Weekly Summer Link Up: Best Trip of My Life

I am linking up with the fabulously sweet Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her super fun weekly summer link up. Each week she gives us a topic and we get a chance to share a bit more about ourselves with all you wonderful people!!

So this week's topic is the Best Trip of Your Life. I have come to the realization that I simply don't get out enough. Sure, for the past 6 months I've had the excuse of not being able to walk. But as I sat down to write this post I realized I don't really have a lot of trips under my belt. I've never left the East Coast, and the biggest trip I ever took was when I was 7 years old and got the chance to go to Disney World for a week. 

I am determined to change this though, and plan on getting out there more in the near future! My car accident taught me that each day is a gift and it is up to us to make the most of it! So I'm determined, from here on out, to make the most of my days! Next summer I'll be back up on my feet and have plans to travel!!

Anyway, my most exciting trips in the past few years have been day trips or short overnight trips with my sister and nephew. Going to the beach, amusement parks, etc. Getting to spend time with each other and have fun doing it, and am looking forward to getting to make all those same trips with my niece! 

I realized that the Best Trip of My Life is a day trip I took with my nephew last summer. I already blogged about this trip because it was so awesome, so just click on the image below to head over to that post! I had THE BEST DAY EVER with my nephew at the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA getting to enjoy The Crayola Experience!!

Don't forget to head back over to I Heart Grade 3 and see who else linked up to share about their trips! You can link up too!!

Don't forget that you can link up for Spotlight Saturday (link up open all week), a Teacher's Show and Tell! Come showcase your favorite products, activities, resources, ideas, or whatever else you're excited about in your classroom! Can't wait to read your Spotlight!!

Where Was I Five Years Ago?

I am linking up with Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her Weekly Summer Link Up! I have enjoyed participating each week and love reading about so many of my favorite bloggers!

This week's topic is 'Where Was I 5 Years Ago?' Ready to take a trip down memory lane with me??

Year: 2010

Age: 30

Five years ago I had just gotten the news that I was changing grade levels. After 5 years in 4th Grade, I was informed that for the next school year I was moving to kindergarten. To say I was shocked to get this news is an understatement!

I had just finished 5 years with fourth graders. Kids who could tie their shoes and blow their noses and (for the most part) read the directions and complete them independently. 

Was I really ready for a room full of kids that had no idea about school? Never followed rules or routines? Couldn't tie their shoes or put on their jackets or blow their noses? Was I ready to go from a room full of desks to a room with just a few tables, where most of my time would be spent on the floor?

At the time I just wasn't sure if I was cut out for kindergarten or not! However, I LOVED my school and everyone in it so I didn't want to change schools just so I could stay in 4th grade. I left school that last day determined to make the most of my change.

After all, I had lots of good qualities for a kindergarten teacher. I love to read and have more books than anything else. I enjoy being creative and getting to do fun activities. I am super organized and firmly believe in rules and routines. So, I spent the summer reading up on what it was to teach kindergarten. I began following all sorts of kindergarten blogs, which eventually led me to start my own. I began creating activities for my new grade level, which led me to open up my own TPT store. I began to create my own decor and theme. By the time summer was over I had completely embraced being a kindergarten teacher, and while I was very nervous I was ready to give it my all!!

I embraced my new classroom, which was slightly larger than my 4th grade room. I began to organize the room into an environment where my kinders would feel safe and free to express themselves.

One of my new team mates made sure our SMART Boards were lowered, since they were installed at the same height as the rest of the school. Needless to say, too high for our littles!

I began furiously labeling everything, from the lockers to putting names on the door.

I set up centers throughout the room and created path ways that limited noisy traffic.

I came to terms with the fact that I now had a bathroom in the classroom because kinders can't be walking around the school halls by themselves.

I embraced my love of dragons and created an entire classroom theme around them. We soon became known as The Kindergarten Dragons, and that name stuck.

