Teacher Week {Classroom Digs!}

Hey y'all!  For those who follow me, you're probably like "Why in the world are you posting about a classroom??  You don't have one right now!"  Which is super true.  My hubby and I are moving to Spain to teach, in September.  So as of now I don't have a classroom.  But I've had one!!  And I LOVED my classroom last year.  So I decided to share my past "digs" with you... some of my favorite moments in my classroom.  There's been many {sometimes few and far between} that stand out in my mind.  I mean, we spend a minimum of 40 hours a week in there.  Usually 60-80.  How can we not have a place that we love? 

 This lady, Martina/Mrs. Cahill/The Hungry Teacher is by far the best part of my teaching career!  She was my student teacher this past year who turned into my fantastic co-teacher!  We're doing a series on our blogs about co-teaching together.  You can check out our first posts here and here.  Or stop by this Sunday to read our second posts on the {amazing!!!!!!} experience.  In this picture we're both dressed as Mrs. Frizzle, for Halloween.  We decorated the entrance to the classroom to look like the back of a school bus.  All the kids had to enter through there.  They loved it!  Even 5th graders whoSoClaimNotToLoveMagicSchoolBus love the Magic School Bus!!

 Here's a view of our classroom.  {Our kiddos are "hiding" because we were throwing a surprise party for Martina at the end of her student teaching time!  Too cute :)} I just love using round tables in my classroom.  It's so much easier for the bigger kids to have conversations.  We had lockers out in the hallway so they could store their things out there, so that wasn't an issue.

Oh The Lorax!  For State Testing we all know the drill- cover up ANYTHING/EVERYTHING that could help any learner in any way.  So Martina and I decided that at the very least, our coverings could be fun!!  I usually like to go with "earthy" colors, but he was just too cute not to use!  You can see in the next picture that on the wall we went with blues and greens everywhere else. 

Christmas lights!  I just adore the feel that twinkle lights provide and would have these guys everywhere if I could.  I rarely turn the overhead lights on.  Instead I use lamps and Christmas lights to illuminate the room.  It keeps us all a little more mellow {I like to think...}

 I can't lie... I sometimes bribe my kiddos.  Not for things that are expectations.  But for things that they have no interest in or control over... like state testing.  I told our kiddos that if they did well on the state testing {just tried their hardest/stayed focus/didn't give up for all TWENTYONE tests} then we would all spend the night in our classroom the week after testing ended.  Well, needless to say, they are all AWESOME {although we have no results back yet, I could see they all tried really hard which is all that matters to me} and so we spent the night at school.  It was the COOLEST thing ever.  You can see our beds all ready to go!  Martina and I slept on a blow up mattress in the middle of the room {with two padded mattresses on top- SUPER comfy} and the girls slept on one side and the boys on the other.  We played all sorts of team building games, hide and seek in the dark {CREEPY!!!} and watched a movie until late that night.  Then we woke up, made breakfast, and had a school day together!  Crazy much?  Maybe.  But It.Was.Awesome.

 Me and Martina all snuggled together :)

 I love this moment.  That's my daddy!  He came and hung out in our classroom all day.  Although here he's doing a crossword puzzle with my students.........

 Loved this Pinterest inspired bulletin board we made.  Aren't they precious!? P.S. That's a faux blackboard made out of black paper and chalk!

 This was my last day with my kiddos :(  I had them for two years {because I looped up with them from 4th grade} and we all just loved each other.  {Most of the time.}  They put together a slide show, made me sit in my rocker, hold my stuffed mouse, and watch it with them.  {Precious!!} 

Here's all my stuff packed up and ready to go.  Such a sad day!  Can you believe that's all I took?  I left a lot with Martina and consolidated as much as I could.  Now it's sitting up the attic of my parent's house just hanging out until we're back from Spain and I can us it again. 

My empty classroom.  The cool thing is that Martina will be posting today all about how she's taken this exact room and made it her own classroom!!  Check that out here.  Isn't she awesome?? 

Thanks so much for stopping by!! :)  Be sure to stop by the rest of the week to enjoy as much of the Teacher Week Fun as you can!!

Blog Hoppin' {Let's Talk About Me!}

Hey y’all!  I am linkin’ up with Blog Hoppin’ to celebrate Teacher Week 2013!! 

