Time Savers {I'm SO Thankful for Linky Parties!!!}

Real talk, people... I'm horrible at keeping up with this thing.  It's right in the midst of CRAZY time in kindergarten.  When I get home, I'm ready to get in my jammies and saw some logs.  I get flat worn out!

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' to tell you about how I keep my sanity, which is debatable some days.

If it weren't for time savers, I would literally lose my mind.

At Home

I always get my clothes ready the night before.  If I don't do this, I'm guaranteed to try on 12 outfits and get out the door of my house 10 minutes before kids enter my classroom.  That does not equal a happy teacher. :)

I also always make my lunch the night before... Or the week before.  How you might ask?  Salads in a jar, people.

You can make them any way you want...  Find out more about them here.

At School

I have learned over the years that anything I can do to save myself precious minutes will make my job (and life) SO MUCH EASIER.

1.  Make the kiddos responsible for their own supplies.

In my first years of teaching, I ran around like a crazy person making sure supplies were stocked up and that each kid had what they needed. 

I made supplies easily accessible for students.  I keep them in the plastic drawers and added labels.

Students can just waltz right over and get what they need.  Perfection.

2.  T-E-A-M-W-O-R-K

I am blessed to work on a team with two of the best teachers I know.  We take turns organizing our lessons for the week, matching standards and making copies.  So rather than me having to do it every. single. week., I only do it every third week.  Here is what our planning guide looks like:

This doesn't take the place of formal lesson plans, but we are able to turn it into our principal since it is aligned with our standards.

3.  Organizing it all.

Having a place to organize all of your stuff is essential.  I keep each day's lessons inside a file folder in this cute holder from Mardel.  

(Excuse the horrible picture... I'm in a hurry.  It was a time saver, right?)

But don't look at my to-do stack... SIGH...

Visual Lesson Plans DONE...Thanks to Fall Break!

Fall break has come and gone.  My kiddos and I had a great time together doing a whole bunch of nothing.  We made lots of great memories together over the last week.  It's always sad for breaks to come to an end, but I am excited about the upcoming week!  I am linking up with Deedee to show my visual plans for the week.

This week is all about spiders, bats, owls, Halloween, and finally, our 50s day celebration!  It will be crazy, hectic, chaotic, but FUN and full of learning.  Here's what's on tap for the week:

I'm off to enjoy the last day before the craziness begins!  Have a wonderful week!

Five for Friday

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs' Five for Friday Linky!


Fall Break is coming to an end for me {tear}.  In my district, we get an entire week off the last full week of October.  It's amazing!  Next year, my district is looking at a balanced calendar, which means we will start the end of July/first of August, but we will get two weeks at Fall, Christmas, and Spring Breaks, as well as a full summer.  It has my vote. :)

Here, in no particular order, are my five randoms for the week!

Seriously, that is not even funny.  It's 26 degrees outside right now.  Twenty. Six. Degrees.  It's October, not January.  I love winter, but October is my favorite month.  Stop crushing my style, Mother Nature.  (Seriously though, I'm just glad I haven't had to go outside to scrape ice off of the windows this week.  True story.)

I knew Monday was the only day that would be halfway warm this week (65 degree high), so we headed to the pumpkin patch to find the perfect pumpkin.  It was a wonderfully fun day!

And no, I have no idea where my kids get the red hair.  Recessive gene, maybe?

We carved said pumpkins last night.  We have one traditional pumpkin, and one one-eyed pumpkin, per request.  

These are both horrible pictures, but after carving two pumpkins and making them pose for pictures in the 30 degree weather, we were all over it.  It was the best we could do. :)

Next week is jam packed with all kinds of fun learning!  We will start Monday with spiders.  This is on the agenda, along with some spider fun from Deanna Jump's Spider Unit on TPT:

{Photo from The First Grade Parade}

Tuesday will be all about BATS!  I loathe bats.  They scare the poo out of me.  We will be making this graph again this year:

{Graph idea taken from The First Grade Parade.  Can you tell I love her ideas???}

We will also make a non-fiction book about bats from Deanna Jump's Bat Unit on TPT.  

Wednesday will be owl day!  I love those creatures.  We do a lot of fun activities about owls, but my favorite is our owl pellet dissection.  Here is a fun picture from last year's kiddos.  

Thursday is Halloween, so we will be doing lots of fun stuff that day.  

Friday is the 50th Day of School celebration.  We are having root beer floats, bubble gum blowing contest, and a sock hop!  This is our first year of doing this, so no pics yet. :)

I have a professional development day on Monday.  Yes, Monday.  :)  I'm helping write curriculum for a grant our district received for the state level.  I'm very excited about the opportunity to help our district as we go toward thematic/PBL style of teaching!  With that said, I will be back Sunday to link up with Deedee with my visual plans.

Thanks for reading!

Peek At My Week

This week will be all about bringing in fall!  It's the first week of October, and we are sure going to be celebrating it this week!  While we are right in the middle of end of the grading period assessments, we will be squeezing in some fall fun.  Here is a peek at what we will be doing this week:

Now I have to finally head to bed to watch my favorite story on DVR... Nashville!