Pages

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

97 Teachers Pay Teachers followers!

When we get 100, freebies for all!!!!!!!

Word.

Katie and Petie

It's a Major Award!!!!













So after a super fun weekend, in which Petie and I laughed till we cried, had some margaritas, and ate the best cheeseburger wrap ever, I got on and saw we had two comments! Yay! And one of them was from Laura over at Adventures in Multigrade. She was so sweet to nominate us for the Liebster Award. How cool is that!

Here's what it is:


The Liebster Award is for blogs with less than 200 followers in order to help promote that blog, show appreciation, and hopefully draw more followers.

To accept the nomination, you have to do a few things first:


1. Link to the person who nominated you.
2. Answer questions from you nominator.
3. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
4. Nominate five or more blogs with less than 200 followers.
5. Pose questions to your nominees.

So here were our questions from Laura and the answers from the two of us:

Petie

1. How long have you been teaching?
12 years :) I feel like I have the experience of a 12 year teacher but feels like it has been maybe 5. Where does time go?

2. What are your "must have" school supplies?
Tigconderoga pencils, sharpies, a good stapler, .5mm pen and a kick a$# glue gun.

3. If you could give any advice to a new teacher, what would it be?
Stay positive and don't lose sight of why you really teach.

4. What grades have you taught and which is your favorite?
3rd and 4th. Love some 4th grade! They are becoming independent and finding themselves. They understand humor and appreciate a good lesson. 

5. If you had an unlimited budget, what is the ONE item that you are dying to have for your classroom?
A smartboard

6. What is your classroom theme this year?
Our school theme is rev up for learning. My classroom is eclectic.  I have art and colors and polka dots. I love simplicity.  

7. If you weren't a teacher, what would you be doing?  
I would be a photographer 

8. Favorite beverage?
Cherry coke zero

9. Most relaxing summer activity?
Painting in peace and quiet with a glass of wine :)

10. Why do you blog?
There is no staff development that compares to teachers learning from other teachers.
 I don't think you can master this profession. It's a continuous learning process.  Blogging allows teachers from all different areas to learn from each other to enhance our craft. 

Katie
Here are my questions from Laura and my answers:


1. How long have you been teaching?
12 crazy years

2. What are your "must have" school supplies?
New pencils and pens, Mr. Sketch markers, a good new cup, labels, good snacks!

3. If you could give any advice to a new teacher, what would it be?
Go with the flow. It gets better. It gets easier. Pick your battles. Love kids, and do what's right for them....everything else will come out in the wash. And go home!!! Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was a quality classroom or teacher. 

4. What grades have you taught and which is your favorite?
2nd, 3rd, 5th....and I don't know. I love 2nd graders' ridiculousness and thinking. I love that 3rd graders are coming into their senses of humor and you can up the content. I love 5th graders in that you can have a serious conversation and really do some cool activities. And in our state, that's US History time, which is my favorite!

5. If you had an unlimited budget, what is the ONE item that you are dying to have for your classroom?
Ipads for every kid. And lots and lots and lots of books. 

6. What is your classroom theme this year?
I like simple. Really for the last couple of years, I've done black, white and pink with zebra. It looks clean, is easy to keep up, is okay for boys and girls, and I just plain like it. 

7. If you weren't a teacher, what would you be doing?
Baking up goodness at a bakery. I just want to knead some dough, make and frost some cupcakes and organize sprinkles. I don't want to run the bakery, just work there. So I can go home and bake some more. And I'd have a full sleeve tattoo. And a nose ring. Just a little diamond. 

8. Favorite beverage?
Some half sweet half unsweetened tea. Everyday. All day.

9. Most relaxing summer activity?
Reading. Napping. Napping after reading. Sitting on a deck and watching the kids play.

10. Why do you blog?
Teachers learn best from other teachers. I've always been amazed at teachers who blog and share such good ideas...it's time to give some ideas back and branch out.

