Monday, July 15, 2013

Monday Made It - Chalkboard and Scroll Button



Seems like forever since I've been able to link up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It.  I have two things I'd like to share today.  The first is an awesome chalkboard I made for my new office for $6 (post coming soon about my office) out of an old door!

Thanks to one of my best friends, the old door was free!  My cat Phoebe likes to supervise all my projects!


 My daughter helped me paint the middle part with chalkboard paint.  We started off with spray paint (this is where the $6 comes from), but soon realized that was too hard for our puny hands.  My neighbor actually had a quart of chalkboard paint in her garage she wasn't planning on using and so she gave it to me.  What a life (actually hand) saver!


Next I painted the rest of the door with red paint.  I had this in my garage leftover from a Christmas project. 

 The last step, I used a glaze over the red to give it a more rustic, distressed look.  (Same glaze I used on my kitchen cabinets!)  My dog Paisley is checking out my finished product!


 As soon as I paint my new office and decorate, I will post a picture of it hanging up.  I can't wait to get it all done! 



My 2nd addition for Monday Made It is adding that awesome little "Scroll to Top" button at the bottom of my blog.  I love when blogs have those and had to have one for mine too!  Thanks to Cheers for School for posting a tutorial on how to do this.  You can click on her link above, or keep reading for a quick tutorial on how to do it.

HOW TO ADD A "SCROLL TO TOP" BUTTON on your blog:
Step 1. Go to your blogger Dashboard
           Click on Template
            Then click on Edit HTML



Step 2.   ctrl + F  and then type in the following code: </body>
 
Step 3.  Under </body> copy and paste the following code:

<style type="text/css">
#w2b-StoTop {-moz-border-radius: 5px;-webkit-border-radius: 5px;border-radius: 5px; width:100px;background-color: #EEEEEE;background-color: rgba(238, 238, 238, 0.6);filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#99EEEEEE',EndColorStr='#99EEEEEE');text-align:center;padding:5px;position:fixed;bottom:10px;right:10px;cursor:pointer;color:#444;text-decoration:none;border:1px solid #C9C9C9;}
</style>
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type='text/javascript'>
    $(function() {
        $.fn.scrollToTop = function() {
            $(this).hide().removeAttr("href");
            if ($(window).scrollTop() != "0") {
                $(this).fadeIn("slow")
            }
            var scrollDiv = $(this);
            $(window).scroll(function() {
                if ($(window).scrollTop() == "0") {
                    $(scrollDiv).fadeOut("slow")
                } else {
                    $(scrollDiv).fadeIn("slow")
                }
            });
            $(this).click(function() {
                $("html, body").animate({
                    scrollTop: 0
                }, "slow")
            })
        }
    });
    $(function() {
        $("#w2b-StoTop").scrollToTop();
    });
</script>
<a href='#' id='w2b-StoTop' style='display:none;'>Scroll to Top </a>
Step 4.  Save your template and you are ready to go! 
You should have an awesome "Scroll to Top" button!  


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Saturday Snapshots!




 I'm linking up with Run Miss Nelson's Got the Camera for her Saturday Snapshots linky!




Technically it's still Saturday to me because I am still up!  :)
 I officially moved out of the junior high into the elementary this week.  Thankfully my son recruited some of his football buddies to help me move.  There's no way that my daughter and I could have gotten it all done without their help.  I call them "Muscles and Mayhem".  Although they were more mayhem than muscles, we had a good time and got everything moved!


 

FINALLY finished my kitchen cabinets this week!!  I absolutely love the way they turned out!  However, I will not be painting cabinets again!  That was a rough project!





We really are the Millers!  Hahahaha!!

 

 My daughter and grandaughter after the 4th of July parade.


 Proud of his new headphones he got with his birthday money.





Yesterday was my youngest son's 6th birthday and we partied at Chuck E. Cheese! 

 

Here are the cupcakes that my daughter and I made for him.  He is super obsessed with Super Mario.  I was so excited when I finished and he recognized what I had made!


Here is "Super Mario" showing off his new Mario shirts he got at his party!


 Our middle child won his first trophies in motocross tonight! 



That's my week in pictures!  :)

Thursday, July 11, 2013

New Job (need a new blog name!)

I am no longer going to teach junior high!  I took a job in the elementary (in my same district) as the redirection/focus director.  For those of you who may not know, redirection is our behavior management program that helps kids who need behavior support in the classroom. I am super excited and nervous!  I have worked with JH kids for the last 11 years.  Most of the kids I will be working with are kinder and 1st grade.  YIKES that's little!! 

But now that I have a new job, my blog title doesn't fit.  Any suggestions on what I should rename it? 

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

July Currently

Is it really July already?  How come June and July fly by and March, April and May seem to crawl?  I am linking up with Farley at Oh Boy 4th Grade for the July Currently Linky Party!!


My husband and I love watching Shipping Wars.  Interesting the things they ship around!