Five years ago I went through an incredibly large change, and I'm not the biggest fan of change. Five years ago I had no idea I would have completely immersed myself into the world of all things kindergarten. Five years ago I had no idea how creative I would get to be every day. Five years ago I had no idea the amount of unconditional love I was to receive each year from my students. Five years ago I said goodbye to a huge chapter of my life, and embraced a new one. 

Five years ago I became the teacher I was meant to be. Each year I fall more and more in love with all things kindergarten. Each year I learn something new and wonderful. Each year I get to express my creativity and ideas to the most appreciative audience I've ever had. Each year I am oh so very glad that five years ago I made the change to kindergarten. I can not longer imagine myself anywhere else, and hope that I will be able to finish out my teaching career as a kindergarten teacher!

Where were you five years ago? Come over to I Heart Grade 3 and link up to tell us all about it!

You can still link up with my for Spotlight Saturday! It's a Teacher's Show and Tell, where you get to showcase your favorite products, resources, activities, and ideas! This week I Spotlighted Karry from Yay for PreK! Link up and share your Spotlight!!

Weekly Summer Link-Up: My Favorite Quote

I am linking up with Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her Weekly Summer Link Up! This week's topic is My Favorite Quote!

I have a confession to make. I have been OBSESSED with quotes for as long as I can remember. I would buy books full of quotes on random topics and keep journals of my favorites. I have always had such a fun time reading a quote and creating my own meaning for it or trying to find a way to connect it to my life. It's really hard to choose one favorite, I have so many! I love all of Dr. Seuss' words of wisdom, like 'You are who you are, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you!'

I think, though, that my current must favorite quote was written by J.K. Rowling and spoken by Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

I love words. I love getting to use them to tell a story or write a letter. I love memorizing the words in songs. I love figuring out how to pronounce words. I love learning new words, and getting to use them in conversation. I feel that words are important, so important that we need to be careful how we use them. This quote reminds me of the power of words.

Remember in school they told us to say "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!"? I could never get behind that statement, because I didn't agree with it. Words can hurt. No matter how much we deny it or hide from it or ignore it, words can hurt. A perfectly timed snide insult can stick with you, popping up into your brain when you least expected it. Hearing hurtful words over and over and over again can make you start to believe them, regardless of their truth.

On the flip side of that, words can be used to help ease hurt. A heart-felt apology can take some of the sting of an insult away. The compliments and assurances from friends can lesson the impact of a rough day.

I believe that words are one of the most important tools we have to express ourselves, and that we need to remember that our words can have an impact on others. As a kindergarten teacher I make sure my kinders know it's important for them to use their words kindly and not to hurt people's feelings. I also try to teach them that people will learn the most about them by the words they speak and how they speak them. 

What is your favorite quote? Link up and tell us all about it!

You can still link up for Spotlight Saturday! Showcase your favorite products, resources, activities, or ideas!

One Item That Means the World to Me

I have A LOT of posts to write today!! So many of my favorite linkies start on a Monday, and I don't want to miss any!! First up is the Weekly Summer Link Up with Monica from I Heart Grade 3!

This week's topic is One Item That Means the World to Me! This was tricky, since there are so many important items in my life that I absolutely love and can't live without. Things like my phone and my planner and my To Do Lists, I'd be lost without. However, for this week I chose to talk about an item that I use every day and even more so during the school year. That would have to be my MacBook Pro.

I can't begin to describe how much I rely on this piece of technology. Not only do I use my MacBook for all things TPT and blogging, but it is also how I type up my lesson plans and create SMART Board lessons. There have been times during the school year where I have had to give my laptop to the technology department for different issues, and once or twice I was without it for WEEKS!! I literally had to rethink how I taught. We use the SMART Board every single day all day long, for EVERYTHING!! When I'm not able to use it I have to find so much else for my kinders to do, and it's never as interactive or as fun as when I can use the laptop to hook up to the SMART Board. No joke, there was a point where I got so desperate that I lugged over a desktop to set it up on my desk just so I could hook up to the SMART Board!

