September Currently

Linking up with Farley for the monthly currently!

  

Listening....Gotta catch up on the old DVR. Rookie Blue is one of my favorite summer shows, and we are watching the season finale. Excited for all my regular season shows to return soon.

Loving...My brother-in-law and future sister-in-law announced their engagement today! We are so excited for them. And I am extra excited to have another female in the family :)

Thinking....We are redoing half of our living room. We purchased a black leather sofa, new end tables, new coffee table, and new lamps. I'll post pictures once everything is delivered and the room is finished.

Wanting...Why is it NOW getting hot as Hades outside? Over 90 and 85% humidity Uh, no thanks. It's now September (in about 30 min). So, uh, move along summer weather.

Needing...We have a huge garage sale coming up on Saturday. We have tons of things to get put together and priced before then. Not sure how it will all get done.

3 Trips...This one was super hard for me. I am constantly filled with wanderlust and traveling is a passion of mine. These three locales are as different as can be, but three places I have to go before I die.

A Peek At My Week {First Week Back}

Linking up with A Peek at my Week for my first week back to school.

Alas, the kiddos come back tomorrow, and another school year begins. I think I am all ready to go, at least for the first few days.

I spent part of my Saturday night making these little signs for my window ledge. This is about as crafty as I get.

 

Since students can still switch classes through Wednesday, no one really jumps into content until after that. So the first couple days I spend going over procedures/the syllabus, and I have students fill in a chart as I go over rules/procedures so they can use it to study for my rules quiz. We also came up with a department plagiarism policy this year, since it has become a large issue, so I am introducing that, having students sign, and then doing a mini unit on plagiarism with some games I found.

The second half of the week, I will get into more specific content with my different classes. This semester I teach English III (American Lit), Senior Lit, and College English 101. I have taught all classes before, but we did totally revamp our ENG III curriculum, so it's pretty much like teaching a new class.

English III starts out with defining the American Dream and discussing students' definitions of what it is. In Senior Lit, we are jumping right into our first novel, Nineteen Minutes. LOVE this one and the students end up loving it, too. I re-read it every year and have read the whole book at least 8 times, but I love it more each time I read it. In College English, they are writing literacy stories and blogging this week.

So we're back to 5:30 AM wake-up calls,, 50 minute commutes, grading, planning, and not having a lot of free time for the next 9 months. Not sure if I'm ready, but ready or not, it starts tomorrow.

Classroom Pics

My husband and I (yes, I drag him along for this too!) spent FIVE HOURS working in my classroom today. And the A/C wasn't going because it was summer and the weekend so it was literally 80º in my room. And there were boxes everywhere and everything was in the wrong spot. PLUS I wanted to totally redo my bulletin boards and a bunch of other things this year. So we had our work cut off for us.

I took a few photos that probably turned out dimly lit and blurry, so I apologize, but it's all I have right now.

 

This is one half of my big bulletin board. All those "memes" I bought from Mrs. Orman's TpT store and they are awesome! Go get you some. I also have a few other ones sprinkled throughout my room. I hope my kids will get a kick out of them.

 

This is the second half of the bulletin board. I am trying something new this year. I'm going to put any handouts for absent students in the folder that corresponds with their hour. It is their responsibility to check the folder when they return AND still speak to me for explanations/things they missed that were not in handout form. But this makes my life a little easier because if students are out for awhile, I will sometimes forget which handouts they didn't get, I might already have recycled my extras, etc.

 

This is the whole bulletin board zoomed out.

 

On the laminated looseleaf are the directions for my daily bell work. I think I might wrote a separate post on how I want to incorporate bell work this year. I also have my Office Space reminder that turning homework in on time would be great, again compliments of Mrs. Orman.

 

 

This is the homework turn in area. This is the first year I have separated it by hour and I think it'll be a lot easier. The back right tray label says "Make up and late work," as I've decided to separate that out from on-time work. And of course we have Beyonce reminding you, "If ya wanted a grade, ya shoulda put your name on it."

 This will be my homework area. I found the paisley purple washi tape at Target and the arrow masking tape (around the date) at Office Max. Those little circles that you can see if you click on the pic to make it bigger are zebra magnets with the days of the week on them, next to which I will write what's due that day for my three classes, plus there is an area for important dates/events. This area is behind my desk.

