Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

What a winter wonderland it has been...and it just keeps coming! We have had 5 snow days in the past 3 weeks! 3 huge storms and another approaching for the end of the week. 

Since it's ANOTHER snow day today, I figured I would update on my life and school year 

(I'll admit it...I've been slacking)!

I thought I would have a pretty relaxing year (said no teacher ever)! However, we just made it to the 100th day of school! Which means the countdown to the END of the school year can now begin! Check out our 100th day centers! 

             We had 5 centers that the students rotated through!

                              1. Flip a coin 100 times

                              2. If I were 100 picture and fill in

                              3. 100 cup sculpture

                              4. 100 square mosaic 

                              5. 100 pattern block designs

On a more personal note, my hubby and I have been enjoying the first year in our new house! 

We had our first Christmas with an 8 1/2 ft. tree! 

YAY for high ceilings!

 Izzy enjoyed the holiday season too, she loved her new jammies!

We also hosted a Super Bowl Party last week! YEAH PATRIOTS!

I went all out with the Pinterest inspired football table! I also made Swedish Meatballs, 7 Layer Dip, and "healthy" chocolate cupcakes! The cupcakes were only about 100 calories (minus the frosting)! I used a box cupcake mix but instead of adding eggs and oil, I used 1 cup of water and 1 cup of plain yogurt. They were delicious! The most important part was the the PATS won the Super Bowl! 

Very exciting for Boston/New England!

Happy Monday! 

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened" -Dr. Seuss

The end of my summer has come and I'm glad I could end it with a night at the Drive-In and a fresh Margarita! 

On Monday night, my hubby had a great idea to go to the Drive-In since we hadn't been to the movies in a long time. Better yet, we hadn't been to the Drive-In in a long time! For $25 you get to see two movies in the privacy of your own car and you kind of feel like you’re in the movie Grease! 

I spent my Tuesday food shopping and getting ready for the first week of school. I prepped my lunches and even made some morning Bombshell Spells to kick start my days!  

Then Tuesday night I grabbed a drink with some friends! So long summer, it's been real!

I know you're dying to know how school was! It was great to see returning staff and exciting to meet new staff. I also met my new co-teacher and I think we will make a great team!!! We got into our classroom and I should have taken a picture, I will have to do a before and after, even though we are no way close to the after! There are SO MANY BOXES but it will all come together, it always does!

More EXCITING news...

Officially got accepted to the Masters program at AIC!!! I'm very excited to start the next journey in my life/teaching career! Bring on the 2014-2015 school year!

Literacy Assessment Data Tracking

It's that time of the year where teachers are dying to get into their classrooms but have to go to meetings instead! At my school, returning staff  goes back on Wednesday and I just looked over the schedule for our 3 weeks of PD/curriculum planning/classroom prep!  Of course I'm anxious about organizing and preparing my classroom, every teacher is! We have moved schools and this is the third time I will have to create a classroom from scratch. BLANK CANVAS! Although it's overwhelming, I do LOVE organizing and making sure everything has a home! Over the past few days I've been trying to do some school prep at home. At the end of last year our team sat down and thought about what we would want to do differently during the beginning of the year to make the rest of the year flow better. 

For literacy we wanted to focus on assessments. 

We use Journey's Curriculum and although students do take weekly assessments on vocabulary, comprehension, and phonics, but we felt that students weren't as involved as we wanted them to be with understanding their score and what they could do to improve their skills in any of these areas. 

Our literacy center time is very independent. Students do not rotate through centers together, they get to choose what center they want to do and when they want to do it, scary huh? It works! It holds them accountable for time management, working independently, and being diligent. I think having students track their own learning and data from assessments will be beneficial to them too, they can stay motivated and take ownership of their learning. 

I searched and searched but couldn't find exactly what I wanted so of course...I MADE IT MYSELF!!!

Each week, after the students take their assessment, we will grade the assessment together and then students will track their data from the comprehension portion of the assessment. Each box underneath tells the lesson number, standard we are working on that week, and student friendly AIM. After we spiral back to an AIM, students will be able to see their progress for skills as well as progress for weekly test taking strategies. 