Our oldest son is in the army and at Fort Sill.  We just found out he gets to come home and visit for the 4th of July!  We are super excited because he is about to move to Kentucky and so we won't be seeing him much after that.

I have so many plans for things I want to get done around the house this summer, but it seems like something always gets in the way of me accomplishing those things.  LIKE my kitchen cabinets.  I started painting them as soon as we got out for school and they are still not done!  NEVER again will I paint cabinets again.  UGH!

Wanting a live in housekeeper...any takers?  Oh it doesn't pay well...I'm a teacher, remember! :)

My tip is to make your classroom feel homey and inviting.  This is where you will spend almost all of your time during the day and your room should make you feel happy!  :) 

Happy 4th of July!!!!!

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Saturday Snapshots - A New LINKY!!!


I am linking up with Miss Nelson in this fun, new linky party Saturday Snapshots.  (Even though I'm a day late) This a a perfect linky party for me because I absolutely LOVE taking pictures.  I currently have over 2,600 photos on my iPhone!  Most of the pictures are of my children!  

This pic is of 3 of my kids.  My daughter was at acting camp for two weeks in Corpus Christi.  I brought two of my boys with me to go pick her up.  As we were driving down Ocean Drive, we came across this park "Ropes Park".  What's so neat about this is, my youngest son is named Rope.  Needless to say, this made his day that he has his very own park!  My older children were being great sports and they were "pouting"  as he celebrated because they don't have a park named after them.  :)


Our oldest son right after completing boot camp.  We are so proud of him!

 
This just makes me laugh!


My hometown.

I have millions of pictures, I'd love to share, so I'll definitely be joining this linky every week (hopefully I'll make it on a Saturday next week.)

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

End of School and June Currently

I'm back!  I went MIA in the blogging world.  I've made a goal for myself to try to post at least once a week during the summer.  We've been on summer break for 4 days.  I have to share my kids last day of school picture.  My youngest, Rope, was not happy that morning.  I like to think it was because school was over and he would be leaving his friends and teacher from Pre-K.  Every time I look at these pictures I just giggle.  One day he will too. 



Here is a side by side comparison of my kids on the first day of school and the last day.  Crazy how much they change and you don't realize it.  I now have a Junior, Sophomore, 8th grader and Kindergartener!


 I had forgotten how much I love reading all the Currently posts and joining in on the fun, so I'm linking up with Farley at Oh Boy in 4th Grade for her June Currently.

Here is my currently:



This show is quite interesting and really sucks you in!  Watching it makes me feel normal and not so bad about our crazy life!  Plus I'm too tired to locate the remote!

So glad it's summer!  I needed this break more this year than ever!  The last month at school was very stressful and sad for me.  My four closest friends at work (my lunch buddies) are all leaving and going to new schools next year.  I'm feeling very overwhelmed and sad that they won't be there.   Who will I eat lunch with?  I feel like a junior high kid! 

My house is a disaster!  I started my long awaited project of painting my kitchen cabinets and let's just say it's a slow process.  

Definitely wanting a cleaning fairy to show up while I'm asleep and clean things up around here.  Even though it's summer, with 4 kids at home I'm just as busy as I was during the school year!

My husband's job keeps him away from home.  Right now he's working in Minnesota - 18 hours away!  He is only able to come home once a month and it's been 3 weeks since I've seen him!  We miss him bunches around here!

Flipflops are a must for summer.  My favorites are my Yellow Box!

Sunscreen for a pale faced, freckled girl is a must!!

My camera - I am a picture fanatic and I'm constantly taking pics of my kids!  I have 2500 pictures on my iPhone! 


READY FOR YOURS....




































don't forget the RULE of 3
check AND leave meaningful comments on the one in front and 2 behind your link....

Monday, February 25, 2013

Snow Day in Texas and Monday Made It




We had a snow day today.  The kids were super excited, but I had mixed emotions.  Snow day today, means we make it up on one of our pretty spring days.  :(  We only ended up with about 3 inches, but at my parents house 1 1/2 hours north received 15 inches!!  Here is a pic from their front porch.  

 

I should have spent the day catching up on school work and looking up new ideas for my next unit, but I got a little side tracked watching my kids playing Just Dance on the xBox.  :)  

Last week we started our measurement unit.  Measurement is so hard for kids and so I've tried to find everything I can to help make it easier.   In the past I have always done Gallon Man.  He's really cute and a fun project to do in class.  However, he's hard for the students to recreate on the test, because they can't always remember how many of each to draw. 




Then my coworker and I came across Gallon Land.  I love it because it has a cute little story and diagram to go with it, that is super easy for the kids to recreate.  

In the Land of Gallon there were four Queens (quarts). 

Each queen had a prince and a princess (pints).

Each prince and princess had two children (cups).

Each child had eight owls (ounces).
 


We added the owls (ounces) to our story because they are asked about ounces in a gallon several times in our unit and it's not included on our math chart so we wanted a way for them to remember ounces in a gallon.  It's not on this graphic (it's on my school computer and we are snowed in today.) But we wrote in 8's in each "C" to represent the 8 ounces in a cup.

