherently, I watch on Facebook as the adults in the world use poor grammar. I watch as people on Tumblr and Twitter and Instagram use incorrect grammar, and it genuinely confuses me. I mean, I realize that social media is not a cover letter or a resume, but come on, people! How hard is it to just use good grammar? So, in honor of Grammar Day, I present to you my grammar pet peeves! Pet Peeve #1:  I vs. Me Oh, this one. This one bothers me so, soooo much! I can't tell you the number of times I've seen someone post a photo and caption it, "My boyfriend and I." Grrrrr. I always teach my students t...

If you have followed my blog for a while, you might recall that I enjoy posting about how I decorate my classroom. For the past two years, my classroom was Tolkien themed (see here ), but this year I decided to go in a different direction. Not all of my students had seen The Hobbit  or Lord of the Rings  movies, and I wanted something 99% of them could get excited about (okay, so maybe it's only 75%, but it works).  This year, I went with superheroes. Superheroes are everywhere now, so it wasn't hard to find things that worked in my room. Thanks to Pinterest, I created some pretty incredible bulletin boards, and I had a lot of helping finding things at the teacher store (thanks, Katie and Mallory!). Take a look:  I could have included loads more pictures of every time piece of superhero-related paraphernalia which decorates my walls, but I decided to refrain. I want to focus, however, on a quote that is on one of my posters: ...

It's that time of year again. The sun is shining, the buses are running, the children are grumbling. Yep, school is back in session. Now, some things have changed--the students, a few teachers and staff members. And some things have not changed. Like my classroom. If you haven't been a long follower of my blog (or if you're not a follower at all and just dropped in for a casual look-see), then you probably haven't seen my epic post from last August about my awesome classroom theme. If you wish for some context, click  here  and you will be caught up (and fully aware of how incredibly amazing my classroom was and still is). If you don't want any context, that's okay. All you really need to know is that I'm a nerd, and my classroom is equally nerdy. I have a hobbit hole on my door, an outline of the Fellowship on my reading board, and leaves of Lorien as nameplates. I've kept some things the same, but I've added a lot of fun, new nerdy things to my...

Today was our first day back from Spring Break. It went much better than I anticipated. I actually woke up feeling refreshed rather than worn out, which always makes the day more smooth. And the kiddos were fine. We have art class on Monday mornings, and this morning my entire class agreed that my classroom just looked "dreary." So we made flowers and ladybugs out of construction paper and hung them around the room. One kiddo even made a rain cloud with little rain drops...so much fun! Today was also one of the last Mondays of the year. We are in the single digits (as far as Mondays go) which is fine by me! I'm kinda like Garfield...I hate Mondays. We have 8 more Mondays this school year. Eleven more weeks, but only eight Mondays, thanks to Memorial Day and Easter Monday. It sounds like such a short amount of time when you put it that way. I have one more region to get through and two more state tests to give them. Then we have to write a research paper on some Social...

I can't decide if it is more fun having snow days as a teacher or as a student. When I was a kid, it was always great to play outside in the snow and watch cartoons all day and eat a fun lunch like hot dogs and macaroni and cheese...boy, those were the days! Now I'm a teacher, and snow days are a little different. Sure, it will kinda stink to have to go to school in June, but honestly, my heater doesn't work half the time, so it doesn't bother me too much. I love being at home in winter--I hate having to bundle up and leave my warm, comfortable house. And the nice thing about June days is that the sun is still high in the sky when you get home from school, unlike some winter days when I have lots to do and have to stay late. There is still plenty of time to do things outside! But I still love snow days...and here's why! 1. Sleeping in! These days, that means like 7:30, but it is still nice to not have to wake up before the sun...especially since it is winter and I a...

There are some awesome classroom themes out there. Any teacher store is jammed full of borders and posters and nametags and various cutouts in any sort of theme one can imagine. Owls. Cowboys. Pirates. Polka dots and stripes and animal print. In fact, I don't know any teacher who can go into a teacher store without rethinking their entire year plan. "Oh, that would be so much fun!" "Those zoo animals are soooo cute!" "That border would look awesome!" I have seen some very cool ones. Most of the people in my building have awesome themes in their rooms. Last year, I tried to go my own way and make my theme items--a rock and roll theme. But I didn't keep up with it, and to be honest, it was difficult to find things to supplement it. This year, however, I went a different route. I decided I still wanted to do a lot of it myself. Maybe it's the scrapbooker in me, I don't know, but I got it in my head that I could make everything and it would...