Linking Up!

Linkys! I love 'em! So of course I have to join up with Janaye over at Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes for her "My Teacher Story" linky!

When I was growing up, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I graduated high school and enrolled at Concordia College in River Forest, Il. which was just down the street from my high school. Due to step-father complications I had to live in the dorm which terrified me. I was still really awkward and shy. My mom died 1/2 way into the first semester and my step-father cut off all ties with my brothers and me. I had to drop out of school and move to Canada to live with my grandmother.

At one point in Canada I tried to go back to university, but the campus was huge and intimidating and I just couldn't cope. I tried going to a small business school after that to be a secretary and met up with some very sweet girls who tried to convert me to their religion. Unfortunately they told me my mother was in hell since she had been a devout Catholic. I ended up becoming depressed and dropped out of that school too.

I worked in a grocery store for a time and was a nanny. I knew I enjoyed children and desperately wanted my own family, but I couldn't see how that would be possible with a minimum wage job. By that point I had given up on the idea of going back to school. Eventually I decided to go back to the States and join the Army. I called up my biological father and asked if I could stay with him while I went through the enlistment process. Then I called a recruiter in the Chicago area and set up an appointment.

The recruiter was pretty shocked when I actually showed up - he didn't have many people calling him from Canada to enlist lol. I entered the Army in April of 1998 and went to Basic Training in Fort Leonard Wood, MO. After Basic I went to Fort Bliss, TX for additional training which is where I met my husband. We were married after 4 weeks of knowing each other.

 Here's Steven and I when we first met - about a week into our whirlwind courtship lol!

I completed my enlistment in April of 2001 - by that time we had our daughter and I was pregnant with our second child and couldn't see being a dual military couple any more. I worked for TSA for a while when it first started up, I also did a year with the National Guard. Then I decided to use my GI Bill to go back to school to help us out with money - the monthly stipend was a big help! I took night, weekend and online classes so we didn't have to pay for daycare. Eventually we moved to California and then to Germany and I continued taking courses here and there.

Then we moved here to Fort Sill and I began attending Cameron University. I was blessed to meet some wonderful teachers/mentors. I continued to attend full time, even through my pregnancy with my 4th - in fact I had him on a Monday and was back in class that Wednesday night! With every class I took I became more convinced that this was my calling. My favorite teacher was Mrs. Stoll - I took at least one class from her every semester (including summer!) for 6 semesters straight! She is truly a fabulous woman who understands what kindergarten is all about!

My husband was sent to Korea for a year just a few weeks before I graduated. I ended up not walking since I didn't have a babysitter for my 4 kiddos! I was lucky enough to get a job offer after my first interview. I dragged those poor children with me to set up my classroom, then had them staying late, going in early and coming in on the weekends all that first year while my husband was away in Korea. I truly did not know the meaning of the word "balance".

 Steven took this picture of us just a week before he left for Korea.

That first year my middle child ended up hospitalized for pneumonia and I truly understood what a warm and caring school community I was a part of when colleagues took my older kiddos to and from school and my youngest to and from daycare. I had never experienced that kind of coming together except in the military. That whole year did teach me that I have to learn when to say "it's enough" and focus on my own family. It's much easier now that my husband is home to help out and to remind me that it doesn't all have to be perfect!

 

Here we are a few months after he came home. The sun was very bright and right in our eyes!

So, a bit convoluted, and and a heck of a lot longer than I would have thought back when I was 18 and newly graduated from high school, but I am finally a teacher which is right where I was meant to be all along!

Well now that one linky is finished, how about one more - nothing better than killing two linkys with one post right? When I started seeing "Tell Me More" as everyone's blog post title tonight I was intrigued. Good thing I clicked over to find this great linky from Amy over at Step into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons:

Hmm what quirky things have I not yet revealed?

1. My family loves Nutella. I used to get made fun of all the time for having Nutella sandwiches in my lunch in grade school. They didn't know what they were missing! However, Nutella also now calls up this memory - which everyone still teases me about:

This is my youngest, naked on the countertop, eating Nutella and sprinkles with a butter knife. We had just walked in the door after a long day at work/day care (this was during my first year of teaching while Steven was gone, remember?) and after a few minutes I realized that he was being way too quiet. I walked in the kitchen to find this scene. By the way, he was constantly naked at that age - I used to think I would have to duct tape his clothes to him, no sense of modesty at all unlike my other ones!

2. I don't wear jewelry. Not even my wedding rings. I can't stand watches/bracelets on my wrists and I always snag my rings on things. My engagement/wedding rings are currently in my jewelry box because I lost a diamond out of one (snagging it somewhere) and I just can't be bothered to go get it fixed because I'm so used to not wearing it now. Steven doesn't wear his ring either because of his job, so at least we match! I do love earrings though, but have a bad habit of taking them off in random places and losing one!

3. I love to stay up late - like 4am late! Then I go back to bed for a few hours and get up whenever the kids start getting around. I drink a lot of coffee to function, but I love having the quiet house all to myself!

