I'm here today to give you a "bumpdate" for the past three weeks. I've been slacking on keeping you all posted on the bump ;)
But first I just want to say I am so happy! My Daddy is home and recovering super well from his surgery! Much better than I expected! His pathology report was great and indicates that they were able to get ALL of the tumor. Now just for the last round of chemo and then he will have won this battle! Thank you for all of the prayers!
Now here is your bumpdate!
Week 9:
Week 10:
The bump decided to make itself known today!
And Week 11 (yesterday):
Big brother wanted in on the action this week (actually he has every week, we just finally took his picture)!
At our last appointment we got a surprise picture of the baby. The doctor was afraid she wouldn't be able to hear the heartbeat so she just HAD to sneak us in to the ultrasound room! I love my doctor! My baby actually looked like a baby this time :) It was also a very active baby! So cute!
------------------------
Do you want to participate in our tally chart that we have going on? We are taking guesses as to if it will be a caterpillar (girl) or robot (boy). Leave your guess in the comments and I will add you to the chart!
----------------------------
I'll be back later with some room updates. We go back this week! Eeeek!
Hey ya'll it has been so long since I have blogged. My world has been wild and crazy and my life was totally turned upside down. I'm finally trying to get myself back to a normal, but I can't make any promises as I am going along this crazy path.
When I last left you I had no clue how much my life was about to fall apart. I had mentioned a challenging student in my classroom, but I had no clue how challenging it would get. I don't want to go in to full detail, but let me tell you this, the second half of the year was my worst nightmare. Things went downhill quick because of his family life. That mixed with the issues he already had caused things to get REALLY bad. He even ended up being hospitalized for a week because of one of his meltdowns. I did my best to keep pushing through it all, but I wanted to give up so many times. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically drained by the end. I felt like I had done a disservice to the rest of my class and I considered giving up on my one true passion. After taking some time this summer I have realized that it was not me and that I had a lot going on in my personal life at the time that did not help. I am now recovered and ready to go back for a new year with a new perspective.
So there was all of that going on in my classroom all while my life was crazy busy as my husband and I are Jr. High track coaches. This track season was the hardest on me and I contribute a lot of it to the situations I dealt with all day and the personal life stuff (I'll be getting there in a minute). There was a lot more drama than normal and several of our athletes no longer showed me respect. There were many days I went home from practice and cried thinking that I was a terrible coach. I felt like I also was doing a disservice to my athletes this year. Hopefully next season will be better even though I know that will be a wild ride (see the section on personal life craziness coming up).
I also had the crazy idea to start selling Thirty-One in February. I do not regret that decision one bit, but it did make life a little crazier for me. I joined and less than a week later I was taking off to go on a training trip with complete strangers (the girl I joined under was the only one I kind of knew and I hadn't actually met her in person). This was totally different for me and way out of my comfort zone, but was an amazing experience. Since then I have met many amazing women and have felt totally inspired to do amazing things.
Now on to the personal life craziness. This was the thing that made me finally crack and feel like giving up entirely. On May 1st my whole world shattered. My dad had been having some health issues that he had put off getting checked for 9 months. When he finally decided to go to the doctor to get checked out the results were devastating. My father was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. It was so advanced that it was a complete blockage of his colon. My world was really thrown for a loop. You see my father is my rock, my best friend, my shoulder to lean on and all of this happened. He was also our assistant coach for track and this dramatically changed our team (granted some of it was for the better, because the drama finally stopped). Over the following few days and weeks we had to learn what the treatment plan was. The path was finally decided to treat with chemo and radiation first to try to shrink it. The problem was it would expand first and there was no room to expand with out causing issues so an ostomy had to be put in. There were several complications with that surgery and he ended up being hospitalized for a week. He had not been in a hospital overnight since he was a child. This was a very scary time. Luckily he finally recovered from it and was able to proceed with the treatment. He has now completed the treatment and is in the recovery stage waiting for surgery. He is scheduled to have the tumor removed on August 5th. We are hopeful that this surgery will go off without any complications.
Unfortunately because of all of this he was unable to attend the state track meet for our athletes in person. This was an extremely hard time for him as he had worked so hard to get one of our distance runners there. We decided to take him with us and send him pictures all weekend long of his adventures. Here is my favorite picture. He was just hanging out with me watching some races.