Luckily my school has the newest iMacs, so it isn't too heavy to carry across the room to set up on my desk. However, it is a pain to set up all the wires and whatnot. 

I love my laptop that it has begun to feel like an extension of myself. Whenever I have to hand it over to the tech department I feel like I'm giving up the use of one of my limbs!! I'm always terrified that they'll have to 're-clone' it and wipe my memory drive completely clean. This has happened before, so I have to make sure to back everything up to my external hard drive before I give my computer over. While I know there are plenty of teachers out there who don't use a computer or a SMART Board when they teach, but I have become spoiled with years and years of great tech tools to take advantage of. So spoiled that I am left scrambling when I don't have my laptop or the SMART Board crashes.

I would definitely be at a loss without my MacBook pro, and I have used one for so many years now that I don't know the slightest thing about how to work a PC! This incredibly expensive piece of technology is one item that means the world to me!!

Don't forget to come on over to I Heart Grade 3 and read about what other bloggers can't live without! Feel free to link up while you're there and share the one thing that means the world to you!

Also, don't forget that you can still link up with us for Spotlight Saturday and showcase one of your favorite products, activities, resources, or ideas! I would love to read all about it!! I Spotlighted some Facebook freebies and an amazing blogger T-shirt deal from A+ Images, Inc. Come on over and read all about it!!

Weekly Summer Link-Up: My Teacher Quirks

If it's Monday then that means I am linking up with Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her Weekly Summer Link-Up!

This week we are linking up to share the quirks that make us the teachers we are. Everyone has at least one quirk. I myself have several! I'll try to refrain myself from sharing them all, though!

 I have to keep everything uber organized in my classroom. If not my eye starts to twitch. I need to know where everything is at all times, and many of my kiddos pick up on that too. They're always telling me when something is out of place.

I am just as organized with my student data files. Each student gets their own hanging file folder. Inside that folder are different color-coded folders where I store different papers throughout the year. Manilla folders for student information, yellow for assessments, red for work samples, green for parent contact, and blue for behavior. Everything I could possibly need for any type of meeting involving my students are in their folders. All I have to do is grab their folder and head to the meeting!

At the beginning of every school year we have parent/teacher entry conferences. We have to go over mountains of paperwork, and in order to keep everything straight I color code my copies. This helps the parents keep track of everything too.

I have a bit of an obsession with dragons. Not only do I make sure our Read to Someone Else Buddy Basket is stocked full with dragon reading buddies, I have also made my classroom decor focus entirely around dragons!

Our classroom dragon reading buddies...

Dragon birthday charts...

Dragon egg behavior clips....

Dragon labels for mailboxes...the list goes on and on! Since I couldn't find any dragon-themed classroom decor, I made it all myself!

Some of my other teacher quirks include constantly talking with my hands, I'm a fast talker and my hands get in on the action! Another thing I'm always doing is setting down my trusty water cup all over the classroom and always forgetting where I left it. My kinders are constantly finding it for me! Finally, something I've done for as long as I can remember is to say 'Oh, bother' whenever something doesn't go right. I've been known to say it so much that my kinders have picked up on it and say it too! Oh, and one last one! This one's too good not to share!! I am a HUGE Ravens fan and every Friday in my classroom (the whole school, really) is Purple Friday. I always make a big deal out of it, telling the kids to wear their purple or their Ravens gear. One year during mid-year conferences a parent told me that her daughter, who was born and raised a Stellers fan (I know, I shuddered when I heard that too) came home demanding that her mom take her out to get a Ravens jersey because she was a Ravens fan now and not a Stellers fan. Oops!! I love that story, it always makes me smile!!


Do you want to read about some quirks that your favorite bloggers have? Make sure to head back over to Monica's Weekly Summer Link-Up!!

