Winter Happenings

We're going on a 5 day weekend here in Maryland and instead of working on report cards from home, I decided to updated the blog on things that have been happening at school and in life.  We had MLK day off, a PD day and now 2 snow days.  Where to begin...

In school, my second year of teaching is in full swing.  I have a wonderful group of firsties who just LOVE to chat.  They are good kids though and I strive to make learning fun for them.  They are really into "brain breaks" and I often use them as class rewards to get their wiggles out.  I created a pin board on Pinterest with lots of fun dances and songs they love.  I will admit, even I need a brain break to get through the day.  Click here to go to my pin board for fun brain breaks.

I am also excited because my very first Donors Choose project got funded right around the holidays.  I really wanted more leveled guided reading books for the students.  It really amazes me how generous people can be.  Especially random people you may not even know and are willing to donate to support education.  I do not know how to thank them enough.   After we send our thank you packages out, I plan to organize another classroom project.  You can view my Donors Choose page HERE.

Our brand new books we received through Donors Choose.

Last, I am a huge Pinterest fan.  I have found soooo many ideas for my classroom and teaching.  I am so grateful to those teachers who create these ideas.  One project I did with my students this winter that I saw floating around Pinterest was the writing prompt "If I were trapped in a snow globe..." .  My students love it!  Here is a pic of me trapped in my  snow globe...

At home my husband and I are finally in our new townhouse and loving it!  We, or should I say my husband, did a lot of work to fix it up to where it is today.  One of my favorite projects we worked on, was again, influenced by a find on Pinterest.  I wanted a bench that we could also use as storage below and found this idea.  We got a bookshelf from Ikea and got to work.

Another project we worked on was fixing up the small pantry in our kitchen.  Half of it has the stacking washer and dryer and the other half is for storage.  After we got a new washer and dryer, we had to get creative with the doors since louver doors were unable to work with the way our washer opened.  Here are some before pics:

 So we decided to do one sliding door to keep the washer and dryer enclosed and have the pantry exposed. After my husband removed the old shelving from 1980 something he painted it a light shade of mint I picked out (gotta love him for letting me choose the color and him doing the work).  We were originally going to put new, nicer looking shelves and call it a day, but as a homeowner you should be aware that things are not easy.  The walls were not even for simple shelves and was becoming a pain to work with.  We thought about finding some shelving unit instead.  Who knew if we would be able to find something that would even fit.   Back to Ikea we went and we actually found something that fit!  I wish I had video of us installing this thing in that small space.  But here is our final result:

I LOVE it!  It holds my baking things, a wine rack and our glasses, and we even made a spot for Rocco's water and food bowl.  I can't wait to work on our bigger pantry area, but that will have to wait.

Last, as you may or may not know, I do love to bake.  I used to be an avid cake maker.  I still like it, but prefer to do it on special occasions for family and friends.  Here is a cake I worked on this past weekend for my good friends Svet and Eran.  It was their son's 1st birthday.

Caking is my artistic/creative outlet.  It is A LOT of hard work and dry hands, but worth it in the end.  Hope ya had a great 1st birthday Gefen!

And I guess that sums is up for now.  I just found out we have a two hour delay tomorrow and gotta get back in school mode.  Yay for a two day work week!  Haha...  ~Cara Lee

Monday Made It

Trying to start my blog once more... third time's a charm right?!  I have been scouring my favorite teacher blogs this summer and they always inspire me with fun and unique ideas for my classroom.  I actually am excited to go back at the end of summer to put my classroom together.  Don't get me wrong - I LOVE summer, but I am just so excited to try all these new ideas I have been inspired to try from all the amazing teacher blogs I read every day.

Since my last post, a lot has happened.  I survived my first year of teaching first grade.  I had such a wonderful class who I was happy to see everyday.  I also had a great first grade team to work with.  I was able to learn the ropes and they were also open to some of my new ideas. Oh, and I cannot forget - my last name has changed (well not legally yet lol).  I got married in May and it was one of the best days of my life!  My students said that I am now a "grown up."

One of my favorite pics a friend of ours took at our wedding.

 I learned so much my first year of teaching but I am still always critiquing myself.  I know one area I worked hard on this past year was incorporating our new Common Core curriculum for math.  I had a tougher class that needed a lot of support in the beginning of the year and throughout.  I have a good understanding of the math curriculum and how I plan to make it better this year in my classroom.   But this year I plan to really focus on incorporating the Common Core into language arts and work on my guided reading block.  (Our county has slowly rolled out the Common Core curriculum over the past year.  This past school year we focused on math and writing.  This coming school year we are incorporating the language arts curriculum.)  One way I plan to do this is with the Daily 5.  I love it!  A few of my teammates and I went to a workshop last year after hearing all about it and we were sold.  We did not start D5 until the late fall, so I am excited to actually start it from the beginning of  school year.

I've rambled on quite a bit here!  I guess I will get to my "Made it Monday" post.  This little project was inspired by all the cute personalized bins and drawers I've seen on pinterest.  Last year I made the project where you take the plastic tool drawers and write the different desk supplies for each drawer.  I loved it and it kept my desktop nice and organized this year (see top right pic below).

Pinterest inspired projects from last year.

This mini-project I did tonight was super easy.  I was at Homegoods today (LOVE that store) and found a clear acrylic desk organizer.  I am in need of one of these because the mug on my desk this year was NOT cuttin' it.  I had too many "things" in my mug and they were all jammed in there so when you would grab a pen or reach for the scissors, everything would come out with it.

Anyways... You can find these types of organizers at places like the Container Store or TJ Maxx if you don't have Homegoods.  First I measured the height and width of the back of the organizer.  Since this would show, I thought it would be a cute idea to make a name plate out of it for my desk.  I'm a little more exccited than usual to make this project because it's the first time I get to use my *new* last name ;-)  I have an animal print/jungle themed classroom so I picked an animal print.  I decided on giraffe since I already have so many zebra print things.  After I printed it and cut it out to size, I atached it with double sided tape.  Just a little in each corner is all you need :)

It's simple and I can always change it if I see something cuter.  I guess that is it for tonight as it will be Tuesday in about 2 more minutes lol.  Until next time ~Cara Lee