Be sure to check it out, if you haven’t already.  Monday is all about ME!  :)  So here are ten fun things about me…

1) My name is Kelly Anne and I am going into my fourth year teaching!  I absolutely love teaching and have been working with 4^th and 5^th graders for the past three years in Grand Junction, Colorado. 

2) This year my {recently married!} husband and I are moving to Mallorca, Spain to be teachers!  Ahhhh!  Just yesterday we received our VISAs in the mail.  So it’s SuperDuperReallyActuallyHappening official now! 

We leave for Spain on September 17^th. {One way flights booked and everything!!}  While extremely nervous and anxious, we are SUPER excited for this new adventure in our lives.  I am VERY excited to learn about teaching in a new country, as well as sharing it all with y'all while I learn!

3) My hubby and I both graduated from the University of South Carolina {GO GAMECOCKS!} and moved out to Colorado to get a new experience.  Coming from Ohio {me} and Virginia {him}, we were both taken {far} outside of our comfort zones.  Spain will be a whole new step that we are ready to conquer! 

4) In case you cannot tell from the fact that we’re moving to Spain, my husband and I LOVE to travel!  We have been all over Europe together and actually fell in love while travelling.  We are hoping to be able to travel a lot more once we get over to Europe... and I cannot wait!

5) I am OBSESSED with everything office supply.  Aren’t all teachers!?  My absolute favorite thing I own right now is my Erin Condren Life Planner!  Not shopping for a classroom right now is nearly killing me.  However, the idea that I’m not doing the normal stuff because I’m moving to Spain is definitely helping. 

6) I am often described as positive!  Maybe sometimes too positive... But I try very hard to keep a positive outlook on life and share it with others.  Even if I’m feeling down or am upset, I challenge myself to remain positive and focused on the big picture.  It’s very easy to let the little stuff drag you down, but in the end I’ve realized it’s not worth it.  I never regret keeping a smile on my face but I almost always regret saying something negative or having a sneer on my face. 

7) I’m not a homebody.  While I embrace quiet time {like today!} I just crave being near others and socializing.  Sure, after teaching all day I need crave some peace and quiet.  But I’m almost always ready to go out to dinner with friends or grab a drink with a coworker after a few minutes of quiet. 

8) I have a kitty cat named Ridley who I adore.  She has been with me for the past five years, loves riding in the car, and she has quite a bit of character.

9) I loooove to eat.  Hamburgers.  French fries.  A good salad.  A delicious cheese plate.  Pizza.  Tacos.  I love food and enjoy food.  I even enjoy cooking it!  Chopping up veggies is therapeutic to me and my body.  I think I could stand in the kitchen, chopping veggies, with a glass of wine and Pandora playing, instead of going to get a massage, and be totally relaxed. :)

10) I love riding around on a golf cart.  My family lived in Peachtree City, GA for a while growing up.  The entire town has golf cart paths!  So you can go anywhere on a golf cart.  Grocery shopping? Check!  Target?  Check!  J Crew?  Check!  McDonalds?  Check!  An-y-where!  I’ve always loved riding through the woods on the back of a golf cart.  And recently my parents moved into a community that has plenty of golf cart paths and golf carts!  I could spend hours riding around and getting lost on a golf cart.  It puts me in my happy place :)


Riding around on the back of a golf cart with two of my favorite men!
-My brother and husband-

Well there ya go!  There’s 10 crazy things about me!  Please stop by the rest of this week for all sorts of Teacher fun!!
 

 

Part 1 of 5: How to Be a Co-Teacher!!

Yay!  I am so excited to be sharing this series with y'all!  My fabulous Student Teacher, Mrs. Cahill, and I started out on this adventure together nearly a year ago!  YIKES!  We had quite a journey and we're looking forward to sharing all we learned with you.  Without further ado... How to be a Co-Teacher, part 1 from Martina's perspective!  Check out her blog, The Hungry Teacher to see my perspective!

 

 

 

And in case that is too tiny for you to read {And it absolutely is but I can't make it any bigger-gah!}

 

Student teaching is one of the craziest and most beneficial things you will ever do before you become a teacher. It is so scary to think that you will be spending one whole semester or year with the same teacher. That one teacher will have a bigger influence on all teaching decisions you will make for the rest of your teaching career, than anyone else ever will. Some of us will learn how we will set up our classroom, or how we will set up our reader’s workshop, or how to finally implement a successful unit, or some of us learn things that we will NEVER do. But some of us are really lucky and we get to learn so much more than that. Well… I was one of the lucky ones.

