I began my teaching career in an elementary school set in a small town in Kansas.  I loved working at this school!  The community was a wonderful community to work in.  In 2001, I meet my now husband and moved to Las Vegas in May 2002.  Wow!  I had such a culture shock.  I went from a class of 9 {yes, 9} students to team teaching 36 students.  I didn't think I was going to survive that first year here in Las Vegas, but I did.  I am so glad to be teaching here, but I sometimes miss my old classroom in Kansas.  I have been a little sentimental to all things Kansas lately, so I thought I would share some pictures of my very first classroom.  {Please excuse the fact that these are scanned pictures.  I took this back in the olden days.  haha}

Here you can see the closet doors, my desk,  and my huge windows.  I love all tall the ceilings are and my yellow walls.

Here is the other back corner.  You can see one of my very large chalkboards.  Yes, I had chalkboards.

Here is a picture of my wonderful computers and door out to the hallway.  I look at my door now, and I miss it a lot.  It was cute and there was only one of them.  Remember the eight doors I have now?  {I'm still protective of my kiddos even though these students are over 20 now. :)  }

Here's a picture of my front chalkboard.  My favorite chalk was yellow chalk.  I made sure to order a few boxes every year.  :)

My students went to Music and P.E. every day.  However, we did not have an art teacher.  I did an art project every Friday.  The next two pictures are two of the projects that I did with my students.

The students painted a tree with brown paint.  They then used a q-tip to add brown, orange, yellow, and red leaves.

For this picture, I used a KinderArt lesson {which amazingly is still available 14 years later}.  The students were able to decide if they wanted to color their flowers with cool or warm colors. I still love looking at what a great job my students did! {I did the two in the middle.  :) }

I hope you have enjoyed my little trip down memory lane.  Don't forget to like my Facebook page to get my Rainbow Quatrefoil papers for free under my Fan Freebies tab.

My brother-in-law got married this morning!  I'm am so happy for him and his new bride!  While we take a little break before the reception, I thought I would share a little shopping fun, my new set of papers, and a fun video that some friends shared on Facebook.  There is even a little thank you at the end.  ;)

Have you done any shopping yet for this next school year?  I was finally able to get a little shopping done this week.  I really wanted to buy more stuff, but couldn't find things to buy.  How sad is that?

 
So far this summer I have purchased some folders for my poetry journals. small buckets that I think I am going to use at my small group table, some small blue pocket charts, alphabet stickers, and Sharpie pens.  I am sure that this Target pile will grow larger as the school year gets closer.  :)


I wish I could remember who out there in blogland recommended these Sharpie pens, but thank you.  I.am.in.love!  I bought the black pen when I needed to sign a card to mail right away.  After that, I knew I needed to expand my collection! The pink, turquoise, and purple pens soon followed.  {As you can see, I haven't actually opened these yet.}  If you haven't tried these out yet, I highly recommend that you do.  You will not be disappointed!



This is my pitiful little Hobby Lobby pile.  :(  I really, really wanted to find more here.  Maybe the next time.  I have the basic colors of these poster markers, so I knew I needed to have this companion set.  These markers are great for anchor charts.  They don't bleed through to the next page, which I love!  I also bought a couple spools of ribbon.  I'm not sure what I am going to use them for, but I'm sure I'll find something.  :)



This is my "Amy is lazy" purchase.  {haha}  Sometimes I get tired cutting out of cards with scissors.  I am hoping that this will speed up the process a bit.  :)



I bought these tubs to use on the desks at the end of my tables.  I have been using the same buckets for a couple of years and they were pretty beat up by the end of this past year.  I decided to try out these new ones.  Hopefully, they will work the way I want them too.  {I will share the way I set my tables in a future post.}


I also bought some new borders, gray construction paper, and some small magnetic whiteboards.  {The cute Lakeshore Learning bag was a freebie for agreeing to receive their coupons through text messages.  Coupons to Lakeshore - yes, please.  :) }  Last year I looked everywhere for zebra border and couldn't find it so I grabbed a couple packages of them.  I also grabbed another set of the blue dots paper that I used in my classroom last year.  I needed to gray construction paper, because I never know what colors my school will have and I need it to make my raccoon craft the first week of school.  The magnetic whiteboards will be perfect for my small groups.  I can't wait for my Kinders to use them!
This week I also made a new paper set.  My newest paper set is a rainbow quatrefoil set.  {I told you on Monday I was loving quatrefoil!}  I had so much fun figuring out the pattern and changing up the colors to make this set. 


