Minnesota – Page 3 – Life of the Rookie Teacher

Blogmas – Day 12 AND Break – Day 1

December 22, 2018December 22, 2018Posted in UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, blogmas, Christmas, Christmas Break, December, Minnesota, Winter, YogaWithAdrienne6 Comments

I’m so sad it’s the end of blogmas and this is my last post. Thank you so much Abbey for these fun Christmas post ideas!!

Blogmas Day 12: Snow Thoughts

I love snow. Living in Minnesota, I think that’s a given. They don’t refer to us as MinneSNOWta for nothing. There is something so magical about the first snowfall of the year. For us, that could be as early as the end of September. Don’t worry, the snow doesn’t stay if it falls that early! We usually get our first official snow fall that stays at the end of November/beginning of December.

In my opinion, Christmas isn’t Christmas without snow. It is very rare that we don’t have some snow on the ground Christmas morning but it has happened a few times. Those have been the Christmases that didn’t feel right. It felt like something was missing.

I love seeing the snow on the trees and the sun reflect off of the snow crystals. It can be very beautiful.

I do get sick of snow around March/April/May. Usually, our biggest snow storms come in March and April. These are storms that dump feet of snow on us but then it’s melted within a week. At this point in the year, we are all sick of the snow, slush, and ice. We also want clear roads to drive on!

1st Day of Break:

I fell asleep last night by 7:30. I was SO tired! I was hoping to sleep in the morning but I woke up around 6:30. I refused to get up so I laid in bed until 8:30. I then lounged around all day watching Hallmark Christmas movies!! It’s not a true Christmas weekend without watching a marathon of Hallmark movies!

I had to run to the store to get groceries because my apartment was completely EMPTY but I made it as quick of a trip as I possible could! I also had to hit up the liquor store because my cupboard is empty and it is officially Christmas break after all.

When I got back I broke out the yoga mat and turned on my favorite yoga channel on Youtube, Yoga with Adrienne, and started a new 31 day challenge. She is AMAZING!! If you want to start doing yoga, check her out! It doesn’t matter what level you are at. She has videos for everyone and for anything! She also has a series of 30/31 day challenges that she posts every January to “kick off” the new year. I’ve been going back on her site and have been doing a new challenge every month since August. I haven’t been able to do any videos in about a month so it was SO NICE to be able to get back into it! Today I did a video that was centered around ease! It was so peaceful and relaxing. Just what I needed!!

Now I plan to watch the newest Hallmark Christmas movie premiering in about an hour while I open a new bottle of wine! It was a much needed relaxing day!

We Survived Folks

December 22, 2018Posted in Education, UncategorizedTagged 3rd Grade Life, Christmas, Christmas Break, December, Minnesota, Teaching Life, Wine Night, Winter2 Comments

Hallelujah! WE MADE IT!!

Not going to lie, this has been the LONGEST week of my entire life. I think part of it was knowing break was coming but the other part was my lack of patience for my class (which was definitely my fault!)

I knew going into today it was going to be rough. Yesterday, as normal as I tried to keep the day, my kids were still insane! I knew because of that, I had to be ready for whatever happened.

Oh. My. Goodness. Seriously people, they were off their rockers! They are usually such amazing kiddos but today….I don’t know.

We spent the first half of the day watching Santa Clause 3 (which they voted for), so I assumed this would be a great way to start the day. I made them hot chocolate and gave them a candy cane to go with it. The perfect recipe for a great morning. Right!?

Most of my class was enthralled with the movie the whole time, but I had a handful of boys who could not sit still. The irony of it, is these are the boys who wanted to watch the movie more than anyone else. I had 2 boys, in particular, who were standing on tables and trying to push each other off. WHAT!?

My timing was off, so by the time the movie was over we still had 45 minutes until lunch. By the time we cleaned up from the movie (which took FOREVER) we had about 30 minutes to kill. Yes it took us almost 15 minutes to clean the room and calm down.

I decided I would read them the Polar Express thinking this would calm them down more. A 5 minute read aloud took me 20 MINUTES!!! I kid you not!! They could not stop talking to save their life. It didn’t help that I was disrupted by 3 different adults during the story. It was the most painful read aloud I’ve done all year.

Then they went to recess and lunch. THANK GOD!!!

To help my spirits, we had an all school potluck for lunch in the lounge, so I was treated to a fantastic lunch of appetizers and deserts that were motivation enough to go back to class.

I then gave my kiddos their gift. This was my favorite part of the day because they were very grateful and kind about what I gave them.

I decided to use my Scholastic points to order a Christmas picture book for each of them. I bought 2 sets of 12 Christmas books to wrap for them, which meant I had a copy of each book. I randomly handed them out and had them unwrap their book and find their “partner” who had the same book. They LOVED this! It made the day so much better!