P.S. - Don't forget that you can still link up with us for Spotlight Saturday and shine a Spotlight on your favorite products, resources, activities, or ideas!! I'd love to read all about your Spotlight!!

Weekly Summer Link Up - Accomplishment I'm Proud Of

I am linking up again with Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her amazing summer weekly link up! This week is all about an accomplishment you are proud of!

I really had to sit down and think about this week's topic. There are plenty of things I have done that I'm proud of, and I also know that I have plenty of time to accomplish lots more!

I think, to date, the accomplishment that I am most proud of would have to be my grade-level change. For those of you who may not know, I am finishing up my tenth year of teaching. Sometimes I can't believe it's been ten years already, other times I feel like it's been so much longer!!

I began my teaching career as a pre-kindergarten teacher, and I LOVED it!! The kiddos were so very happy to come to school every day, and I was a half day teacher so I taught the same lessons twice a day. After my first year in pre-k I was bumped up to fourth grade. Can you say gulp?? Holey Moley, what an incredible jump that was!! I went from circle time songs to differentiated guided reading lessons using chapter books. Eeek!! To say I struggled that first year in fourth would be an understatement!! But I was lucky enough to have an AMAZING teaching partner who was an old pro and definitely helped me stay sane. She always had my back and shared EVERYTHING!! When I was in pre-k I had no team mates, so it was great to finally have someone to share ideas with! I spent a wonderful five years in fourth grade with my amazing teaching partner, and I learned so much. However, I always felt there was something missing and I couldn't figure out what. After five years in fourth grade, our school staff went through a big change where most were put into new grade levels, and I was going to kindergarten. I was floored!! Not only was I moving to a brand new grade, but I was leaving my amazing team mate. She was moving up to fifth, while I was returning to early childhood. My closest friends were waiting for me in the lobby after I got my news, and they were so supportive. Lots of hugs and tears, but they all assured me that this move was a good one and that I would totally rock it in kindergarten!

I wasn't sure, at all, about the rocking it in kindergarten part. I only knew that I was leaving a grade level I had grown comfortable with and a team mate that I absolutely loved. I knew I was returning to the land of runny noses and untied shoes, and that I was going from kids who could (mostly) read everything I wrote on the board to kids who could not yet recognize their names. I was oh so very worried that I wasn't going to be an effective kindergarten teacher, that I had spent too long with the older kids and the littles would neither appreciate nor understand my dry wit, and that I would not be able to help the kinders make the growth they needed. I knew how to teach long divsion and identifying literary elements, but it had been so very many years since I taught kiddos how to recognize letters by name and sound. I was so worried that I wasn't going to be effective, and that was the scariest and most stressful part of the change for me!

It was the last day of 'teacher school' (we go three days after the students are done for the year). I cleaned and purged my fourth grade room, leaving many things for the teacher who would take my place and giving the rest to my team mate who was moving to fifth grade. Everything else that was mine got boxed up and labeled for the move 'upstairs'. In our school the early childhood classrooms are on the main hall, while the rest of the classrooms are down the stairs and branch out left and right. I had some AMAZING paraeducators help me move my stuff from fourth grade to my new kindergarten room.

I went from having groups of desks to using blue kidney and trapezoid tables. I went from having quiet reading time to organizing and implementing learning and play centers. My team mate even had to request that the SMART Boards in the rooms be lowered, because it was just way too high for littles to reach without standing on something. After moving all my stuff into the room, I turned in my keys and started my summer. 

In between spending time with family and relaxing, I began racking my brain for the best way to teach kindergarten. I read all sorts of books and began following all sorts of blogs. My first year as a kindergarten teacher started, and I stayed sane by following along with what my new team mates had already done for years. With some bumps, bruises, and migraines along the way I made it through my first year in kindergarten. I was lucky enough to team up with my team mate from last year and have her kiddos become my class's 5th Grade Buddies (and we have every year since). That summer I decided to embrace early childhood even more. I became a member of TPT and created my own blog. This blog helped me to develop a theme for my classroom. I grew even more comfortable with the idea of teaching early childhood, especially kindergarten!