11 Random Facts About Us
1Petie originally went to school for broadcasting. She had her own radio show at UT. I think she was a big deal.
2. We wish every day was a Golden Girls marathon.
3. Petie has a thing for Amish people.
4. Katie has a thing for Michael from the Michael and Kelly show. I want to be his co-host for a day and take him to school with me.
5. Katie is an only child.
6. Petie can draw and paint like a crazy fool (so can Kate)
7. We have a combined total of 5 tattoos. 
8. We make some cakes on the side. You might see some pics on here randomly.
9. Katie knows words to gangster rap songs. 
10. Petie met Oprah. 
11. Katie can play the clarinet. 

Here's our awesome nominees!!!

1. Sprinkled in Second - Not only does she have a cute cupcake, she used a some e card in her last post. 

2. A Rocky Top Teacher - Pete is a Rocky Top Girl and she's made me into one, too. Great, quality, learning goal aligned teaching ideas over here!

3. Flamingos and Butterflies - wow! Love her picture book a day page!

4. Comprehension Connections - well, I'm going to need a day or two to read all this goodness. And it's organized by reading skills like fluency, comprehension, etc. 

5. Teaching 3rd with Mr. G - Listen, he's already gotten this award, but I think he needs some more props. He has a really cool classroom and he says he loves the smell of new books. We would totally be friends in real life. I wonder how he feels about the scent of a fresh box of crayons.


And our questions to them:
1. What animal would you most like to be and why?
2. What's your favorite thing to do?
3. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
4. What's your favorite holiday to celebrate at school?
5. Who do you think is the single most influential person in education?
6. What would you do with a million dollars?
7. What's your biggest pet peeve?

Nominees, don't get your tongue stuck on a frozen pole!!! You just received a major award!!!

Word!
K&P

Sunday, August 4, 2013

The. Best. Teacher. Gift. Ever.

This year I had the pleasure of having my favorite middle child in my room. He is sarcastic, creative and pretty fly like his mother, Rachel over at the tattooed teacher. Not only is she my teammate, but she was a parent, who got me a really, really good gift. As may end of year gift, she got me a gift card to erincondren.com. "Who the heck is that?" I asked myself.

The company that made all my teacher dreams come true. That's who. So after I cruised the website, I found the ultimate teacher planner. It comes in at least a million and one different personalized themes and me being Listy Listington chose the one called "My favorite things" where you type in a list of all your favorite nonsense your little heart desires. So I did. And practically waited by the door, checked the tracking number once an hour and plotted the points a map. I couldn't wait. I thought Petie was going to slap me. It's all I talked about. She ordered hers after me and got hers first. Finally, I checked my tracking number. The notebook that was going to make my life complete was on my porch.

I went home. I went straight to the porch. I got the beautiful, black and white and scrolly pink box. I opened it with the glee of a child on Christmas morning. This is what I saw when I ripped the tissue paper off with ruthless abandon.....




My name ain't Sophia. Not even if you're nasty, Miss Jackson. I cried I laughed so hard. Petie and I couldn't speak we were laughing so hard on the phone. That's what I get. Ha!

The end.

Not really! The company was more than phenomenal about it and told me to keep the planner and a new one would be shipped ASAP. They even gave me a coupon for ten bucks off. The planners are not the cheapest, but well worth the money for the amount of pages and lists and coolness factors. :)
Notice the list of things including cupcakes....and the national geographic about sugar. Irony. 

The planner contains all kinds of lists and charts for just about everything a teacher needs:

*a list for passwords
* a spreadsheet of important dates and holidays
*a chart to record a list of absences
* graph pages for graphs or that I used to sketch out the plan of my room 


* a section for yearly plans month by month

* a calendar and two lined pages of each month
*a lesson plan section 

* a checklist/gradebook section
* some stickers to use for the calendar. Some printed, some blank. Oh, color coding!
*and my personal favorite, a pencil pouch filled with personalized labels to match and a pocket folder.


See why I was nuts? Pop on over to erincondren.com and pick yourself out a back to school gift.....products ordered today will be shipped by August 20th! Just in time to start your year off right!

Word. :) 

Katie