This is just a start and I'm sure we'll make some tweaks along the way but I hope we're headed in the right direction!

Our 1st Anniversary

What a vacation! I've been M.I.A for the past few days because Mike and I were celebrating our 1st wedding anniversary! We spent the weekend in Burlington, VT. We wanted to go somewhere we had never been but on a budget seeing that we just bought a house. Burlington was so beautiful, we stayed at the Hilton in an amazing room overlooking Lake Champlain.

We walked around Church Street, poked in and out of shops, had lunch and sampled beers at The Vermont Pub & Brewery.

We brought our wedding cake with us and dove into that after lunch!

Yup...this happened! Why wouldn't you eat cake in bed...right out of the box?

Still looks delicious!

This is all we could eat until we felt sick...

We walked down to the water and took a trip to the Burlington Aquarium! For our 1st year dating Mike took me to the Boston Aquarium so it seemed fitting that we would spend our 1st year married at an aquarium!

We made reservations at a great restaurant called Leunig's right on Church Street so we could people watch! We had a bottle of wine and SO much food!

Appetizer: Curried Coconut Mussels

Cheese Plate: Had my first cheese plate at a restaurant, Mike's a cheese guy (I'm not) but it was amazing!

Mixed Green Salad: I LOVE salad! It had a Maple Vinaigrette that was delicious!

Entree: Mike got Cavatappi Carbonara and I got the Maple Walnut Crusted Salmon

Dessert: HA-we were too full! 

On our way home we stopped by the Ben & Jerry's Factory, Cabot Cheese store, and the Lake Champlain Chocolate store! If that weekend wasn't relaxing enough, we decided to go to the beach on Tuesday!

Of Course we had seafood for lunch at the beach but for dinner Mike had a great idea to make grilled pizza!

Well, that's where I've been and what we've been up to! So thankful to have an amazing husband and happy we could celebrate and remember our wonderful wedding day!

We even got some love in the mail from our families!

My Day-Friday

Today I caught up on laundry and cleaning, you know, normal housewife shenanigans. Hubby worked from home today so it was fun having him around the house and listening in on his conference calls. 

Have you ever put something away and thought to yourself,  "This isn't a good place for this..." but put it there anyways? Well we needed a copy of our marriage licence...and...I kinda didn't really know where it was...GULP!

We have a large credenza with file cabinets, however, it had files from 2005, files that we certainly do not need. SO...within 5 minutes of organizing the credenza we found our marriage licence! PHEW! But I couldn't stop there, so we continued to organize paperwork and got rid of A LOT too!

This is ready for shredding!

Since we have a fenced in yard, we rarely take Izzy on walks anymore but it was gorgeous out so we took her on a long walk down to the lake...she likes to lead the way!

We ordered food from TC Lando's (YUM!) and had a picnic at the local Arboretum. We hadn't been there in years, it was so beautiful and peaceful!

Today's blog has nothing to do with teaching because it's FRIDAY and who wants to talk about work!?!

Time to go have a birthday drink with one of my best friends!

CHEERS!

School Shopping

I recently took a trip to go outlet shopping for the new school year. I rarely spend money on myself anymore and during the school year I feel like I’m always getting something for my classroom or for my students. So I was very happy to take a little time to pick out some things just for me! 

My first stop: Banana Republic

I love Banana Republic but I love their outlet even more. If you know me you know that I don’t like to pay full price for anything and I usually have a coupon to use! Bargain Shopper right here! I always find something I love at Banana Republic and they always have some kind of sale or clearance items that I can get my hands on. They also have a teacher discount!!! I bought this purple and gray dress! It's light, comfy, and the perfect length!

 

Next stop: Sperry

I have never owned boat shoes but always like the style of them and usually buy them for my husband. So after trying them on and being fickle for a good 20 minutes, I decided to get them! Then I wanted to wear them out in the city the other night…and I got blisters on my heels L I know I’m suppose to break them in but hey, sometimes pain is beauty!