I was terrified I would be placed with a mentor teacher who was forced or unwilling to have a student teacher or that they would be so hard on me that I would go running for the hills. Well…. I don’t know what I did in my former life, but I must have been really good, because I was given the best mentor teacher a girl could ask for.

I went to my student teaching school to meet the principal and he told me that he wanted to put me with the 5^th grade teacher, Kelly. I was terrified for a couple of reasons. First of all, fifth grade?! Second, this was becoming real. I was actually student teaching, I had a mentor teacher, and I would have to actually teach kids stuff. I was terrified. Looking back now, I have no idea why. The principal introduced me to Kelly, she squealed, and then gave me the biggest hug you could ever get from someone who you had known for 0.5 seconds. At that moment, I knew Kelly would have a big impact on me as a teacher, but I had no idea the impact she would have on my life.

I started my student teaching experience with Kelly during teacher in service the week before school. Kelly explained every single thing about her thinking. Like why she used her spelling program, how to make copies on construction paper (even when the copier clearly stated not to J), why she used the workshop model, why we have 107 (extremely cute and durable) binders, and so much more. There were two extremely amazing things about this. First of all, the girl had West Nile (seriously). And second, and the most profound thing of all, is that I never once just felt like a student teacher. I felt like her co-teacher from day one. I can’t imagine trying to explain all your thoughts to someone else in just your third year of teaching (not that you would know it was her third year of teaching) but Kelly did (did I mention she had West Nile? J….. But seriously….) She was a rock star and I was already learning more than I had ever learned about teaching.

Don’t get me wrong, there were times I thought she was crazy. Like how she kept telling me we had to make our room feel like home because we would be spending 50-60 hours a week in this room (what?! why?!) Or when she finally told me that she had West Nile after WEEKS of being utterly and completely exhausted (and after she had answered every, single, little, and ridiculous question I ever had.) Or when she told me I could have her class for four weeks instead of the required two weeks so that I could really get some good experience (is she nuts?!) and that she would leave me completely by myself for 2-3 of those weeks so I could get experience for when I’m a teacher on my own (ok, she is actually crazy.) Or when she started to tell me that I should start selling some of my teaching resources on Teachers Pay Teachers (What is she talking about? Is that even legal?) Or the craziest of them all…. “We should blog about our teaching experiences together” (what? blog? This girl is on a whole different level J). Yeah. All of these things sounded so completely crazy at the time, but that’s what Kelly does. She pushes me to do things that I never thought possible or that I am capable of doing. And again, she does this while still making me feel like we are two co-teaching coming up with these great ideas together.

For all you student and mentor teachers out there, I hope you form a co-teaching relationship like the one Kelly and I have because the outcome will be more than beneficial to you, your co-teacher, and your students.

Isn't she the absolute best?  Seriously.  We just learned so much from each other throughout our year together.  I just lover her.  Whew! {I didn't just tear up or anything reading that...}

 

Thank you so much for stopping by!  Be sure to visit later this week for some new blog posts about starting the school year and definitely stop by next Sunday for our second post about Starting the School Year as a student teacher!

 

 

Co-Teaching Series!

Hey y'all!  I am so excited.  My fabulous student teacher from this past school year and I are teaming up to share with y'all a series of 5 blog posts about our experience co-teaching., called How to be a Co-Teacher.  Each part will discuss a different aspect of our experience from this past school year!  We'll be posting a new part every Sunday for the next 5 weeks.  Come back tomorrow to Appleslices, and Mrs. Cahill's blog, The Hungry Teacher, to check out our first posts!

 

We're looking forward to sharing our experiences with you! 

Hurry Up and Wait

Hey lovely teacher friends!

As many of you know, my hubby {Will} and I are in the process of pulling everything together to move to SPAIN! 


That little tiny island {Known as Mallorca} is where we will be living this
coming school year.  ExcuseMePleaseWhileIFreakOutInTheCorner! Eeeeeee!

