December Currently

I swear it was November 1st last week. No? Okay then. After a very exhausting weekend of stuffing my face and hanging out with my family, I'm a little late to the December party. Thanks Farley for continuously hosting this awesome link-up!

I love the Christmas season because I get to listen to my Christmas Pandora station 24/7 and nobody can tell me that's wrong. I also LOVE that there are only 3 weeks of school left until Christmas vacation! WOO HOO! Not that I don't love my kiddos, but… I'm also thinking that 3 years ago, I saw my grandpa for the last time. His passing was definitely the hardest event in my life that I've had to deal with so far, but I know he's always watching over me. I'm definitely in need of more sleep and I want a better immune system for my Christmas gift (please, Santa?) This first year teacher sickness streak is really getting to me! Last but not least, this holiday season, I've vowed to give more time to my family. I get so caught up in school and work and grad school that I don't get a lot of chill time with my family, but the holidays are the perfect time to make up for this. Not to mention that my baby brother is coming home in 17 days!!! I'm not excited at all…

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

You Oughta Know About: JumpRope - Online Standards Based Grading Platform

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to be linking up with Jasmine McClain over at Buzzing with Mrs. McClain to participate in this month's You Oughta Know blog hop! Before we get started, I just wanted to let you know that all of these opinions are my own tested and true thoughts, and I'm not being paid or compensated in any way for this post.  In our ever-changing world of education, I've found a great resource to help with standards-based report card grading, mastery tracking, attendance tracking, and so many other great resources.  You oughta know about this amazing online platform called JumpRope!

In JumpRope, you can input your class roster (or multiple rosters, for middle and high school teachers), select which content area you teach, and all of the standards for that content are will be imported to your Standards-Based Gradebook.

In this gradebook view, you can see each standard you're addressing, the students' individual scores for that standard, and their overall mastery levels. Also, you can see under each standard the class mastery. Green means nearing mastery, yellow means average, and red is well below.

If you want to see all of the standards and how the class as a whole is mastering each standard, you can select the Mastery View of the gradebook, which will take you to a screen like this. You can organize the standards in order by CCSS number, or by mastery level.  There are so many individual ways to customize the gradebook depending on how you grade - percentages, raw totals, you name it and JumpRope can do it.

JumpRope's accurate attendance tracker is another visually appealing (and user-friendly) way to take attendance. You can see how many days a student has been absent that week, month, or even quarter. These charts then convert into attendance graphs if you want to share them with counselors, administrators, parents, etc.  A nice feature of this attendance tracker is that the mobile platform (for iOS, not 100% sure about Android devices) allows you to take attendance on the go, if you had to run out the door to an assembly or during a fire drill!

There are so many amazing components of this FREE platform, including character education tools, curriculum design and lesson planning platforms, and they even have a component for administrators.  It's basically like having your entire teacher binder/folder/planner online, for free! While it may take a little while to explore all of JumpRope's amazing features, it is definitely worth the tools.  Head on over to JumpRope to check it out for yourselves!

An InLinkz Link-up

Happy hopping!

Thankful for Fridays

Its that time of the week, people! Friday could not be coming at a better time. With these weird 4-day weeks we've been having (last week Tuesday was Election Day, this week Tuesday was Veterans Day) I can never remember what day of the week it is, and Wednesday and Thursday have been getting in my way of celebrating the weekend! Here's my Five for Friday, linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching!

Let me just say how excited I am that my baby brother is coming home from his first semester in college in exactly 39 days!! We're 4 years apart in age, so when I left for college, he was just a freshman in high school. Now that I'm home from college, he left! We're the best of friends, so it was hard not being there for him while he was going through high school, but I'm so proud of him for all that he's done so far in college. I can't wait for him to be home!

Over the weekend, KDog and I went to the first major craft fair of the season (hooray!!!) and then had a nice lunch date at one of our favorite casual spots, The Counter. We always get their burger salads and the dill pickle chips. If you live on Oahu, or are even visiting for a bit, I definitely recommend stopping by The Counter at Kahala Mall!

