Show and Tell Tuesday-May

I am linking up with Stephanie over at Forever in 5th Grade. Any teacher will tell you May is one of the best months of the school year. You get to see the true fruits of your labor, and this is the time of the year where you really get to enjoy your class. As the teacher, you put forth so much effort for nine months and then you pass them on to the next teacher and hope that you made some impact on their life. My show and tell this month is a hodgepodge of sharing. Enjoy!

A few weekends back my hubs and I went on an adventure to pilot mountain. We moved to North Carolina almost a year ago and we have been exploring various places since we moved. As long as the weather is nice, we enjoy taking our (well my girlie dogs) hiking. It was a short drive from Winston, where we live and was such an enjoyable day. We loaded up with snacks, packed the cooler and set out with the dogs in tow. We drove to the top and hiked around the base of the rocky point. It was a beautiful view overlooking the country side and the breeze was nice and cool.

As I stated earlier we have been in NC for almost a year. We were very fortunate to have found an awesome church, with an even better small group. The small group is made up of engaged and newly married couples. The goal of the group is to read through a variety of marriage text within the first year to get your marriage off to a good start and to establish a biblical foundation. A few of the text we have already read through are the Five Love Languages, Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, and The Art of Marriage. I suggest all of those text. No matter what stage of marriage you are in, I think there is insightful information in all of them.

Oh yes and I should share about how my teaching experience has changed, grown, and developed through the move. Let me first begin with differences in states, districts, schools etc. I have felt like this was my first year teaching all over again. There are so many differences (even though both teach Common Core), that I basically started from square one. I went from a school that was laissez faire to one that is more of a micro managed situation, so you can imagine the confusion. I have also learned that teaching in a Title I school in one state is COMPLETELY different in another which is truly unfortunate. I found my way into teaching by wanted to teach children in poverty and to truly have an impact on their life and learning, but when teachers are held to such unreasonable standards it makes you want to teach students who don't have such home struggles that you can't fix, or control. It is truly heart wrenching. I have grown as an educator through these struggles this past year.

Last and not least, we are trying to decide if we would like to take the plunge and purchase a home that is a fixer upper. Yes I am obsessed with Chip and Joanna. I love who they are and how they share their faith so openly. I told Wes I wanted to be them when I grown up. Hahaha. So we've been looking for a home is rough shape to purchase for cheap and invest money into to make it a sweet little home. We just went and viewed a home yesterday that I refer to as the "mamaw" home. An elderly lady lived there for about fifteen years, she has since past and the home has been empty for a while. It has good bones, but needs a complete over haul. We aren't for sure which way we want to proceed, but we will pray about it and see where God leads us.

Donors Choose

I have discovered in teaching at a new school in a new state a lot of methods, resources, and just plain old stuff is different (excuse the use of the word stuff I realize that is not using academic language, bleh). In learning new procedural techniques and adjusting I have learned that I am in despair without my iPad, that was provided from my other school. During my guided reading block of time, I have found multiple uses for an iPad. First a few apps are essential, those being Level Book and the Running Record app. Level Book keeps up with all of your running records for each student. It will allow you to go back at any time and replay the reading and is great for data tracking, which unfortunately is a huge part of teaching....data....The school I am currently a part of does not provide iPad's for teachers in grades 3-5th, thus posing a problem. In stating all of this I have written a donors choose project to hopefully fund an iPad for our guided reading instruction. If you would like to donor towards our goal we would greatly appreciate it. You can click the image below to go to our site to read, digest, and donate towards a great cause. Thank you!!

January Pinterest Pick 3

I am a little late linking up with Lisa over at Pawsitively Teaching for the January Pick 3, due to I just got back into the swing of school after being off for our two week winter break. I love to link up with this fun top Pinterest Picks. Who doesn't need an excuse to waste time indulging on there, I sure do. 

This Pinterest find is accompanied with another Pinterest skip counting song that I found that has changed the way we learn our multiplication facts and learning the multiples of a number. I found that after we learned our facts 2-10 that we had to find a song for our 11 and 12 times tables. Here is a cute elevens I found with this adorable koala. 

Life changer video:

I took the small size anchor chart paper and wrote the chants on them and then had the kids decorate them. They hang on our wall and the students love to sing everyday before our math lessons begin. 

The next Pinterest find is to brag on a website that I use in my class everyday. The website is Moby Max, which is a one stop shop from data tracking, RTI, common core lessons, math facts, vocabulary instruction, grammar, reading and math. It is just amazing. Check out Moby Max here. Did I mention it is free??

