and so it is....

This is it the last day of summer for me.  Schools starts tomorrow and the race will begin.  As I put in a previous post I will be the only 5th grade teacher in my school this year, and found out on Thursday that I have reached the cap of 30 students...yes 30! Although, a little apprehensive about the task ahead of me, I am surprisingly calm and ready.  It looks like it is turning out to be a beautiful day here, hoping to take advantage of the sun and warmth.  Good Luck to all who will also be starting school tomorrow. To a great year!

one of my tricks

So something I like to do to label containers is to use puffy paint.  It's very inexpensive, but totally fun, and totally easy to do.  For transparent containers just print out the size and font you want to use, my favorite has always been 'curlz'.  Tape it on the inside of the container (font facing out), and then trace with your puffy paint.  I usually hold the tip of the bottle a little above the side of the container for a good puffiness, tracing right on the side will make it flat.  For non-transparent surfaces I just try my best to not mess up :) There are a few examples below of some of the things I have labeled with puffy paint. Putting in on staplers, tape dispensers, ext.  makes it harder for those precious objects to "accidentally disappear."  Let it dry at least over night, and try not to get tempted to touch it or else you'll have a flat spot.

The outline for my Think Tank container.  Purchased a bunch of hand held games like rubix cubes and ball mazes at the dollar store, as well as, solitaire card games like trivia and visual logic problems.  It's meant for my early finishers to have something to do and hopefully keep them occupied and quite while at their seats.  I had a 'Beyond Board' where I put worksheets up from different learning intelligences, but found that worksheet appeal wears off very shortly.  I'll let you know how it works out.

17 days until school starts

the mess within

Yes, it seems to be the time to show what our rooms look like before all the long hours and the after with all the improvements, new ideas, and of course all those 'had to do' projects we've pinned from pinterest!.....But alas I can only show the before as this was my room today, and pretty much still looks the same, save for the new piles I created after these pictures were taken.  See I have decided to go through all of my cabinets/cupboards, along with moving spaces around my classroom.  With three years under my belt I felt like this was a great time to go through the materials that were left to me, along with those that I have accumulated over the years.  Saving what I know I use, tossing or putting in storage those things that have just been collecting layers of dust. And although I left today with still a large amount of work ahead, I thought I'd share a few before pictures.  I keep telling myself the tortoise wins the race! 

21 days until school starts.

a little impatient.........

So I apologize for those who have stopped by my blog and found it too be pretty barren.  

You see I had this urge to blog, but it was the beginning of summer, so not much to write about.  

I make myself stay away from school until the middle of July (at least!) 

And today was the day, the first time I've stopped in.  My room isn't ready to start 

moving back into yet, so I sent some beginning of the year materials to print shop 

and started to map what I wanted to do for the first week of school.  We start on a 

five day week, YAY! but I think I will be okay with activities for the students.  

My big excitement for the day was I got another whiteboard hung in my room! 

I had a board that was pretty useless, not even sure what it was made out of? but it 

was not magnetic, nor writable, not staple-able.  After doing a little complaining 

to my janitor and stating I would ask our principal this year if budget allowed, to 

order one, he said he had an extra in storage!!! I have to say that I have some 

awesome custodians, who will help out when ever needed.  So that was it for 

the day, and other then a doctors appointment and starting next months book 

club book, "She Comes Undone" by Walley Lamb it's been a very chill day. 

Thought I'd leave with a picture of our beautiful sunsets........................

   Yes, this is in PA.

let's begin

hello.  I decided to create this blog after my current obsession of pinterest started.  Not being very tech savvy I was amazed by how many great ideas I was finding from blogs I never knew were in existence.   I am a teacher, and will be starting my ninth year as an educator, with a class of 30 fifth graders without a collaborating teacher...which to say in the least scares me just a bit.  I have held a few different positions in my district from title I to gifted, before settling in fifth grade.  If you are a teacher you may be feeling the same lack of creativity, stress, and doubt from this high stake testing era we are in.  I know why I became a teacher, but I let the pressure get to me, BIG time.  After browsing a few site, I started to become inspired again.  Through that inspiration I decided to start a blog...this one in fact :) I'm not sure how many will visit, but I want to keep the inspiration alive in myself and become the teacher I am truly meant to be.  And for some reason I feel like a blog will help keep me inspired, creative, and disciplined.  The title is reflective of my Italian roots and translates to "moments of."  Because let's face it as teachers everyday is a moment of something good, bad and even sometimes ugly.  And that is what I want to capture with this blog, all of those moment and everything in-between.