Blogging Hiatus....I'm back with LOTS of new updates!

Wowza!! It has been forever.  But I'm going to give a quick  month-by-month recap of what you have missed and let you all into my classroom/life a little bit the best I can.  To say the least, it's been super  CRAZY busy!

**December
We spent the whole month acting like we were riding the Polar Express around the world.  I had our desks set up like a train, added a little crate paper to the outside, taped on some letters that officially made it the Polar Express, and required a valid Ms. Rottink issued golden ticket to enter the train.  My kiddos loved every minute of this, ate it up, asked for more, and cried (literally) when we derailed our train for Christmas break.  We visited 13 different countries and learned all about their holiday traditions.  This included eating their holiday food, creating their decorations, learning lots of facts, and comparing and contrasting their traditions with ours.  This by far has been one of my favorite units and will for sure be one that I continue in the years to come.

Jack, our elf on the shelf, spent each day of December watching us for Santa.  He gained his magic as soon as we gave him his name and would fly back to the North Pole each night to let Santa know how good or bad we had been.  Each morning he came back, he would hide in a different spot.  Jack came with rules though!  We couldn't touch him or he would lose his magic and not be able to fly back from the North Pole again (this happened and Santa said he would give us another chance).  We also couldn't "spill the beans" about his hiding spot until everyone got the chance to find him.  They totally LOVED Jack and would correct each other's behavior knowing that Jack was watching!

**Christmas Break
Mother Nature decided that we needed to start break two days early and laid 8 beautiful inches of snow on the ground that quickly blew away and left icy, 4 foot drifts in font of my garage door.  Gross!  I love the snow, don't get me wrong, but this wasn't a fun snow!  Luckily we knew this storm was coming and I sent home EVERYTHING on that Wednesday (our last day of school).  I can't say I was overly sad as my kids were crazy due to the holidays and the weather changes.  For anyone that doesn't think kids change with the weather, please come visit my classroom tomorrow!  It will be chaotic!  The name of my blog with shine true and I will be ready to come home at the end of the day!  The upcoming snow storm will potentially make us miss another day of school, meaning we will be seeing each other in the lovely month of June.....

**January
As a student, I adored Christmas break but I was definitely ready to go back when break was over.  Well, us teachers at Sumner went back on the 2nd!  I know I shouldn't complain and no one in the non-education world understands because they think we get the whole summer off, lots of breaks, yada yada yada----the list goes on.  Seriously, go to any elementary classroom tomorrow in rural northeast Iowa and you will understand why teachers enjoy need these breaks.  Back to my story, January 2nd just came a little early for me!  I had all of these plans to spend a couple of days in my classroom over break and I finally accepted the fact that I needed a little time away--a brain break as my students and I like to call it.  Luckily, the first three days that we were back were professional development and it lessened the shock of reality.  I was ready and mentally prepared for Monday to come and was honestly excited to see each and everyone of my kiddos and give them a tight squeeze!  We spent a lot of that Monday sharing and writing about all of the awesome things they got for Christmas!  As for the rest of the month, we enjoyed an exciting penguin unit.  I did my best to integrate it into every part of my day. Thanks to teacherspayteachers.com this is pretty easy because others have done this and I can purchase their hard work for a couple of bucks!  This site has seriously been a life saver and I feel as if my kids are learning a lot with the hands-on activities I am able to pull off.

**Late January-Early February
These past two months have flown by, as I'm sure the next three will as well.  Somewhere in there we had two more snow days that are causing this school year to creep into my pool time in June with two of my favorite kiddos.  There was a week that we didn't have one complete day of school....two snow days and three late starts.  Mother Nature was and still is having some serious mood swings.  She can't make up her mind if we should be experiencing thunderstorms and torrential down pours, freezing rain, flurries, sunshine, or blizzards--so why not just throw them all into one week.  I think there was some fog in there as well.  To say the least, I was ready to throw in the towel that week and just start fresh the next Monday.  If I remember right, we didn't get to go outside for recess either so we spent lots way too much time locked in Room 164.  Thankfully, my kiddos truly love me and we spent some time organizing and cleaning and they didn't blink an eye at it.

We also celebrated our 100th day during the chaos!  Such a fun day!  These are the days that kids look forward to for forever and remember for a life time!  (I still remember the 100th day of my kindergarten year with Mrs. Brunsma.  I took 100 pennies to share!)  It was a late start so our schedule was messed up but still rotated through enough stations to wow ourselves--we can easily write 100 words, have NOOO idea what $100 will spend, wore some rockin' headbands, make necklaces with 100 cheerios, and enjoyed a snack with exactly 100 pieces!  One of the stations was a writing probe with the sentence starter of--"If I had $100, I would buy..."  I only wish I could buy some of their ideas with that amount of money!  I would have a brand new limo, a mansion, the school, ... you get the point!!  We are now into our money unit and hope some of this starts to click!

Valentine's Day was chaotic!  I was a mean teacher and didn't allow my kids to eat any of their candy!  They got to enjoy the chocolate covered rice crispy treat that I brought them.  I slaved away for like 5 hours the day before on them (seriously) and knew none of my kiddos were allergic to anything in them.


**My life!
I'd be lying if I said school didn't consume a large portion of it but I'm happy to share that I still absolutely positively LOVE my job!  I feel so extremely blessed to work with the people that I do, in a place that I look forward to going to each morning.  I haven't felt extremely overwhelmed like we were prepared for in college.  For those of you that know me well enough, you know I'm a planner, organizer, and love to be on the go!  I credit my sanity to this!  While there are days that I feel like I run around like a chicken with my head cut off, this is brought on by my overachieving self.  I always have activities planned and plenty for my little ones to do.

I have become completely addicted to Next Level Extreme Fitness.  I also talked Gavin into doing this class with me and couldn't be more excited that he has fallen in love with it with me.  We leave the house at 4:40AM and endure an hour of crazy, awesome workouts every day of the week.  There are days that we are stupid enough to even go back for the pain a second time.  Anyone that knows Gavin, getting him up in the morning at 4:15 is not a pleasant process and I hide safely in the closet while I shout call his name to wake him up! :-) I can't thank the trainers enough for the encouragement that they give me on a daily basis! Although, I often want to kill both of them for thinking things like 4 minutes of straight squats is a good idea.

Valentine's Day marked the first time I have ever gotten flowers for Gavin (other than the one time he left for Wyoming to snowmobile while I was on bathroom floor with the flu).  Whoop whoop!  We also celebrated being together for 4 years!! Crazy! We did it up big by going to Jamison's basketball game....romantic, I know!  It seems like yesterday I was texting and working out with this old guy that I was WAY to busy to hang out with!  Without getting to cheesy, I'm not sure what I would do without him and can't wait to spend the years to come with him.  Now if he only got the hint that he was supposed to buy a ring...... :-)


I hope that clues you in on a little bit!! Sorry if there is typos and errors!  I was just spitting thoughts onto my keyboard as fast as they came to my mind.  It is my goal to post at least once a week from now on!  I have exciting things planned for the rest of the school year so will have plenty to post about.  As for next week, we have conferences on Monday and Thursday so I'm sure it will be a long one!

I'll add some pictures tomorrow!  Mr. Wonderful got me an iPad for Christmas so they are all on that and of course it is dead!

Stay tuned for more happenings in the life of this first year teacher!

~Toodles!