4. In case you didn't notice above, I like to dress my boys in matching outfits:

Especially on vacations, my boys are always dressed identically. This is partially so that in case we lose one I can just point to one of the others to show everyone what the missing one is wearing. Partially it's just because it's so much easier to get them dressed that way - everyone knows that they're wearing the same thing!

5. Whenever we go someplace, I am forever counting our kids. "1,2,3,4 out the door" is what I say before we leave any store, just so I make sure I don't leave anyone behind. It hasn't happened yet, which I attribute solely to my fanatical counting.

6. I read incessantly. Romances mostly - especially paranormal romances. Complete fluff. But, in my defense, I read all of the classics for fun in high school. For fun people.  I attended an all girl, Catholic high school taught by nuns - so yeah, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist and Cyrano de Bergerac were  my idea of party time. Now that I'm grown, I'm making up for lost time by reading young adult fiction and romances - and I skip a lot of the descriptive paragraphs!

I think that's enough of my craziness for now! I'm really enjoying reading everyone else's stories too, so be sure to go link up if you haven't yet! 

Monday Made-It (Meet-Up & Giveaway!)

I'm linking up again with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics for another Monday Made It!

This week I actually didn't make much - unless you count all the fabulous goodies I made at the Make & Take class that I already shared! Click here to see them if you missed them! Between the dentist on Monday, Great Expectations training Tuesday through Friday and the waterpark on Saturday, I didn't have a whole lotta time for crafting this week! I knuckled down though and crossed one thing off my Pinterest To-Do List:

                                                                         Source: marthastewart.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

I absolutely loved this vase from Martha Stewart, it totally embodies the natural feel I want my room to have! I knew I didn't want a vase though since I am more of a plant person. I finally decided on a pencil cup instead.  As luck would have it, I had a bunch of sticks left over from last week's pointer project, so that decided me!

I recycled a pineapple can and used some bronze spray paint on it just in case there were any gaps:

I then spent a solid hour cutting branches to size and then burning my fingers as I hot glued them onto the can. All I can say is thank goodness the can wasn't any bigger or I would have thrown the towel in on this one - talk about tedious! Fortunately I had The Food Network Star finale dvr'd so I managed to persevere. (By the way, totally loooove the outcome - don't want to spoil it in case someone else hasn't watched the episode yet, but I am so excited to watch the winner's new show in the Fall!)

Anyways, once it was done I tried the raffia ribbon:

Then I tried an orangey ribbon instead:

Forgive the grainy pics, I can't find my camera charger so I had to use my cell phone!

My household is evenly divided between the two ribbons. Rustle Up a Response below and let me know which you like better! Either way I now have a stylish container for all of my pens and pencils, so I'm happy I finished it! 

I did manage to get to a Target and a teacher supply store on Saturday on the way home from the waterpark and picked up some really cute stuff. I can't wait to be able to get into my classroom - depending on who you ask that will either be August 1st or August 6th! It looks like I'll be sticking with the same room since my principal is adamant about the new rooms going to 1st grade :( and I'm adamant about wanting to be with my kinders this year!

Oh! Want to hear a good one? We are getting a teacher who was...let's say...not the best last year. This person was in a testing grade and the test scores sucked. So obviously they can't go back into a teaching grade, right?! So let's just stick them down in kindergarten or first grade because those are throw away grades! Argh! It kills me when people act like the lower grades aren't important! Let's see what happens when those kiddos leave 1st not knowing how to read - test scores are going to suck for years then! Oh and of course kindergarten is such an easy grade to teach - not much curriculum at all (heavy sarcasm). Kind of want to hit people over the head when they act like a trained monkey could teach kindergarten so let's stick any old teacher in K.

Okay, rant over...let's get back to your regularly scheduled post:

Due to popular demand, the date of the Okie Blogger Meet-Up was changed! Hopefully more people will be able to attend this Saturday since last Saturday was booked solid for so many. Again, no blog necessary, and heck you don't even have to be from Oklahoma! If you're in the OKC area next Saturday July 28th we want to meet you! There will be door prizes and all sorts of fun people! Not to mention cheesecake! Just shoot me or Kaci an email and let us know you're coming :)

Lastly, I'm having a giveaway for $50 worth of Donorschoose gift cards! Click the picture to go to that post to enter! 

Center Series #3 - Science! (Freebie)

I'm a bit late getting this out - I was completely wiped out by our trip to the water park on Saturday - 5 hours of swimming and corralling 9 youngsters wore me out! I actually didn't work on this post until Sunday afternoon and then it took me a bit because I kept getting interrupted by real life :)

This week I'm focusing on Science Center! I truly believe you should devote at least a corner of your room to Science. It is always one of my students' favorite centers. This is exploration and discovery at its most pure. Many of the Science standards can be covered in ways that enable them to be displayed in a Science Center.

My Science Center includes our classroom pets:

 We have a beautiful hermit crab tank made possible by a Pets in the Classroom grant from Petco.