I have not seen Pitch Perfect, but I think this song is great!  This group does a wonderful job with it.  There is no way that I could even attempt to do this!  I am way too uncoordinated.  {haha}

It's been a little over two weeks since my last blog post.  A lot of things have happened since then.  The biggest, and saddest, was that my wonderful Grandmother passed away.  I was (am) heartbroken.  She was such an important part of my growing up.  I loved going out to the farm to visit my grandparents.  I am so happy that I made a trip back to Kansas in January to see her.


Grandma made quilts for each of the grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.  My quilt is in my bedroom sitting on my hope chest and has been since the day we moved into our house 10 1/2 years ago.  Colton's baby quilt is put away and his big boy quilt is on display in his room.  They had her very first and very last quilt on display.  I am so glad that everyone was able to see how talented she was!  She finished her last quilt the night before she went into the hospital.  Grandma kept telling my dad that she was upset that it wasn't perfect.  I'm sure my second cousin is thrilled to have it for her soon-to-be born son.


It has taken me a while to get back in the grove of things.  I have wanted to do a little school shopping and creating, but just haven't been in the mood.   My son was sick today and stayed home from ESY, so I decided to play around a little bit with Photoshop Elements.


I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for my very first Monday Made It.  I love looking at all of the wonderful projects every week!  I am probably the bazillionth {that's a real word, right?} person to link up, but I don't care.  :)

My personal goal for this next year is to be more organized in regards to planning.  One way to do this is is to make a planning binder.  In order to have a binder that I'll actually use, I need a cute cover.  That's always the most important thing, right?  Ok - the items inside the binder will be the important stuff, but I want it cute.  :)

I have been loving all of the quatrefoil patterns that I've been seeing lately.  I looked up some quatrefoil patterns online and watched a youtube video.  {The video isn't for Photoshop Elements, but it gave a good starting off point.}  I decided "Hey, I can do that."  So, I did.  I also ended up making a honeycomb pattern while I was at it.  I had so much fun changing up the colors and patterns!




I will probably use the middle one for my planning binder.  Hopefully, next week I will be able to show you the plans I have for inside the binder.  ;)

If you would like a copy of any of these binder covers, you can get them here.

I hope you have a wonderful week!  I'm hoping to do a little school shopping tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Once again, I am linking up with Doddle Bugs Teaching for the oh so famous Five for Friday.  I have to say this is probably most random set of pictures that I have ever shared.  Random is good though.  :)




My son had his dentist appointment on Tuesday, and I snapped a pic of this x-ray to send to my husband.  Why would I take a pic of my son's x-ray you ask?  This is the first time that he has ever let them take an x-ray.  We have been going for years, and this was, by far, his best appointment.  He even opened up wide for the dentist.  Thank you Mercer Mayer for the book Just Going to the Dentist!  {Ok - call me crazy, but I think the x-ray is cool too.  I had never seen a child's x-ray before (see above).  I love how you can see the adult teeth just waiting to come up.}



I mentioned last week how much I loved allrecipes.com.  This is my creation from this week.  I made black bean and corn quesadillas with homemade tortillas.  Yummy!  My husband liked them too, but he kept giving me a hard time about them being "vegetarian."  {He enjoys his meat.}



Yesterday, my son and I played a rousing game of Candyland.  I love that our version looks like the old-fashioned version that I played when I was little.  None of that newfangled Candyland for us. No, thank you!