I'm obsessed with nail polish. I think my collection comes in at around 90+ bottles or so…I haven't counted recently. I admit I have a problem, but an even bigger problem I had was trying to figure out how to nicely store my polish so that I could easily see all of the colors and choose which one I wanted to wear! I went to Ross by my house and picked up a shoe organizer that hangs on the back of a door, and voila! Clear pockets perfect for me to see through, and a pretty cute design as well (apologies for the terrible lighting, I only have one working bulb on my ceiling light when there should be 4 working bulbs…)

If you haven't been tuning in to my blog lately, I've been putting up my ABCs of Thanksgiving, created by yours truly, to get into the theme of giving Thanks during this month! What I'm trying to do even more, however, is remind myself that there are many things in life to be thankful for, and that I need to take the time to appreciate what I have. Today's letters are I and J. Here's a link to my ABCs of Thanksgiving file if you want copies of the blank letter templates for your own blog, classroom, or other personal use!

Those sales I mentioned in my ABCs of Thanksgiving for the letter I? Here's a few of the awesome threads I picked out from Nordstrom and LOFT, which will be arriving shortly! Yesterday's blogpost has the link to all of the tops pictured, as well as the code for the LOFT sale! Happy shopping!

Have a wonderful weekend! Don't forget to be thankful!

November is for Giving Thanks

Linking up with Primary Powers today to share some of the many things in my life that I'm over-the-moon thankful for. Included in this list of thankfulness are the following: my family and friends (especially KDog) who put up with my crying, hyperventilating, late nights and early mornings, Sunday panic attacks, crazy hours, and the insane monster that I tend to morph into when I get stressed, my crazy students who let me test out bizarre (but super fun and educational) lesson plans on them, good health, and coffee, glitter, and post-its for getting me through this first semester of my first year of being a teacher.

Keeping up with the theme of thankfulness, here's the link to my ABCs of Thanksgiving file for you to use in the class, personally, or any other creative way you can think of! 

Loft and Nordstrom Sales!

Guys I did a thing. You know, that thing that you say you're not going to do and you have so much restraint but then it doesn't work because LOFT (code: SHAREIT) AND NORDSTROM (no code needed) ARE HAVING AMAZING SALES RIGHT NOW!!! The 7 items above are my new joys and will be ariving shortly. I'm always looking for great sales since this teacher salary is not the best for shopping addicts, so this was just what I needed. Total damage (including $15 shipping from Loft because Hawaii sucks…) was around $140. Here are the links to the items above if you want to check it out! Loft's 40% off EVERYTHING discount will be applied in checkout when you use that code above. Happy shopping!

LOFT Floral Bow Neck Tie Shell (top left)

LOFT Floral Drapey Halter Top (middle left)

LOFT Eyelet Lace Pieced Tank (bottom left)

Nordstrom Lush Split Neck Woven Tank (white) (middle)

Nordstrom Lush Split Neck Woven Tank (colors) (top right)

Nordstrom DKNY Graphic Avenue Striped Racerback (middle right)

Nordstrom Olivia Moon Stripe Dollman Sleeve Sweatshirt (bottom right)

Thanksgiving Letter: H

Ever have one of those days that makes all other "bad days" seem like a piece of cake? That's the week I'm currently having. But I'm thankful for those hard days, because they make me appreciate the good days more than usual.

Make sure to look back at the other ABCs of Thanksgiving posts to get the other letters, or download the entire pack here! 

ABC's of Thanksgiving, continued!

Welcome back to the ABCs of Thanksgiving! My "Tried It Tuesday" is a little less academic based, and more focused on character building. For November, or the weeks remaining until Thanksgiving Break (hooray!), I'm completing the ABCs of Thanksgiving, and also having my kiddos participate when we do morning work! They thought it was corny when I first told them what we were doing, but a few students came into class and reminded me that today is for F and G! For those of you who want to have the entire alphabet for use with your students, or personal, here's a link for you to download the zip file! If you wanted just F and G for today, here you go! Make sure to look back at the other ABCs of Thanksgiving posts to get the other letters!

ABC's of Thanksgiving

Good morning, everyone! My Monday Made It is my wonderful ABCs of Thanksgiving! Not only am I posting it on my blog, but I'm having my kiddos write or draw what they are thankful for when we do morning work. Today's letters are D and E for the ABCs of Thanksgiving! I've included the template below if you want to participate! If you want the entire file of letters, here's the link!

Sunday Scoop: ABCs of Thanksgiving!

