Archives for 2012

It feels like a month…

September 9, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 6 Comments

It honestly feels like a month has passed since I went in for orientation, then work week, and then of course the much-anticipated first week of school! In reality, it’s only been two and a half weeks but ohmyword does it seem like longer!

I caught my son’s nasty sinus infection the first day of school and hardly have a voice — I’m hoping that changes by Monday morning! I’ve been laying low, trying to get as much sleep as possible, and trying to get into a groove with my class.

I now have 23 kiddos — seven girls and sixteen boys. Yes. I have more boys in my class than I had total students in my third grade class during student teaching! It has been a challenge to get a sense of their little personalities and what works for each of them, but I’m getting there!

I have some plans for this blog in the next few days (after I finish planning/starting assessments) and that involves rolling out the following posts (which are all in some form of ‘draft’ stage right now!):

classroom reveal
implementing the Daily 5 as a first-year teacher
reflections on a first first day of school
update on what we’re working on

I am spending some time tonight going through e-mails, catching up on blogs, and trying to figure out Scholastic Book Clubs. I’m eager to get my first red book box (you have no idea)! I hope everyone has had an amazing first few weeks of school and that you all haven’t succumbed to germs yet like I have — it’s no bueno!

Overwhelmed — but only a little!

August 23, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 5 Comments

I admit it. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

Not necessarily in a bad way… just in an overwhelmed kind of overwhelmed way. (I’m also really excited, fulfilled, and happy, so it is balanced out!)

After spending the first two days of the week in my room (and making some decent progress), I’ve spent the last two days in training and my brain is a bit fried. It is a lot of information to take in all at once, especially as my brain is already preoccupied with the “I’m never going to finish my room!” and “I really have a class?!” jitters.

So I do have a small request: the biggest piece to me feeling overwhelmed right now is the practical parts of the first few days of school — establishing procedures and routines. If you could be so kind as to leave one piece of advice to that end, I would very much appreciate it, and will share it with my friends that are also embarking on their first first day of school!

I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of my word wall, which my husband graciously helped me put up. I’m so excited to get some “starter” words up there, and to put my mobile word wall on the shelving below it!

Excuse the bad photo — the alarm was about to be put on and we were rushing out!

I will be back this weekend with several freebies and a new TPT product (hopefully… if I can keep my eyes open) that I’ve been meaning to upload for two weeks!

Why didn’t anyone warn me?!

August 18, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 2 Comments

Seriously — why did none of you warn me that I was going to need to stock up on ibuprofen and a heating pad for the nights after setting up my room?! Shame on you! 😛 My whole body hurts!

Mr. Plum and I have spent the last three days in our rooms — for a few hours each day — staring at the walls. Er, decorating them. It’s been slow going because, I swear, there’s some sort of space-time continuum in our rooms that makes time go on warp speed and our productivity plummet.

So far I’ve managed to:

arrange the room + desks
put up the fabric + borders for my three bulletin boards
begin the process of going through materials + arrange them

I also got my roster and — drumroll please! — I’ll be the teacher of 8 oz-some girls and 13 oz-some boys this school year! It was a surreal moment to read their names and realize that, yes, this is my class.

In other (super amazing exciting) news, I totally won a ticket to the Back to School Virtual Teaching Expo! I am *so* excited about this, because goodness knows I can use all of the information and help I can get starting off my first year. I won a giveaway from the amazing Melanie of Schoolgirl Style, but you can get your own ticket for $10 (and in the process, donate two tickets, too!).

I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of how Dorothy has influenced my front bulletin board… I haven’t decided yet whether this is going to be my Daily 5 board, or my “What do GREAT readers do?” bulletin board. I’m leaning toward the latter, since this is right next to my classroom library (which I have to tackle on Monday, eek!).

It looks much better in person.
And I’m sure it’d look better if I weren’t using a camera phone two seconds before they set the alarm!

A close-up of the (ugh, crooked) fabric and trim!

I did make it on Monday…

August 15, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 5 Comments

I’m almost two days late. But that’s okay. We’ll pretend that I indeed posted this Monday morning.

I fully intended to post a few more items on my TPT store during the Back to School sale, but that never happened. My to-do list ran away from me, my nearly three year old decided that he didn’t need to listen to Mommy anymore, and I got a little carried away. With this.

I started out with the plan to make my “pick me” bucket. I thought that since my kiddos are my “lollipop guild” and lollipops are featured on my student data binder I should do lollipops. So I made the labels, and started to affix them to my trusty popsicle sticks.

I had this nagging feeling. Come on. You know you want to go all out.

My car drove itself to AC Moore. My debit card purchased cellophane, cookie sticks, and ribbon. And then my hands, independent of my brain, made these:

Your eyes aren’t seeing things. Those are lollipop numbers wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon. Yes. I went there.

The metal pot is an antique, and unbreakable. It reminds me of something you might see in Dorothy’s house, which is why I chose it over a plastic pot from Walmart (which I might’ve hot-glued ribbon and a label to before I changed my mind). I’m on the fence about a label. What do you think?

As a mea-culpa for not posting anything new so you could enjoy 28% savings, I’ve uploaded the numbers in three sizes (4″, 3″, and 1.5″ diameter) to my TPT store. You can grab them by clicking on the image below — I hope you find them useful!

I’ll be back tomorrow night to share the first progress pictures of my classroom — I’m spending the whole day there tomorrow cleaning it out and arranging it (once or twice or five times) before I start decorating. Wish me luck… and not clumsiness!

There’s No Place Like Home!

August 11, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 2 Comments

Really, there isn’t. I absolutely loved my vacation to visit my in-laws in NY, but I missed being home and getting things checked off my massive to-do list. I actually think I might be more stressed out for having had a vacation, but I’m sure an all-nighter tonight to clean our home office (it is a W-R-E-C-K) and make a list of things to purchase at IKEA/Lakeshore tomorrow (VA Blogger Meetup, yay!) will ease my stress. What can I say, organizing is therapeutic!

I’m off to wade through my Google Reader that currently has an “unread” post count of 376… I leave you with my August Currently!