Now I have finished up year five as a kindergarten teacher, and I honestly cannot think of anywhere else I'd rather be. I LOVE all things kindergarten! I love the interest and enthusiasm for learning, love, and life that kinders have! I love how they're so happy to see me every day, and how they worry when I don't show up. I love that they still have such a huge desire to learn about themselves and the world around them. I love that they are uber impressed with whatever I do, no matter how scraggly looking my stick figure drawings are! I love that they love me, without question and without holding back. Honestly, I just love all things kindergarten. I really, really, really hope to be able to spend the rest of my teaching career in kindergarten. I feel like I have found my niche and this is where I belong. There's just something about those eagerly curious little faces who absorb the world around them like a little sponge! I love being a kindergarten teacher, and I wouldn't want it any other way. As a kindergarten teacher I feel that I am able to utilize my creativity and imagination so much more, and I no longer feel as if something is missing. So the accomplishment I'm most proud of? Becoming a kindergarten teacher and embracing it to the fullest!

I invite you to head back over to I Heart Grade 3 and read about all of the other amazing accomplishments out there! Link up so I can read about yours, too!!

P.S. - Don't forget that you can still link up for Spotlight Saturday! Come on over and showcase a product or resource and tell us all about it!

Weekly Summer Link-Up ~ Why I Started Blogging

It's Monday! For some of you this is your first Monday of summer vacation. For others, like the teachers in my district, still have a few Mondays left. If you're just starting out your summer vacation, I hope you are off to a relaxing start! Those of you not quite done yet, stay strong the summer is almost here!!

Since it's Monday in the summer, that means I am linking up with Monica from I Heart Grade 3 for her Weekly Summer Link Up! Last week we talked about our Summer Goals! I have so many, but I chose four to talk about!

As you can see, this week we are linking up to talk about why we started blogging. I have had my little blog since July of 2013, so my blog is getting ready to celebrate its second birthday! In order to prep myself for this post, I went back and read the very first thing I ever posted on my blog. It brought back a lot of memories! Back then my blog looked a lot different! I wish I had a picture of how it used to look, but I can't find one. I know that everything on it was designed by myself after watching hours and hours of tutorial videos on YouTube and any other blogs I could find!

The summer I decided to start my blog was the summer before I began my third year as a kindergarten teacher. Two years before I was teaching fourth grade! Quite the jump, right?? I was just starting to feel comfortable as a kindergarten teacher. Instead of feeling like I was constantly drowning, I finally felt as if I was treading water with my head held high! I decided that would be a good time to venture into the world of blogging! I had started my TPT store not long before, and I wanted a way to get my name out there. I though that blogging would be a good way to do that.

Check out this old sale sign I made <no, it's not for a sale this year>. I remember that I made it in Notebook software, which is how I started out making my activities. When I moved over to using PowerPoint, I never looked back! Just goes to show how you live, learn, and make changes!

Thinking about starting my blog is bittersweet for me. I was so proud of myself for getting it off the ground and working so hard to make it something worth reading. I remember how proud my mom was of me, and how she was my very first follower. I also remember how a little over a month after I started my blog, my mom died unexpectedly. What an incredible blow that was. However, I know she is still proud of how far I have come since that hot summer day in July!

Click on the image above of my very first blog button and you'll be able to go back and read my very first blog post! So many life changing events have occurred since I started this blog, but I am so glad that I am on this journey!

Want to link up and talk about why you started blogging? Just click on the Weekly Summer Link Up schedule to head over to I Heart Grade 3 and read about why we started blogging!

P.S. - You can still come over and link up to my Spotlight Saturday linky party! Come read all about it and Spotlight something awesome for us!