A shout out to...

my parents!  So, every time my parents come visit I feel like we have projects for them to help us with because they are both so talented and my dad can build and make anything!  For a while now I have been wanting shelves built in our attic closet and a few weekends ago my dad and Kody made that happen!  This room is part of our attic but is closed in with AC.  It is a very nice room but has been very cluttered and messy due to no shelving!  With me staying home, I now have a whole classroom that I am having to store too, which has been in my dining room since June.  It is now all in that closet and so organized!  It is amazing!  I am so excited with how it turned out!  I LOVE it!!  Thank you Dad and Kody for building the shelves and Mom for helping me clean and organize all of our mess!  You are both amazing!!

My own personal Children's library!  The is the little office area right before you enter the attic closet!  I eventually want to get the desk out of there and put in a child size table and maybe a bean bag for Addison to read books, work puzzles and play in! 

I wish I had a "before" picture, but I don't.  So imagine a very cluttered room with no shelves and that what this room looked like before.  I'm not through organizing yet, but ta da!  To the far left I have my gift bags, paper, etc and then all of my seasonal stuff.  

A teachers heaven!  A place to store all of my "stuff"!  :-)

And then all of this is my teacher stuff or my "classroom" all packed up!  I love that I can just walk in here and find what I need if I need it!  I love all of my teacher stuff and even if I don't go back to teaching any time soon I can still use it to teach Addison and prepare her for Kindergarten many, many years from now!  I have also thought about tutoring Kindergarten students or struggling readers in the future too.  We will see!  Now sure how that will play out having a little one, but I like the idea! 

It's so crazy that I'm not teaching this year, but I am at total peace with it and am so excited to be staying home with my little girl!  She is so amazing and I can't imagine a more rewarding job! 

It finally snowed....really, really snowed!

Last Friday it actually snowed! It was so amazing to see it snow this much in Houston! I think I was just as excited as my students were! It started sleeting/snowing around 8:00. It did this off and on all morning. Needless to say, it was really hard to teach, much less get the kids to focus when all we had to do was look out the window and see snow! Then around 12:00 it really came down and started sticking to the ground! We had so much fun taking our kids out to play in the snow! Here are some pictures of our winter wonderland!

Put your hands behind your back, behind your back....

put your hands behind your back behind your back....put a bubble in your mouth, put a bubble in your mouth, put your hands behind your back behind your back.... (Sung to the tune of "If your happy and you know it"). School has officially begun and I am back to singing anything and everything that I want my kiddos to do!!! I can honestly say that I had a pretty good first week of school! Much, much better then last years first week of school!!! I only have 18 kids which is AMAZING! I just hope it stays this way!! All of our numbers are really low and we are crossing our fingers that we don't lose our new teacher! Please pray that we get a few more kids!!! I'm trying not to jinx myself, but I think I have a really good class. I have some busy kids, but for the most part they are all really well behaved. Our school is a PBIS school this year, which stands for Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support. Our school plan is called triple R, which is being responsible, respectful and ready to learn. We spent the whole first week of school really talking about the RRR and what they look like in the classroom, bathroom, cafeteria, hallways and playground. So far it has been great and we can really see a difference in the way the students are acting and behaving in the school. We have RRR rewards that we pass out when we see a student following the RRR rules. The students put their name and grade on it and the teacher turns it in to the office at the end of the day. The next day they pick two students from each grade level who get a pencil and a free ice cream pass in the cafeteria during lunch. It is really making our school more unified because we all have the same expectations across grade levels. We are all doing the same things. I am excited about this school year. I just pray that it goes as well as the first week! Please pray that I will be able to meet my students individual needs and give them the best Kindergarten education possible!