The hermit crabs are our year-round pets, but we add others as well:

Baby chicks and ducklings in the spring!

We also have those pets that just stay with us for a little while:

The top picture is a lizard one of our friends brought in after catching it at home, the lower picture is a lizard we captured in the neighboring classroom (that teacher was nearly hysterical lol!). Both stayed with us for a while before being released into the "wild".

Here is a picture of Science Center - note the butterfly net on the left - we study the Painted Lady butterfly's life cycle in the Spring as well!

We also have a no-killing rule in the classroom as pertains to spiders and beetles etc. We have a backdoor that leads right outside, so any insects caught in the room get scooped up for release outside. Sometimes they spend an hour or two in this Insect Lore Creature Peeper first though:

 

My kiddos absolutely love to look at the insects or spiders under the magnifying glass!

I have to add a disclaimer - I am actually highly squeamish about insects/spiders. At my house, my husband is the go-to-guy for bug disposal.  But, in the classroom I struggle to make sure that my fears are not conveyed to my students - I practice the "fake it till you make it" approach and just suck it up. Thus I'm the teacher called upon to remove any creature in our hallway - it's a great way to get new critters for my students to learn about!

Once we find a bug, I act on that teachable moment! We do a Google search to try to identify it - this means we have to examine it and describe it - "black and white spots 6 legs beetle Oklahoma" might be our search term. Then we look through some pictures and decide which variety of beetle we have, then discover what they eat and any other particulars about it. I then jot everything down on a sheet to display in Science Center  - now the children can write about our find and take it home to share with their family. It is one of the easiest ways to get them writing and looking up the bug only takes about 5-10 minutes usually!

We also have some plants in our Science Center! In the spring we plant seeds to make into Mother's Day gifts - just add some terracotta pots hand painted by the kiddos and presto you have a gift that involves learning about life cycles!

 The rest of the year we also have plants:

The Root Vue Farm is fabulous - just make sure you plant the seeds close to the glass so the roots are clearly visible. I was lucky enough to have this given to me a by a student one year. She was a major Science buff and wanted to share her Christmas present with the class! The Madagascar plant kit is also fabulous - we planted them 3 years ago and they are still going strong! It's also a great way to teach about the water cycle as you'll see from this picture of them in my kitchen window right now:

In addition to the living things in the center, I also keep Otto the Robot! He is from the Science Museum in OKC and every year I take my class there on a field trip (usually funded by Target!). Joining Otto are other plush friends - some Audubon birds (beware, they are rather noisy but they have authentic bird calls!) and some raccoons since those were our class mascot. The orca and koala bear were lent to us by classmates after we read stories featuring them. My kiddos love bringing things in from home to share with us!

In addition you  can see a bowl of rocks gleaned from the playground or brought in from home. These got examined for fossils, sorted, counted and written about all year long! Sometimes we brought in sticks and leaves as well and that white thing is a deer antler my husband found in the woods! Our magnifying glasses were in constant use! I am so glad I got a set of 6. In fact, I probably need more since there were rarely any free! That box on the right has our Science Specimens Sorting Center which has 23 specimens including sponges, pine cones, rocks, shells etc and 8 sorting mats for sorting them by physical characteristics such as heavy/light, shiny/dull, smooth/rough. The basket is full of non-fiction books about everything from wings to seeds to different animal species.

Not pictured is our magnet set, similar to this one:

Our door jams are metal, and I've had kiddos sit for 45 minutes, experimenting with the magnet wands and various materials, coming to their own understanding about what magnetic means. We also have some of those fun magnetic rocks that you find at those culture/novelty stores (ours is called "Romancing the Stone") and can link together to make bracelets etc - I always enjoy trying to link up as many as I can when I'm in that store!

I  have writing paper and pencils in this center too so that students can write about our pets/plants/inanimate objects. Sometimes they are fiction stories - as when we had a few weeks when all of my students decided to write about what our guinea pig did at night (going to the movies, investigating the cafeteria etc). Sadly she died of old age 2 summers ago, but she was a fabulous class pet! Most of the time though, my students like to write non-fiction stories about what a creature eats, or their life cycle.

In order to help get their writing juices flowing, I created this mini word wall for our science center. I put the pages in sheet protectors and place them in a binder, then I make multiple copies of the writing sheet and put them in the binder pocket. I don't grade this writing or correct it in any way - this is just their time to experiment with getting thoughts down on paper. I will sometimes ask them to share it or ask if I can put it in their cumulative folder as one of their writing samples. Click the picture to grab it for free in my TPT store!

The binder is also a great place to keep all of our life cycle diagrams and labeled pictures!

I could go on and on about Science Center, but I think this post is long enough! Hopefully I gave you some ideas on what to have in your center or encouraged you to have a Science Center in your own class!

By the way, don't forget to enter my giveaway for 3 Donorschoose Gift Cards - maybe you could fund a Science Center project!