To end the day we had an all school teacher talent show for the kids. My team was probably the most unprepared of the rest of the teachers, so that was a little stressful. We didn’t have our “act” planned until 5 minutes before the show started. We were scheduled to go last, so we decided to do a Christmas sing along with the whole school. We thought it was going to BOMB because the other grade levels did AMAZING and hilarious acts, but the kids all loved what we did. It was a relief!

Sadly though, when the show was over, we still had 30 MINUTES LEFT OF THE DAY!!! Trying to calm them down from something like that on a normal day is difficult, but trying to calm them down from something like that right before Christmas break starts is IMPOSSIBLE!!! I was going to read a short Christmas read aloud to them but they were so rude and disrespectful. I had a student ask me to “hurry up and get the story over with” so they could leave. I almost lost my sh** on that kid. Like, are you freaking kidding me!?

After that, I was literally counting the minutes until the bell rang.

It eventually did and parted ways for the break and I don’t think I’ve been as happy as that in a long time.

I promise you I LOVE my class but this break couldn’t have come soon enough. I plan on spending the next week and a half sleeping, eating, watching Netflix, and doing as little as possible. I could say I won’t think about school, but I know that this time next week I’m going to be ready to go back because I miss my kids so much!

UGH!! Where’s my wine!?

2 Days to Go…

December 19, 2018July 6, 2019Posted in UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, 3rd Grade Life, Christmas, Christmas Break, December, Kindness, Minnesota, TeachersPayTeachers, Teaching Life3 Comments

I feel like this week is turning into a marathon. The past two days seemed like they were a whole week in themselves. In order to get myself in the mood to get me through the next few days (and my kids through the next few days without totally losing it) I have a handful of activities that keep them busy (and quiet) and is little work for me.

For the past 3 weeks, I’ve read a Christmas book a day. Some days we do something with it, some days we don’t. This week I decided I wasn’t going to start a new reading unit so I needed something to fill in my long hour and a half reading block each morning.

Monday we spent our whole morning making parent gifts so I could easily check that off the list and had one less day to plan. Yesterday I decided to read the book, Mooseltoe, by Margie Palatini.

It’s such a cute book. I had to come up with some sort of lesson to do with it so I searched the trusted TPT store for something cheap and easy. I found a simple story features activity on Savvy Second Graders site that had them think of characters, the setting, and a problem and solution in the story. They then had to write me a 5 sentence summary on the book. This was the perfect review since we hit all of these topics over the past 4 months. SUPER easy and very little prep for me (and free)! 🙂 It kept them working and busy for most of the morning!

The rest of the day was spent reviewing for a math test and working on catching up on different projects and assignments. VERY calm and quiet work (which really helps get through this week!)

Today we spent our reading block reading another one of my favorite books, Christmas Trolls, by Jan Brett. I LOVE her books! My mom used to read them to my sister and me all the time growing up, so they hold a special place in my heart. I used this book to work on story features and comparing and contrasting with another one of her books we read last week, Trouble with Trolls.

Again, I searched TPT and found another FREE activity pack that relates with these two books! At All About Elementary’s store I downloaded a Jan Brett activity pack that had them compare and contrast these two different stories.

They got a kick out of how the same character is in both books and has 2 different encounters with trolls. They worked hard. They were more chatty today but I knew it was coming.

Tomorrow we are going to have a Grinch themed day!! I found a readers theater version of the Grinch on Christy Hard’s TPT shop that we will do during reading time. We will then obviously have to watch the original Grinch movie to compare and contrast the movie to the play right!? I’m using this as a motivation tool for my kiddos to get through the next few days! We will also use the song to talk about similes and metaphors and draw our own version of a simile or metaphor in the song.

Friday we’re watching a movie all morning to keep things as calm as possible and to help my sanity. They think they are working towards earning it but I will make them earn it if it’s the last thing I do!

ALMOST THERE!!!

Blogmas – Day 9 Gloves or Mittens?

December 15, 2018December 15, 2018Posted in UncategorizedTagged 12daysofchristmas, blogmas, Christmas, December, Minnesota, Target Love, Winter5 Comments

To be perfectly honest I never actually remember what a mitten is versus what a glove is. I know that yes, one has the fingers and the other one has a hand with a spot for your thumb, but I never know the correct term for each one.

I have SUPER dry hands in the winter so I have both mittens and gloves with me at all times.

I use them both for different reasons.

Like most people, I do like to have the option to use my phone outside even if I need to wear something on my hands. I like to always have a pair of tech touch gloves on me just in case. I don’t like to spend too much on gloves (partly because I tend to lose pairs at least 3 different times during the winter) so I usually stick with a cheap but practical and warm pair. I usually just get a pair of Target’s Women’s Knit Tech Gloves that they have for $9.99. Who doesn’t love Target?

Living in Minnesota, there are some days it is so cold outside it’s dangerous to have any skin exposed. On these days I want to have a nice thick pair of mittens (especially during recess duty!) Last year, my mom purchased mittens for myself, my sister, and herself that were handmade out of woolen sweaters. They are the warmest mittens I have ever worn and I LOVE them! They keep my hands nice and toasty!