I HAVE to finish making my lesson plans for this upcoming unit (yikes!), finish my literature review for grad school (9 out of 15 pages is progress, right?) and CLEAN MY CRAZY ROOM. I swear I clean my room at least 3 times a week and it always manages to look like a tornado passed through…

I HOPE to get my danged Yankee Candle order in the mail sometime this week. My patience is wearing thin, postal service. Also, I'm hoping to make or find more resources for my unit on consonant blends/digraphs. I'm trying to find passages specifically focusing on reading those digraphs, but can't seem to find many out there.

I'm HAPPY to start my ABC's of Thanksgiving! I did this in student teaching with my first graders, where we went through the entire alphabet, one letter a day, until Thanksgiving, taking each letter to say something we're thankful for. I might combine a few letters a day just because we're short on time, but if you want to participate, I've included the blank template for letters A, B, and C below! I'll try to post each template for each day, so check back during the week if you want to join in on the thankfulness!

Wordless Wednesday

The state of Hawaii is mandating this new Wonders curriculum for our ELA curriculum next year (2015-2016) but our school's K-2 teams have already adopted it. It's a great program, but it really does take a lot of prep work. The jury is still out on this one...

What is your school's ELA curriculum? How do you like it?

November Already?

I cannot believe that it is already November! October, although it was 5 weeks long, felt like the shortest month of my life…the first week was fall break, then we had a full week of regular school, then the last two weeks were half days because of parent teacher conferences! Linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for this month's currently…

Listening to the carpet cleaners, cleaning every room in the house.  Since we got little miss La'i (our 1 year old chihuahua fox terrier), our carpets have been noticeably dirtier.  Thanks to a pretty cool Groupon, we decided to get all of the carpets in our house cleaned! Yay!

Loving that November is another short month! These next two weeks are 4-day weeks thanks to Election Day and Veterans Day, then we have a full week of un-interrupted school, and the last week of the month is a 3-day week thanks to Thanksgiving! I'm already dreaming of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie… 

Thinking that there are only 52 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS!!! And 7 weeks until my brother comes home from his first semester of college! I'm so excited.

Wanting a day between Sunday and Monday. These weekends seem to go by faster and faster…

Needing to get started on Christmas shopping! Time to be on the lookout for those holiday sales!

Reading grad school books up the wazzoo! In my Five for Friday post, I referenced one of the books I'm reading, called The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer.  It's only $16 on the Kindle store, and even if you don't have a Kindle, you can download the Kindle app in the Mac/iPod/iPhone/iPad app store for free! It's a really great read, if you have some free time!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Happy November!

Five For Friday: Halloween Madness!

So nobody tells a new teacher how insane Halloween is going to be…until that day is upon you. BUT It was amazing, it was hysterical, and I survived! Here's my Five for Friday, Halloween edition!

A few weeks ago, KDog and I went to Aloun Farms in Kapolei to go pick our first pumpkin! I miss pumpkin patches and everything about Fall so much, especially since we don't have seasons in Hawaii (it's just hot, all the time…) We haven't actually carved it yet, but that's on our Halloween agenda before trick-or-treaters show up tonight.

Speaking of carving pumpkins, in Kindergarten, we learned all about pumpkins, what is inside of them, and how they grow. On Wednesday, the kinderkiddos got to watch Ms. Burkett stick her hands inside of this bad boy, make gross faces because I DO NOT LIKE SLIMY THINGS, and when they came back from lunch, our pumpkin had turned into a jack-o-lantern! Magic!

To celebrate our Halloween Monster Madness, we made Frankenstein masks! We had a little trouble figuring out how to wear the mask and where the hair went (see kiddo in first row, second from right…) but they turned out great! So scary!

For the Halloween parade at school, the Kindergarten team were a bunch of Nerds! Which is funny, because we're always the last ones to leave the school, so the costume was fitting! The kids thought we were the funniest things they had ever seen, even though they didn't really know what a nerd was...

And on an unrelated, not Halloween note, for grad school, we have to read this book. I've always been skeptical about the books they assign as "required reading," but this is definitely one I'm glad to read. Palmer talks about how in order for teachers to be truly good teachers, they HAVE to bring their full, whole selves into the classroom and show their true identities to their students. The first chapter almost had me in tears…definitely pick it up from Amazon, it was only $16 for my Kindle app! 

Hope you all have a spooktacular weekend! Yikes, that was corny...