Whoa Six Months!

I am just going to pretend that it hasn't been 6 months since I last posted!!  You guys, the last post I wrote was BEFORE the school year even started.  Ey yi yi.  I am the world's worst blogger, it's true.

But! This year has been going great! I can't believe it is February and that I have been doing the third grade thing for over half of the year now.  It's been fun, hard, tiring, hilarious and did I mention hard?  All at once.  Every day.  I love third grade and my class has kept me on my toes all year.

Today I am home with my two sick little kiddos.  Well, I use the word "sick" lightly, because they are doing really well.  Just some low fevers and low appetites.  We had a nice morning watching some construction on our street, right from our front steps!

Let this post be the ice breaker.  Let's hope it is not another six months before I am back again!  Thanks for checking in on me :)

We Did It!!! With a Classroom Tour on the Side.

We made it through the first week of school!  School started on Wednesday for me, so we only had a three day week to start off with, but man it felt longer than that.  There was a point during the afternoon on DAY ONE that I thought to myself, "holy cow, this is still just the first day!"  It already felt like we had been there for longer and that I'd been with my kiddos forever.  It's pretty crazy how quickly it already feels normal again, to just be at school with my new group of kids.  I have an awesome class this year.  For real. I do not know how I lucked out, but I love my mix this year.  And having a three day weekend right off the back sure makes going back to school a little bit easier!

I am liking how my room has turned out and there are only a few things I am still adding and changing.  It's not very official, but here are some pictures of my space.

Reading Library... I ditched one of the beanbags though, and moved the rug.

Whiteboard Wall... this was taken before our new tables arrived. Because they came like 3 days before school started. And they didn't even have legs when they first arrived! Oh and I did add the missing letters to the quote :)

And here they are!  Whiteboard tables.  The kids already LOVE writing on them, and I am stocking up on whiteboard cleaner.

Cabinet Wall, with sleeves to showoff student work

Looking back into the room

Supply Storage and my "Genius Bar" table, where I keep supplies and materials for the kiddos to use

My classroom door!  We took photos on the first day and I let the kids use Instagram to pick which filter they liked. I got the pictures printed in 4x4 squares at Walgreens (30 cents a piece!) and can't wait to hang them up this week!

Library again

Class Jobs. I made magnets to show class numbers of who has what job each week.

Reading Strategy Posters

My desk.  I have eliminated a lot of the clutter under the table!

How was your first week?  I still need to blog about my Loft purchases.... they turned out pretty good!

Late Night Shopping

Did you shop the TPT Back to School Sale this year?

I did my shopping at the last minute, with just an hour or so left of the sale.  I must not have been alone because the website was running slooowwww, so I figured lots of teachers were filling up their carts last minute too.

Here's what I snagged tonight:

Comprehension and Genre Posters from Blair Turner

Brain Breaks from 3rd Grade Thoughts

{Can't wait to try these out!}

Currently for the Classroom from Oh Boy 4th Grade

{These will make great reflections for my kiddos!}

I also added my FIRST EVER real FOR SALE product to TPT today.  

It is a collection of book reviews your students can write.  This is a great way to get them to think about and evaluate what they are reading.  I am going to hang these reviews all around our classroom library, so students can see what their peers are reading and recommending.  I will blog more about it once school starts and I start using them.  You can take advantage of the Back to School Sale for a little bit longer if you want to snag these at a discount.  Thank you a million times to anyone who does purchase this product.  You will warm my little newbie-seller heart, that's for sure!!

Tomorrow morning the boys and I will be heading up to my parents' house for a little mini-vacay {well vacation for me because I get to have Grandma and Grandpa help with the babies!}.  We are riding out these last few days of summer and I thought a change of scenery would do us good.  Plus, I still go to the dentist up where my parents live {so yes, my dentist is over an hour away} and I have an appointment tomorrow, but hey, it is a good excuse to go home every now and then, right?

How are you spending your last days of summer?  What products did you snag on sale??  Let me know the really good ones.... I still have time to SHOP!!