I used the washi tape to "frame" all my bell schedules and grading scales on my closet this year. The sign below the clock is also from Mrs. Orman and says "What if I told you that lining up at the door doesn't make the bell ring faster." LOL I laugh to myself each time I see it.

So that's all I have. My room isn't as cute as all the elementary classrooms I see but it is cuter this year than in the past. I still have some posters to hang in the back of the room and all the textbooks to be handed out to students are lining my window ledge, so no pics of that side yet.

And now that my room is prettified, I guess I actually need to work on syllabi and lesson planning and the sort, huh?

August currently

Well, it's that time of year. Back to school time. And like every year, I absolutely dread it.

Linking up with Farley for this month's currently.

 

Most of my answers are self-explanatory. We got our backyard landscaping completed this week-yay!

This weekend, we are painting our concrete patio, so that looks to be a lot of work and hopefully it turns out! Other than that, I just need to start getting stuff ready for school to start in less than 2 weeks. Trying to enjoy every last drop of summer while I can.

Quick update

Well, I thought I'd hop on and do a quick post, since I realized I have only posted about twice this summer, and it has been a link-up both times.

The main reason I haven't posted is because I have done nothing for school so far. Zero. Zip. Nada. My summer has been busy, but it has been with other non-school things.

Teachers go back the 14th here, so I really only have two weeks left of summer and need to get my butt in gear. I did get some stuff done at the very end of this last school year--my syllabi are pretty much ready to go. I have all three classes mapped out and know what I want to do. It's just getting the nitty gritty details of the first week planned, copies made, etc. This has been the shortest summer I've had since I started teaching, and I wanted to truly take some time off from school, which I think we all need.

So what HAVE I been doing? Well, we finished our front yard landscaping!











We also went on our vacation to the Smoky Mountains. Oh my gosh-so gorgeous! Then 10+ hour car ride was all worth it. We had a private and secluded cabin that had this amazing view from all our windows.

We did so many fun things in the national park. Went on a few hikes, hiked up to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the park, drove part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and also spent time enjoying our cabin and escaping from life for a bit.

Today we are getting some landscaping installed in our back yard. We have one more house project to complete before school time--paint our patio. We have an ugly concrete slab for a patio, and we plan to use Rustoleum Restore paint to liven it up a bit. Hopefully we get that done this weekend.

Next week, I have a couple meetings for work. I probably need to go into my classroom and get things straightened up for the new year and start buckling down and getting back into school mode. But for now, I'm going to go relax with some coffee and my dog :)

July Currently

Linking up with Farley.

 

Listening....It'll be the last hot day this week! Tomorrow the high is only 70. Wahoo!

Loving...The Husband and I have been redoing all our front landscaping ourselves. Take a peek at a couple before/afters.

We still have the whole area in front of our house to do this week.



Thinking....We leave for TN in six days, so I need to make a packing list and get moving.

Wanting...My dog is at my parents' house because we had a ton of work done at the house yesterday. I can't wait to see her sweet little face today!

Needing...To clean. I always need to clean.

4th plans....Working on the front landscaping and then having a low-key night at home, since my pup is scared of fireworks!

Have a great holiday weekend and a happy July!

June Currently

Well this is the first year I've still been in school in June. Stupid snow days. But only FOUR MORE DAYS.

1. I love Pandora and this is my new favorite station. Perfect summer music.

2. Like I said, I wish I was already on summer break, but four more days ain't too shabby.

3. Yesterday we went to a wine and beer fest all day. FUN. But hot. Even though I parked myself under a shade tree, I obviously still got some UV rays because my upper arms are super burned today :( Yikes.

4. I have a ton of cute maxi dresses that I can wear to work or on weekends, but now I'm on the hunt for some shorter, more casual sundresses I can just throw on to beat the heat in 100 degree weather that still make me look put together.

5. We had grand plans to deep clean the house today. But then the dog needed a walk, we HAD to go out for brunch, I wanted to run to Target....yeah. House still hasn't been cleaned.

6. Last one is pretty self-explanatory and I wrote a more detailed summer bucket list last week. VERY excited for it to almost be summer.