We still cannot believe we're doing this.  Hurry up and wait has pretty much been our motto lately.  We've been doing a lot, and then waiting for the next step.  And then doing a lot... and then waiting for the next step!  Not that I'm complaining or anything.  It's just very different from the type of schedule I'm used to in the Fall.  Since we're going through it and learning along the way, I thought I would share a little bit of the VISA process with y'all!

As soon as we were able to, we started pulling together all of our paperwork for our VISAs.  It was not as simple as it may sound.  We found out that we would have to apply in person to get a VISA.  And guess where our nearest Spanish Consulate is!  DC?  Atlanta?  Nope!  Miami, y'all!  So we scheduled appointments as early as we could- three weeks from then.  And started prepping! 

Step one:  Get Georgia Driver's Licenses since we recently moved.  Two visits (because of course we didn't have all the paperwork the first time around!) and 4 and a half hours later... we would have our new driver's licenses' in 7-10 business days.  Please note: mine still hasn't arrived while Will's came in the mail a week ago. 

Step two:  We needed medical certificates stating that we're free of any major illnesses from a doctor.  And they needed to be translated into Spanish.  Okayyyy.

Step three:  We needed background checks that have been notarized and received an apostille.  (An apostille is kind of like an international notary)  But you cannot get an apostille just anywhere!  They do them in Atlanta!  Since we needed them sooner than later, we had to go in person and get them done.  Then they had to be translated into Spanish.


Heading to ATL for an Apostille!!

Step four:  Copy everything we own a {bazillion} times and drive down to Miami for our scheduled appointments.

Have you ever seen a Peruvian restaurant?  They're allll over Miami {& insanely delicious!!}.
This was new to us!  but our Seafood Parilla was to die for.  Mmmmm.

Step five:  It turns out "scheduled" is a loose term because we got to our appointment an hour early and waited two and a half hours. 


All set for our VISA appointments!! {In our super cute European Boutique hotel!}

Step six:  Have a lot of money.  It turns out none of this is free...

Step seven:  Drive the eight+ hours back home and wait 3-4 weeks for our passports to return to us and pray they have a VISA in them. 


All went smoothly at our appointments!!

And of course we had to stop by Cincinnati's local/favorite restaurant because there just happens to be one in Fort Lauderdale.  LOVE me some skyline!  {I grew up in Cincy} :)


It's Skyline Time!

I was in heaven with my Chili Burrito Bowl

There are a lot of steps I left out... but that's the gist of it all.  I'm not gonna lie, it's a lot.  But it's also been fun.  Nothing like throwing in a little confusion, stress, and 1,600 miles of travelling, in a week's time!  We've learned a few things here and there and have gotten better (and not so much better) along the way.  For instance, we now carry lots of cash on us at all times since we never know how much we'll need to pay for something.  And personal checks are never accepted.  We also know to double and triple check everything we do.  "Are you sure these aren't supposed to be notarized?  Can you just do it anyways?"  This part hasn't been the most fun, but it's definitely pushed us and made us realized this is really what we want to do.  Every now and then we look at each other and squeal (Will mainly) "We're moving to Spain!!!!".  :)  And that's what keeps us going.  
 
And oh yea, this also happened a few weeks ago.

Thanks, Ridley. 
That's so thoughtful of you to capture a snake and bring it into the house.

Thanks for listening to my rambling.  Has anyone else been through this tedious process before?  Does anyone have any recommendations for it all?  We appreciate any help you can provide!!  Have a happy Friday and an even better weekend!

Our wedding!!

Hooray!  My computer is back and healthy and better than ever- SUCH an amazing feeling! 

I know this is a non-teacher related post.  However, I am dying to share something with y'all.  Our wedding!  My husband and I got married in Savannah, Georgia on June 21st, 2013.  We got our wedding video and {TONS of} pictures back this week and I am just a little obsessed.  Here are a few of my all time favs :)  But y'all ,there are seriously so many more that I am just drooling over.  Eeeee!  So glad I can relive my excitement all over again!  Thanks for letting me share my happiness giddiness with you!

 

Poor computer

Hey friends,

I know I promised the start of a series with the lovely Mrs. Cahill. But my poor computer has a virus :( I'm hoping to get it back from the 'computer doctor' early this coming week, and then we'll be able to share our fabulous co teaching experience with y'all!

Enjoy your Sunday!! Thank you to all of you who have been checking out my new products and following my blog!! It means so much to me.

Xo, Kelly Anne

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