I was looking through my purse the other day and kept pulling out Starbucks gift cards.  I decided to pull them all out and see how many I had.  Yep - that's 14 of them.  I probably should start using some of those babies up.



A colleague of mine posted this on Facebook last week, and I thought I would share it with you.  My husband does not find it humorous, but I'm sure you do!  :)

Thanks for checking out the randomness that I call my week!

So I was perusing through some pictures from last school year this morning.  I was having a great time looking at all the fun and realized I didn't share this super fun word practice that my students completed a while back.

My class works on five sight words for about two weeks.  During our morning activities, we practice reading and spelling these words.  We also work on them during center time.  Sometimes we stamp our sight words words.  Sometimes we rainbow write them.  For this center, students chose a flower sight word card.  They then got a marker to write the words on the petals of the flowers.  Each flower had it's own sight word.  Once all of the petals were complete, the students colored the rest of the flowers and the dirt.  The students loved this center!





I wanted to share this with everyone on Teachers Pay Teachers, but I didn't think everyone would like to use the words who, come, what, that, and but.  I mean they are awesome words, but not everyone uses the same words throughout the year.  So I decided to try something new {for me anyway}.  I made an editable PowerPoint!  I was so proud of myself!  {haha}  First of all, I don't usually use PowerPoint to make my products - I like to use Publisher.  Secondly, the whole securing clipart scared me for a bit.  I got it figured out though.  I can't wait to make more editable files!

If you would like your own copy of this fun activity, please click on the picture below and it will take you to the file.

Could it be?  Blogging two days in a row?  Why, yes.  Yes, I am blogging two days in a row.  I am slowly back into this blogging business {and loving it!}.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching again this Friday!


I don't know if you have ever visited allrecipes.com before, but I am loving it right now.  Since school has been out, I have been trying to do a better job at cooking meals for my family.  This website is filled to the brim with great recipes.  On Wednesday, my son and I made the recipe for Best Brownies. They were so yummy!  I have made two other recipes from this website this week alone and have a ton more in my recipe box.  I highly recommend allrecipes if you are looking for something new to eat.



This is a picture of my son and husband riding a ride at Legoland last weekend.  It's a fun picture of them, but I love it more for the memory of what happened right after this picture was taken.  {You may, or may not, remember that my son has Autism.  He just started talking when he was 6 and is not clear most of the time.  He still relies heavily on sign language.}  Anyway, right after this picture was taken, Colton looked right at me and said "Hi, Mom!" - clear as day.  My heart just melted!



Yep - I took a picture of my tablet when I passed level 65.  I had to show my Bestie. :)   I had been working on this level for weeks and was just about to give up.  Right now I'm on my third quest to move on.  I had a hard time passing this level {33} the first time around.  I'm sure it will take me a while to pass it again.  Do you play this addicting fun game too?  What level are you on?



My son starts ESY in another week, but we have been working on some skills here at home this week.  {Sorry Buddy - that's what happens when your Mommy is a teacher.  ;)}  Yesterday, we were working on an addition page.  He still needs a number line, so I drew a quick one on a piece of paper.  Well, math was a little rough to get through.  I asked him if he wanted me to make him a Star Wars number line, and he said yes.  He picked out Hans Solo and Princess Leia to be on his number line.  Colton was so proud of it and showed it to my husband.  Later last night my husband said "Colton really likes that ruler thingy."  Number line, honey.  It's a number line.  Ah, husbands - gotta love them!  {By the way, math was much easier today with the Star Wars number line.}


I saw this today and started laughing so hard!  I can't tell you how true this is.  It doesn't matter if it's another state or another country, this is what Kansans hear.  My husband even made a stupid funny Wizard of Oz joke the first time I met him.  Good thing he was cute!  {I live in Las Vegas now which has it's own set of fun comments.  lol}

Thanks for joining me for Five for Friday!  I hope that you have a fun filled weekend!