I am trying to be more health conscious of my eating, so of course my lovely hubby told me that I should do a ketogenic diet (basically low-carb). I thought, ok I'll give it a try. I like the fact that on Sunday's we meal prep and I found this link to help me with my grocery list for meal prepping. 

My dearest blog I promise I have not deserted you......

As you can see I have been very busy and I have neglected my precious blog. I mean really who wants to follow a blogger who never blogs?! Let me catch you up on my face paced life. School let out last year at the end of May. I was married two weeks later. Our wedding was everything we ever dreamed of and more. Our only regret is that we didn't rent the reception venue all night. Little did we know we would be having the time of our lives (instead of being dead dog tired like I thought). Our wedding day was amazing. The weather couldn't have been any more beautiful. For the beginning of June it was not too hot and the sky was just and blue and clear as the ocean. There was little to no cloud coverage. Here are a few preview pictures...

The chapel was located in Chattanooga, Tennessee on the campus of the University of Tennessee (where both of I attended school). Patten Chapel was build in the early nineteen hundreds and is almost a century old. It is amazingly gorgeous (I know bad use of adjectives for a teacher). Here are a few pictures of the inside...

Ok enough about the chapel, now to the dress. The dress was an elegant fit and flair, designed by Stella York (an Australian). I found the dress at a store in Atlanta. The store will remain nameless because I don't want to send business their way. I absolutely loved my dress don't get me wrong, but the interactions I had with them were pain staking. The dress was ivory lace, with an oyster underlay to really make the lace stand out. The bridesmaid's dresses were Bill Levkoff and I loved how each girl selected her own. I felt like that gave them ownership in their own personal dresses. Here are some more visuals. 

Planning my wedding was one of the most enjoyable events in my life thus far. A lot of people think of it as a stressful grueling process. I enjoyed every minute of the ride. I would love to give a shout out to my florist (who is a teacher what what?!). She teaches middle school now, but she use to own her own florist store. She did an AMAZING job. Also another shout out to the baker. Dan the Cake Man is the bomb diggity. I think the cake tasting process was Wes' favorite of all the wedding festivities. The wedding cake was strawberry and white chocolate vanilla, with butter cream strawberry filling and was to die for. I can't wait until our year anniversary to have another taste. Wes' grooms cake was chocolate on chocolate with a Duck Dynasty flair. 

Now to the groom and his crew. I thought the pictures of Wes and his groomsmen were adorable. Here are a few:

Isn't the cotton adorable??? I had to brag on myself. I made them!

Ok enough anticipation... I know if you're reading this you are like where is the juicy stuff?!?! 

Here are a few of our favorites...

That right there folks is how the hashtag #itsapalmerlife came into existence and the rest is history....

October Pick 3 Linky

It's that time again to linky up with the Inspired Owl and Pawsitively Teaching for the monthly Pick 3 Pins. I always enjoy going and selecting my favorite, but I also love going and looking through what other people choose for their favorite pins. 

Oh the joys of teaching measurement....Measurement is one of the hardest math standards, I believe, to teach fourth graders. It is really abstract for them to grasp, not to mention confusing because they have to learn US Customary and the Metric system for every unit of measure. I will be teaching weight this week, so I found this great anchor chart I am planning on using as a resource. 

This week I will be reviewing and reteaching theme. We gave our students a common formative assessment and the results were no bueno, so we decided to reteach theme. I found this resource on Pinterest and what a great idea to connect Disney songs to the theme. I have a feeling my students will love this idea. 

Lastly, this week I will begin a unit on Native American's in relation to North Carolina. Like I have stated in previous post, I recently moved to North Carolina and I do not know any North Carolina history. In saying that the students and I this year will be learning the standards collectively. I found this resource that I am planning on using to help teach about the natives of North Carolina!

Currently October

First let me apologize to my blog for neglecting it for quite some time. I am trying to get back into the blogging, designing for TpTs, and working on my Etsy store. Since a lot has been going on in my life over the past few months I have not been keeping up with my online resources. Here's a toast to blogging again!

I am linking up with one of my favorite fourth grade teachers Farley, she is the bomb dot com for her Currently October linky.

Happy October!! I don't know about you, but it is nice to have cooler weather (even though I am currently in the line of hurricane Joaquin YIKES!). I am originally from Georgia and I lived in the northwest corner, which never received hurricane weather due to the fact we were far from the coast. Now I live in North Carolina, which is about three hours from the coast. Therefore, the weather has pushed to the west from the coast to BAM my area. It has been raining from almost two weeks and everywhere is flooded. At least we live on a hill, but there are lots of tall, old trees that could easily loose branches which makes me nervous! Any who I am glad that you stopped by to see what I am up to. Please go link up with Farley and catch up with all of our other teacher blogging friends.