Inaugural Currently!

For the first time ever, I am participating in Farley's awesome {Currently} link party.  I have read her blog and all kinds of Currently's over the past couple years, but this is my first time actually making my own and linking up!  I will be honest, I am a little nervous that I do this correctly.  I don't know if I even know how to link up!  We shall see....

So what am I {Currently} up to?

{Join the party here}

From clicking around a little, it seems like we have a little bit later start date than many others.  I've seen some teachers on Instagram who started back LAST WEEK with their kids and everything!  So you all are rockstars.  I spent two days in my room last week (my in-laws came and stayed with the boys, woo) and I could for sure use about five more days!  This was my first time digging through all the cabinets, counters and bookshelves to organize everything and make it MINE. {Sidenote: if you are new here, this year is my first year teaching THIRD GRADE and I am in a new-to-me classroom.}

I have also been working on my first FOR SALE product for my TPT store.  So far I only have freebies in my store.  I am new to ALL of this {blogging, TPTing, etc.) so I am hoping everything goes well.

Happy August everyone!  I can't believe it's really here, but I am ready to hit the ground running and start the year off right.  Coming soon to the blog:

* Classroom preview pictures! {I bought a rug and lamp this weekend!}

* Possible update on the 60% off Loft pants.  Let's hope they fit well and are as cute as the online reviews say they are.  I am still "in between" my old size and my new post-babies size, so new pants were kind of a necessity.

* My first "real" TPT product!  I am making BOOK REVIEWS for my students to write and share about books they have read and are reading.  I plan to hang them in my library corner.

Let's end with a picture from our beach trip last month.  That's Parker and Henry getting their toes wet (and not exactly liking it!)

Back to School... duh duh duh!

I cannot believe we are only one week away from August.  Where did the summer go?!  Are we at all surprised that we feel like it flew by?  No.  Am I even the least bit ready for the year to start?  No!  My classroom is still in shambles.  SHAMBLES!  I am itching to get up there and start organizing, but I will have to wait another week until my mom can come up and stay with the boys while I go spends hours up at school.  In the meantime, I peruse Pinterest and make my To Do list and have slight anxiety attacks over how much work I need to do.  We'll get there!

To help calm my extreme need to DO SOMETHING TODAY, I decided to work on sprucing up my blog.  Thanks to the help of Kreated by Kelsey, I have a space that looks a lot nicer than it did this morning!  Kelsey was so quick and easy to work with.  I literally spent about thirty minutes TOTAL picking out my design, installing the templates and even getting my custom header designed and zipped over to me.  Kelsey rocks!

Enjoy your last weeks of summer.  I won't officially panic until the calendar changes to August.  So you know, one week from now.

Back on the Blog Wagon

Friends,

If you have managed to find yourself in this little corner of the Internet, hello!  I am on a mission to revive this quiet blog, and start posting more about my classroom and teaching.

First things first, I am moving grades!  I have one more month in first grade and then, starting next fall, I will be teaching {THIRD GRADE!}  I am super excited to make this change and move on up to third.  I will start posting about getting ready to change grades, setting up my new classroom and all things THIRD.

Secondly, I had my babies!  I mentioned in a post last year that I was expecting a baby boy and a baby girl in November.  Well imagine the SHOCK when my twins arrived and they were TWO BOYS!  My doctor was just as surprised as we were.  I guess God wanted to give us a little twist.  Henry and Parker were born October 29, 2013.  We have been a family of four for six months now, and we are doing really great.  I knew life was going to get crazy when these guys arrived, and it definitely has!  But we love every moment of it.

{Parker, Henry}

So plan on some baby blogging going on occasionally here too!  And thanks for sticking with me as I get this little space back up and running.  I am excited to spend some more time and energy on blogging.   I hope you'll stick around!

Funny Things First Graders Say

While walking out of the library this morning,

"I wish I was a cat, but with all of my fur shaved off, and then turned back into a man, so I could have nine lives."

I love these crazy kids.  What kind of funny things do your kiddos say?