Through it all my dad has been a trooper and has kept his head held up high. He is truly inspiring. My dad is a distance runner. He has completed several marathons including the Boston Marathon. He is determined to be back there running once he has fully recovered and kicked cancer's butt. All of this has caused him to not be able to run like he used to, but he set out on a mission to run/walk a 5k for Colon Cancer Screening. He put together a team and set out on a mission to just finish the race. It was amazing because once he got out there running, he just couldn't stop. He ran the WHOLE 5k just a few days after finishing his chemo/radiation treatments. It was such an inspiring thing (especially since I couldn't even run the whole thing).
Here we are walking in the last of our group as a team.
Here is the team showing our spirit before the race.
Now onto my Monday Made It. This Monday Made It was actually made a little while ago, but I am just now getting around to it. After my post head on over to 4th Grade Frolics to check on some more Monday Made It's that I am sure are actually school related. I promise to show you some school related ones next time. ;)
I created this video about a month ago to announce that the hubby and I are having our first baby. This was a blessing that was much needed in our family. We are very excited about it even if the timing means the beginning of track season. We're just going to have an extra coach...lol. Our due date ended up getting changed to March 2nd after I had posted the video saying February.
Here are a couple of pictures we have taken. I will be taking another one tonight so I will have to post it for you sometime in the next couple of days. I'm pretty sure my bump has shrunk in the past week though. I did a lot of walking while I was at Thirty-One National Conference.
Hey ya'll I am back here today to share with you this week's focus for implementing Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom. This week is all about implementing the rules. If you are interested in learning more head on over to Whole Brain Teaching.
Most of this week's focus I have already been doing successfully in my classroom the past few weeks, but I am going to work on improving it this week.
Rule #1:
In order to implement Rule 1: Follow Directions Quickly, you should use the three-peat procedures. I started the three-peat two weeks ago and it was pure magic.
You give students a one word direction (i.e. when you want them to turn in papers say "papers" or when you want them to line up say "line") and students repeat the direction word three times and follow the directions. When I do it I begin slowly counting and they have a certain amount of time to complete it. The amount of time I give is based on what the direction is. This has sped things up in my room and I am not having a lot of wasted dead time. We have actually had time at the end of the day since doing this because we actually get everything done on time. It is F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S!
Rule #2:
In order to implement Rule 2: Raise Your Hand for Permission to Speak, you must first decide if you are serious about it. If you are serious you have to stick to it. This is one I have struggled with and I plan to really focus on improving this week.
When a student talks out without getting permission you call out "Rule #2" and all students should respond with "Raise your hand for permission to speak". After a while of that if certain students are still having problems give them a silent two fingers and the individual student should silently do the gesture. If after several months that still hasn't worked, practice cards will be started.
Rule #3:
In order to implement Rule 3: Raise Your Hand for Permission to Leave Your Seat you should do the same as you do for Rule #2.
Rule #4:
Rule 4: Make Smart Choices applies to EVERYTHING. In order to implement it you ask students if it is a smart or foolish choice to... (fill in the blank with examples) and have the students give their reasoning. Take time each day to go over some things that might become issues.
Rule #5:
When you want to stop backtalk call out "Rule 5" and students respond with "Keep your dear teacher happy".
For all of these it is important to practice, practice, practice both the wrong way and the correct way. This is the key to success with implementing all of the rules. Rehearse one rule at a time and wait for them to master it before moving on to the next one.
Now for the mastery challenges:
~Rookie level: students master rules 1 and 2
~Pro level: students master rules 1-4
~All Star level: students master rules 1-5 (you have virtually eliminated challenging behavior from your classroom)
For students who constantly do not follow the rules start making them do one minute practices at recess. If they won't do it tell them "It's one minute my way or two minutes your way".
That's all I have for you for tonight! I hope my summary of each of the weekly videos is beneficial to those of you reading.
I am here today to tell you about a fabulous resource that has recently been released. Last year I purchased the Third Grade Common Core Workbook and couldn't believe all that was included with it. I have been pulling things from it all year to work on. Next year I would like to have it a little more organized so that I am using it more.
Today I discovered that they have released their Common Core Assessment Workbook. It includes an assessment for every standard, answer keys, and progress reports. I downloaded the Third Grade Sample and was very impressed with the assessments that I saw. I cannot wait to get my hands on the full download and use it in my classroom. I can see this as being very valuable in assessing the standards to ensure I meet all the standards.
My favorite part about this and the workbook that I purchased last year is that there is something for EVERY Math and ELA standard. Sometimes it is hard to find items that meet some of the standards. Those times are the times when I am grateful to have the workbook and now will be thankful to have an assessment tool as well.
I definitely recommend you head on over and check out these fabulous Common Core Assessment Workbooks. They would be a valuable addition to your classroom.