I then had them write the story and draw the graphic in their journals.  (I'll try to add a pic of one of my student's journals when I get back to school.)

Here is the powerpoint I created to show the story of the Royal Land of Gallon.



Sunday, December 23, 2012

Monday Made It! (A little early)

Friday was my son's very first Christmas party at school!  I signed up to bring goody bags and was so excited...then my procrastination kicked in and I wasn't as thrilled about making them the night before!  BUT I got them done and I think they turned out adorable!

Here is what all went inside the bags.

My son loved these marshmallow pops I made for his birthday and insisted they go in there too.  They are super easy to make, just dip a marshmallow into candy melt and add sprinkles.  I think next time I will put the same color sprinkles as the candy melt.  But I don't think 4 and 5 years olds noticed the difference.

We made playdough using red and green Kool-aid.  I found the awesome recipe and tags here.  I changed the tags up a little and put the entire recipe on them because I gave them the playdough already made instead of a kit to make them.  I included a package of kool-aid in the goody bag so they could make more at home.

I found these adorable treats on Pinterest and knew I had to make them for Rope's classmates.  Super adorable and easy to do.  The brown "noses" are Whoppers and the red "nose" for Rudolf is a cherry sour.  Thanks to Pam and Lisa at Over the Big Moon  for the awesome labels!  I didn't take a picture of the back of the label, but it listed all of the reindeer names.

Finished!  And it only took me til 2:00 a.m. to do it!  I think they turned out awesome!!  Maybe I'll be better prepared for the Valentine's Party!  



I hope you all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Saturday, December 1, 2012



What a wonderful surprise!  I have been nominated for the Liebster Blog, not once, but THREE times.  How awesome is that!  I'd like to thank Erin Beers from Mrs. Beers' Language Arts Class; Mrs. Penna from Fantastic Fifth Grade!; and Kristin from Teach n' Tex for nominating me!
 
The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. It is to show new bloggers that they are appreciated and to help spread the word about new blogs.
 
 =====================================================================

The Rules:

  • You must post 11 random things about yourself.
  • Answer the questions that the nominator set for you.
  • Create 11 questions for the people you nominate.
  • Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers and link them in your post.)
  • No tag back, but please leave me a comment on this post with the URL to your Liebster post so I can learn more about you! 

Randomness:
1. I hate chocolate!
2. I am the HS cheer coach.
3. I'm extremely forgetful!
4. I love watching the Food Network, but I hate to cook!
5. I love watching football on tv.
6. I'm obsessed with owls!!
7. I play the flute and the piano.
8. I have 2 grandkids and 1 on the way.
9. I'm not a fan of cats, but have one that loves me!
10. I love FRIENDS and have watched every episode numerous times.
11. I can juggle.

Questions for me:  (I combined the list from the 3 who nominated me)

1. What is one item that you could not live without?  My phone!

2. When did you start blogging?  June 2012
 
3. What is your favorite TV show?  Grey's Anatomy and Modern Family, oh and Big Bang Theory
 
4. How long have you been teaching?  What grades have you taught?  I've been teaching for 13 years.  I have taught 9-12 art, 1st grade (self-contained), 6-8 resource math, 6-12 resource English, 7th grade ELAR, 6th grade math
 
5. What do you do to pamper yourself after a tough day?  Veg out on the couch!
 
6. What is your favorite holiday and why?  Christmas!  I love the spirit of the whole holiday.  I also love decorating my house for Christmas.  I put a tree up in every room - including my bathroom!!  I have 10 trees up this year!
 
 7. What trait do you admire most in others? Why?  Loyalty.  I can't stand people who are not loyal, especially in the work place!

8.  How did you end up in your grade level and/or subject area?  I BEGGED!  I taught English  (7th grade writing) for several years when they asked me to teach reading as well.  I'm actually a math person, but I love teaching kids to write (came from my resource experience).  I am NOT a reading teacher and had a very stressful and hard year last year.  When a math position came up I begged to switch positions.  I LOVE teaching math and I am much more comfortable and happier this year!
 
9. How many teammates do you have?  There are 5 of us on our 6th grade team, and 4 of us in the math department (6-8 grade)
10.  Do you plan alone or as part of a team?  I plan every Thursday with my math team.   
 
11. If you weren’t a teacher/educator, what would you be doing?  I'd be a stay at home mom!!


Questions For You:
 
1. Do you have a hobby?  If so, what is it?
2. What is your favorite holiday dish?
3. What is your favorite thing about being a teacher?
4. What is your favorite sport or team?
5. What are your top 3 movies?
6. How do you balance blogging and teaching with the rest of your life?
7. How did you get into education?
8. How did you get into education?
9. Why do you blog? What inspired you to start?
10. If you could live in another part of the world, where would it be? Why?

Blogs I'm Nominating: