Vay-cay

Mr. Sneaker and I got back from our trip to Austria and Italy on Friday evening and we have been enjoying a very lazy weekend. I spent the day yesterday doing a lot of laundry after being away for about 10 days and I finally got in a workout after carb loading and indulging in daily gelato. It is so nice to be home and there is nothing better than falling asleep in my own bed, despite the charm of all the cute little hotels we stayed in.

We had such an amazing time touring some new cities and it was wonderful to have so much uninterrupted time with Mr. Sneaker. We are moving back to the states on August 20th, so life is about to get pretty crazy. I am so glad we had time to just have fun together. And, we'll do the same in Barcelona this weekend! 

Best. Summer. Ever. 

The only problem is that it is flying by way too fast. I can't believe it is almost August and school is just around the corner! I am really excited to embark on my second year as a Kindergarten teacher, but with organizing, packing, moving, paper writing, and settling in a temporary place in Portland once we return--there is just a lot on my mind! 

So vacations are nice for some happy denial time.

Here's a short recap of our trip...

Destination 1: Salzburg, Austria

What we did/saw:

Eagle's Nest

Sound of Music Tour

Hohensalzburg Fortress

After enjoying the Sound of Music Tour in Salzburg, Austria, we posed for a picture with Tuc Watkins who plays Bob on Desperate Housewives. My eagle eye spotted him as soon as I got on the tour bus and hubs and I had fun sneaking peaks as we visited all the famous spots from the movie. The tour was great, but meeting Tuc was really fun. Mr. Sneaker was super cool and chatty and I was a little starstruck. 

Have you ever met a celebrity? What did you say?

 I am sixteen going on seventeen...

 Von Trapp house

Church where Captain Von Trapp and Maria got married.

 I don't actually remember the children dancing in the garden with these guys in the movie, but we had some fun posing with them and imitating their actions.

 We also took in some amazing views at the Eagle's Nest.

Destination 2: Venice

What we did/saw:

St. Mark's Square

St. Mark's Basilica

Correr Museum

Doge's Palace

Gondola Ride

Murano Island

 

We took a water taxi to another island called Murano where they make amazing blown glass. They had tons of little shops selling all kinds of glass creations. I got two rings and a necklace (which I am wearing in the picture). I think I have one of the rings on too, but you can't really see it. 

 Riding the gondola was so fun and romantic. It wasn't cheap, but well worth it and a must do when visiting Venice.

Destination 3: Verona

What we did/saw:

Teatro Romano (from the outside)

Nutella gelato (am. a. zing!)

On the way to Bellagio, we stopped in Verona, which is the city that inspired Romeo and Juliet. We had lunch while we were there, had the best gelato of the trip and walked around a little bit. Juliet's house is one of the big tourist attractions there, but we really didn't stay long and didn't see much.

a rose by any other name...

Destination 4: Bellagio, Italy (Lake Como)

What we did:

ate 

slept

ate

slept

read

Once we got to Bellagio, we pretty much did a whole lot of nothing--unless of course you count eating, sleeping, and relaxing. It was the perfect way to end our trip. The view from the room was supreme and the food was yummy!

 Quality resting and reading time.

I slept a lot on the way home, but we did see some beautiful sights when we drove through Switzerland. 

Now, it's time to kick my butt into gear and make up a lot of missed time on paper writing! Tomorrow is going to be intense!

Pure Bliss

Hello bloggy friends! I am posting from the very beautiful Hotel Bellagio in Bellagio, Italy and I couldn't be happier or more relaxed. Mr. Sneaker and I spent a few days in Venice but we didn't have Internet in the room and for some reason my iPad wouldn't connect to the wifi in the lounge, so I wasn't able to post from there. We had a lovely time seeing the sights, eating delicious food, and riding water taxis and a gondola. I have tons of pics, but I will have to wait and post them when we get back this weekend.

So far we have been pretty lazy in Bellagio, but that's what vacations are for, right? I enjoy sightseeing and learning about new cultures and places, but I also like to just chill and hang out sometimes. And relaxing is good for me because I had some good classroom ideas and ideas for my paper.

I was thinking about what to do with the kiddos during ELD time this year which is when some of the kiddos are pulled out for English Language Development. We have strict rules about what we are not allowed to do during that time--basically we are not allowed to teach anything new that those children will miss, which I completely understand and agree with, but at the same time with our very short day, we want to use all the minutes we have, so that time of day is always difficult. Anything I do with the remaining kids, I wish I could do with all the kids...we are allowed to practice skills, review, etc., so last year I did a mixture of things. I had high hopes of activity stations, which started out as choice time, but then I felt like I wanted more structure during that time.

This year, I know I want to be more organized with the use of this 30 minute chunk of time. So I came up with what seems like a reasonable routine.

Math Mondays-I will have the kiddos work on the great Marcy Cook math tile games that I have. They are individualized and awesome. The kids love them and they are great for math practice.

Travel Tuesdays-going with my love of travel on this theme, I want to make each child a little passport to use as they circulate three table activities. Upon completion of each station, they will get a stamp on their weekly passport page. I am hoping to put together some activity boxes that will be easy to just set out each week. I will train the kiddos on what to do, so I will be free to circulate around. I was thinking of a reading station where I would include the leveled readers that go with out reading program and additional books as the kids get more proficient in reading. I will include some stuffed animals, whisper phones, and fun glasses, and silly fingers/pointers so the kids can practice reading to themselves, whisper read, read to a stuffed friend, and then read to me. I was thinking of having another station be the sight word station where the kiddos will make the sight word with wikki sticks, write the words in sand or salt, form the word with stamps, and maybe even some fun art supplies like pom poms or colored tiles. I am not sure what the final station will be, but probably something more art related or science related.

Words on Wednesdays-On this day I will have the kids work on picture and word sorts from Words Their Way. I will start the year with picture sorts and then move on to the initial sound sorts. I think I will start by precutting the pictures, but eventually I'd like the kids to cut, sort, and glue their sort. When they get really good, I would love to see them write how they sorted or at least tell me so I can write it.

Thoughtful Thursdays- I think this will be my favorite day of the week. We are allowed to do our Second Steps lessons during ELD, as if certain kids don't need to learn social skills, so on these days I would like to read some stories that make us think. I don't want the other kiddos to miss out, so possibly this will be a time to re-read and extend certain stories. Also, I want to focus some energy on doing kind things for others during this time. Maybe we will write letters or draw pictures for loved ones, make coupons for nice things we can do for friends or family, or brainstorm helpful things we can do around school. I would love to do some service learning with the kids this year, but I haven't thought that throuh yet.

Flexible Friday- This day will be for catching up, finishing other projects from the week, assessing, etc.

I feel like I have a lot to do in order to make this plan work, but I am so excited for it...especially the passports.

It's almost time for a yummy pizza dinner, but stay tuned for pictures later in the week!

Sneaker Teacher Loves Shoes!

Quick post from Austria as I am enjoying The Sound of Music in our hotel room. Mrs. Tabb from Just Another Day in First Grade is doing a giveaway on a unit all about shoes! At the Sneaker household we are all about fun shoes, so I was in love when I saw Mrs. Tabb's cute work. She is giving the unit away for free to anyone who posts about it. Check it out! I am not able to link up directly to her site since I am on my iPad and it's giving me some issues when I try to cut and paste the link, but if you look in my blog roll you will find her! This unit looks like it will be great for working on sorting and comparing and contrasting with my kiddos.

Road Trip!

Hubs and I are leaving tomorrow for a little road trip and I am super excited. I never travel without my iPad so hopefully I will put up some posts while we are away. Most likely they won't be too teachery, but I think you'll forgive me for that. I should change the name of this blog to Travel Teacher because I talk about teaching and traveling a lot more than I talk about teaching and fitness these days. Oh well, travel talk is fun!

Maybe I will post a nice darling video of myself singing a little do re mi during the Sound of Music Tour. Not really, since I do want you to come back!

I am happy to share that I have stuck to my one page per day writing goal and I actually have moved onto my sixth page in just three days. Once I start writing, it's a lot easier to fill the pages and get it done, but for some reason, it is SO hard start when I am facing a completely blank page. I sent my work so far off to a few friends from class for their feedback and it was hard to share my work when it is still so rough. The ultimate challenge would be to post it here, but that is a lot scarier than sharing it with a few people from class. I really struggled with organizing my ideas into an outline and I know at some point that will bite me, but for now I am just freely writing and letting it all spill out. When it comes time to edit, I will be more critical, but for now, I am just getting it out.

If we have internet, I will stay in the bloggy loop, but if not, I'll check ya later!

Discuss

You all know Pioneer Woman, right? If you don't, I highly recommend checking out her very multifaceted blog and I highly recommend her recipe for sangria! She is pretty much a Jack Jane of all trades and has mad cooking skills as evidenced here. Today her blog featured a guest post from a woman by the name of Kristen Chase called Does School Help or Hurt Intellectual Growth referencing this article...

 

which starts off with this quote...

Here are some excerpts:

I tried to pull out some of the really catching ideas presented in the article, but if you are interested to read the whole thing (please do!) you can find the entire text here. 

Thoughts?

I have mixed feelings when it comes to people who criticize the education that takes place in schools. On the one hand, as a teacher, I definitely recognize areas of our current educational system that need improvement. I am focusing my doctoral work and my current specialty paper on culturally responsive instruction and what we can do to meet the needs of culturally and linguistic learners, especially in the context of being given a scripted program as if the preselected stories and images can possibly apply to all children and their unique experiences. I frequently wish that I could simply close my door and teach my students in the manner that I know is more appropriate, yet there is another side to the coin. 

When I read or hear remarks from people who speak negatively of what happens in schools, I start feeling very defensive because I know that teachers work incredibly hard to do the very best we can for our students, working with the day in and day out to help them succeed and often feeling like they belong to us and we are solely responsible for their very well being. We bust out butts in our work and we are skilled at what we do. 

We do the best we can with what we have.

Yes, I want my students to be creative.

Yes, I want my students to be critical thinkers and problem solvers.

Yes, I want my students to be kind people with strong character and work ethic.

Yes, I want my students to navigate different situations and interact with each other.

And guess what... those things happen in my classroom.

Despite the mandates to use a teacher manual to teach Phonics and Math, my students are not simply robots. Sure, I would love to have more freedom to teach in different ways and yes, I do feel restrained by the requirements for a particular number of minutes on each subject and the very tightly packed schedule that we have in half day Kindergarten, but I definitely think that my students benefit my being in my classroom. They grow as people and as learners and I hate that despite who we are as individuals we have a bad rap for stifling creativity and squashing dreams.

This whole topic is exactly what fuels me in my dissertation work because I agree that we have to change and we have to do more to navigate American education in a new direction. I very much agree with the article's author about types of activities and thinking kids should be doing and I try my darndest to include those things in what we do and what I teach so that children experience education in my classroom in a way that opens them up to a world of learning and experiences. 

I want more of those experiences for my students so perhaps a little of my own creative disobedience is in order, but it's difficult because it feels like going with my beliefs results in being a rule breaker....kind of like Kristen says in her post. This article was really interesting to me and I hope you read both Kristen's post on Pioneer Woman and the article. Here are the links one more time...

Kristen's Post

The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience

What are your thoughts on the article or the bits I pulled out?

What do you do with your students to encourage creativity and critical thinking?

How much freedom do you have to teach how/what you want?

Discuss!

Wax & Wane

Holy 300 followers! Love it! Thanks for visiting.

***

Yesterday was very productive.

Today, not so much as evidenced by the fact that it's approaching 2:30 and I am once again still in my pjs.

I wish someone could observe me and take notes indicating how I spend all of the minutes in my day. I bet I would be sickened fascinated to realize how much of my time is wasted doing meaningless things rather than making good use of my time.

I did sit down to write my daily page, so I am 2 for 2 on that little self bargain and that is good.

I also booked our tickets for the Sound of Music Tour in Austria on Friday. Apparently the 4 hour tour is filled with all kinds of singing. I don't think anyone wants to hear me sing, but I can't wait! Maybe hubs should wear his lederhosen.

Seriously, how cute is Mr. Sneaker in his traditional German attire?

So I guess the day hasn't been entirely unproductive, but the whole pj thing makes me feel like Miss Lazypants. Must. Get. Dressed. Maybe I should put on the lederhosen.

Rather than boring you with more details of  my already confessed laziness, let's talk behavior management. Do you use a behavior management system in your classroom? I started a system mid year and I really liked it, so I think starting it on the very first day this year will be great and will produce even better results.

Here's the deal:

I have two calendar pocket charts hanging on the wall (one for each class). Each pocket has a label with a child's name on it. Inside the pocket are three small popsicle sticks. The teacher who I got this idea from used a calculator pocket chart but I couldn't find those so I used a smaller version and just got the mini sticks to use. Each of the child's sticks has his or her name written on it in black Sharpie.

I explain the system to my class in terms of making good choices. If they make good choices all week and keep all three sticks, on Friday they get 15-20 minutes of choice time which is like telling them they get unlimited access to a candy store because they just love choice time since they otherwise don't have any play time or recess time.

If on the other hand, a child chooses something that is not okay, I ask them to remove a stick from the pocket and bring it to me. I store all the "lost" sticks on a cup that I stapled high up on the wall.

On Fridays, I do a little "ceremony" with certificates. Any child that kept all three sticks gets a little yellow certificate with their name on it that says "Yay I made good choices all week." Any child that lost all three sticks, gets a refocus note. I don't give those out during the ceremony, but I do pull the child aside during the choice time (which they didn't earn) and we talk about what happened. I made the form really simple to fill out because I wouldn't keep up with it if it was complicated. The form lists our three school rules

• Be kind
• Be safe
• Be responsible

and I check off which rule was not followed. Then there is a spot for notes where I can write John hit another student or Sally was talking a lot while I was teaching. The form goes home in the Friday folder and there is a spot for parent signature.

Overall I found that this system really worked. Each Monday the kids start with all three sticks and if they lose any they get them back the following Monday. Having choice time was definitely a great motivation and the certificates were an extra incentive for kids to keep all of their sticks. They also got to add a sticker to a little chart next to their name each time they kept all three sticks. Most kids hated losing sticks and really refocused themselves when they lost one without me having so say much more than bring me a stick. Yes, there were several kiddos who needed additional behavior support, but for the greens and the yellows (can you picture the triangle right now?) this system really worked.

I first discovered it when I visited a friend's Kinder classroom and I was FLOORED by how well behaved her kiddos were. Absolutely. Shocked. She said she was really strict with this system at the beginning of the year and she felt mean all the time, but it really worked and the kids learned that some stuff just doesn't fly in the classroom. I am excited to try it out from the getgo, yet I feel like I don't have it in me to be a "strict" teacher.

I'm just not. Yet, I don't think that is what I aspire to be either. I want to have clear expectations and I expect good behavior, but I don't want kids to be overly worried about making a mistake or being called out for every little thing. I have seen kids lose their mojo in classrooms as a result of having a teacher that was too strict. Last year I knew that kids were happy to be in my class and loved coming to school. Those things are very important to me.

Do you consider yourself a strict teacher? How so?

I am not at all saying it's negative to be strict--in fact I admire teachers who have classroom management down pat, but I need to do it the way I am comfortable with and I am working on focusing more on the positive and making the good choices so much more desirable than the poor ones that kids don't want to misbehave.

So the stick system in addition to all the awesome new social skills books I ordered from amazon (yes, you read that right..all the new books as in I didn't pick out my favorites I ordered all $150 dollars worth of my awesome list which I will get reimbursed for ) will hopefully make for a great year of successful Kindie managing.

I wish I had pictures of the sticks, but I hope you can use your imagination. I am planning to start out and allow them three sticks per day for the first month or so of school so they can get used to what kinds of things result in lost sticks. I will probably do a daily sticker for kids who have kept all three. At the beginning of Kinder I think a week is too long and I want them to have more frequent reinforcement for making good choices.

::PS have any of you read Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn? My friend who I worked with at the international school said that a parent of one of her students insisted she read it because this parent did not like her token economy system in the classroom because said parent did not believe in rewards. I would like to read the book to see what it says, but I am pretty comfortable with my belief that it is okay to use extrinsic motivation for young kids, especially little Kindies. Thoughts? ::

So now tell me about how you do you get all of your little angels to make good choices and follow classroom rules and directions?

Success!

Oh how good it feels to get things done. Hubs got up early today to compete in his second day of this crazy sports competition that includes basketball, volleyball, soccer, and handball. Rather than rolling over and going back to sleep after I sent him off with a cute red cooler full of snacks packed with love, I jumped right on my To Do list and have been knocking it out of the park.

• I baked a loaf of banana bread with chocolate chunks ::yummy!::

• I made a batch of cookie dough to put in the freezer for a BBQ we are going to on the 29th. We are getting back from our trip just a few hours before the party, so I wanted to have the dough pre-made so I can just plop some balls on a tray and put them in the oven!

• I cut up some peppers and onions for our fajita dinner so I could clean the horrendous hot mess that was my kitchen and not have make another mess later.

• I cleaned the whole apartment, vacuumed, and am working on load of laundry #2.

• And yes, I wrote 1 page of my paper! Actually, including the chart I put in that outlines the four major curriculum theories, I wrote about a page and a half. Score!

• The list still says run & read and it should say Skype date with my bestie, but I would never forget to do that! Unfortunately when I looked out the window in the midst of my cleaning frenzy, it was pouring rain. Not such a good day for a long run.....but I do reside in Oregon (unless I am spending a fabby summer in Europe!), so I know that a little rain doesn't hurt.

 So....now that all that productivity is out of the way (minus the run which I will do at some point), I have Kindergarten on my brain.

More specifically...objectives.

Do you have to write out content and language objectives for your lessons?

At my school we are supposed to.

But, I don't.

::cringe::

I hate to admit that I don't because I completely believe in the important of making sure the goal of the lesson is clear, but for some reason, writing the goal out for each lesson when we are doing something different approximately every 15 minutes seems like too much.

too. much.

I have toyed with different ways to make sure that I am at least verbally stating the objective for each lesson including singing our goals to the tune of "we will rock you" each morning during our good morning circle. But, I have not yet gotten into the habit of actually writing out my daily content and language objectives.

Towards the end of the year, I started using my magnetic letters to show the kiddos what our letter and sight word of the week were and I found that helpful, so I am trying to brainstorm ways to include my lesson objectives in picture or written form this year. The good thing is that we typically study the same letter or word all week, so my fear of having to rewrite objective numerous times a day is pretty nonsensical.

I am picturing some type of dry erase board on my instructional wall where I can write our weekly objectives (at least for reading) and just keep them up all week. That would include a few sounds from Fast Track, our special letter of the week that is tied to our star of the week, and our sight word of the week. That way the kiddos could see them and know what our focus is, but I won't have to erase them in order to write other things if I use an entirely separate dry erase board. I am hoping to just buy a sheet of dry erase board from Home Depot and drill holes in it so I can just hang it on my instructional wall somewhere. Then I would use my other dry erase board that I prop on my big book stand for writing other things during my lessons.

I used to do a written morning message with my firsties and I loved it, so that is something I would of course love to incorporate with the objectives if I can somehow miraculous infuse more time into the day. There are so many things I wish I could do if only I had the time. What about choosing one sentence from a newspaper article each day and have the kids practice finding the sight word and then talking about what happened in the news.... Or, writing a sentence about something we have worked on in class or something about our daily schedule. I used to love making mistakes on purpose in my message and asking the kiddos to tell me what was wrong and how to fix it. Again, if only I had the time!

I can't wait to get back into my classroom so I can start arranging the furniture and working on my separate math and literacy walls. I am not sure what to do with math objectives because our new math program often has us doing 5 completely unrelated lessons a week, but my team did talk about rearranging some of our units so that we can kind of work on one thing at a time instead of jumping around so much. Maybe if we do that, math objectives will be easier.

In theory, writing the daily objective doesn't seem that hard, but neither does sharpening pencils and I seem to have major issues getting that done as well. It's just those little things that seem to fall through the cracks in the grand scheme of everything I need to do. Speaking of sharpening pencils, last night we had dinner with a friend of Mr. Sneaker who has a pencil sharpener company here in Germany. He gave me about 8 different kinds of little sharpeners to bring to my classroom!

Hopefully given the changes I want to make in the organization of my room and with the addition of my awesome new rug, I will be able to create special locations just for posting my daily objectives. I would love to feel that organized and I do think that it's a good thing to specifically point out to the kiddos what I want them to know or be able to show me at the end of a lesson. There is so much potential for being explicit about that and I would love to think of ways to involve the kids so they somehow interact with the written objective and get into the habit of checking for it, reading it, and making sure they get it.

Oh, how we expect so much from our little Kindies.

Do you do a morning message with your kiddos?
What kinds of things do you write?

How do your kiddos interact with it?

Break it Down

I have posted several times already this summer about my guilt over not being overly productive since school let out. I have gone on two trips (with two more to come--next week is Salzburg, Venice, and Lake Como then hopefully Barcelona in early August!), gone on some great runs in the forest, read a few good books, cooked some real food for hubs, and slept late.

But, I have not written a single word of my paper.

So regardless of what else I do, not writing the paper= unproductive

I successfully defended my core paper on June 16th and because I was the 5th out of 6 people in my cohort to do that, I already felt behind on my next paper, which is called the Pre-Proposal Comprehensive Specialty Exam (Specialty Paper for short).

::Just a little catch up for those of you who are newer readers==> In early 2009, I got accepted into the doctoral program at Portland State University. Shortly after that, hubs got an offer to relocate to Germany with his company. In August 2009 hubs and I moved to Germany and I taught at an International School for the 2009-2010 school year while doing independent study with my adviser, skyping with him every other week, and skyping into class in the wee hours of the morning during spring term to get as much of the work completed as I could from afar. In early 2010, hubs and I decided that in order to stay in the program, I would return to Portland (sans Mr. Sneaker) for the 2010-2011 school year to complete my doctoral coursework and keep my position in my school district since I was only granted a one year leave of absence. So, I lived in Portland while Mr. Sneaker lived in Germany from August 15, 2010-June 18th, 2011. It was a very challenging year for many reasons (being away from hubs, teaching Kinder for the first time, being observed by my principal a lot, and spending almost all of my free time doing homework), but it flew by seemingly on fast forward and now I am back in Germany with Mr. Sneaker until August 20th when we are officially moving back to Portland where I will return to the same school I worked at last year and he will take a new position within the same company at the Portland office. whew...are you caught up?::

Anywho....All throughout this past school year I pictured the gloriousness of being able to wake up, grab a cup o joe and leisurely spend several hours a day reading the large pile of books I collected all year and writing my specialty paper. It was so hard to get my core paper done with all the other coursework and teaching work that it seemed like writing the specialty paper when I wasn't working would be a total cake walk.

I was wrong.

I am aimless without a schedule.

::confession--on Friday when hubs got home at 6:00, I was still in my pajamas...I don't think I did a single productive thing all day long...don't judge::

What I imagined to be a blissful breezy effort in scholarly writing has turned into a daily guiltfest over not yet having written a single word.

not. one. word.

I have been reading a lot on curriculum theory, which may sound boring, but is actually quite interesting and makes 30 minutes on the elliptical go by in a flash. I am loving all that John Dewey had to say and finding myself really siding with the social meliorists over the proponents of social efficiency (education for social justice over education operated like a business or a factory) and I can picture all this info somehow fitting together to make a great paper, but as of now I don't even have a word doc dedicated to said paper.

So I started to think about how I am going to figure this out--how I will get it done this summer before the craziness of school starts up again. I want to be able to move on to my dissertation and my own research this coming school year, so my specialty paper needs to be dunzo. I am starting 30 empty pages in the face and I need to somehow whip myself into a paper writing frenzy before I move back to Portland (because once I am there, life is going to be all about setting up my classroom with the help of Mrs. Bee).

So, I though to myself what if I wrote one page a day. That doesn't sound so bad.

One page a day for thirty days and I will have myself a draft.

One page on curriculum theory here. One page on culturally responsive teaching there. A page on why scripted curricula don't connect with all students and pretty soon I will have myself a paper!

When we teach kids we take big things that seem difficult or overwhelming and we break them down into reasonable steps. This paper is so daunting that I just haven't even begun and let's be honest...it's about time.

So, tomorrow I am going to write one page. Chances are if I write one page, I will probably get a good flow going and I will want to keep writing. Chances are, if I keep writing, I will get really excited about curriculum theory and how it relates to learning theory and what reading instruction looks like in our classrooms today which will inspire me to spout off ideas about how we could to use scripted curricula as a foundation for reading instruction while enhancing the lessons with culturally responsive instruction that helps all kids connect with the importance of reading in meaningful ways. Chances are while feeling inspired about what kind of reading instruction is best for culturally and linguistically diverse learners, I will keep writing more and more all the while dreaming of being the most organized, fabulous, creative, wonderful, and amazing teacher ever. Chances are, if I start feeling the best teacher ever, I will want to eat, sleep, live all things teachery and will write page after page after page until my paper is done. Chances are, if I write one page tomorrow, I will finish my paper by August 20th.

And, I am counting on you all to hold me accountable. Shoot me a comment every once in awhile. Something like, Hey Mrs. Sneaker, how is that amazing paper coming? I will be eternally grateful and maybe when I'm finished, I will do a giveaway. The winner gets a copy of my paper! (Just kidding!).

In all seriousness, this paper needs to happen. I need to get out of my aimless summer funk and just start writing.

One page a day.

30 days.

Completed paper.

Well, ok let's be honest...completed first draft which will be covered in red after being reviewed by my wonderful advisers, but hey, editing is a different ball game than writing. The act of composing when starting at a blank page is far more frightening than rearranging, deleting, adding, and spell checking. But, a completed first draft is good with me!

Wish me luck!

How do you tackle huge projects that seem overwhelming?

What are summers like for you? productive or lazy and guilt free?

Linky Party Blog Mixer

As I mentioned yesterday, Yearn to Learn is hosting a blog mixer to spread the word about new teacher bloggies and give other teacher bloggies a chance to uncover some new awesomeness.

You should definitely play along! Here's how:

1. Find a blogger who is a "New Kid on the Blog".
(Someone who has blogged 2 months or less and has less than 200 followers).
2. Post a blogger in your same grade level.
3. Post a blogger in a different grade level.
4. Find a cute blog button and post it.

1. For the newbie blogger my natural choice is Mrs. Bee because she teaches Kinder at my school and she is my awesome friend. I have an issue with being pretty shy about my blog and I tend to not tell teachers I work with about it, but I shared it with Mrs. Bee this past spring and she was super supportive of it and decided to start her own. Now that I have completely sucked her into the world of blogging our relationship is even closer because of our shared obsession with all things Kinder and bloggy! Mrs. B has quickly acclimated to the world of blogging with a super cute blog, joining in on linky parties, becoming a teacher blog addict, and sharing ideas about parent involvement and classroom management.

::sidenote:: I kind of think it's funny that for the first one it says a new kid on the block that has less than 200 followers. I think I blogged for two years before I got 200 followers! I have been noticing several new followers popping up recently and I am really happy new people are interested in Sneaker Teacher. I promise more talk of summer teacher prep and travel adventures to come!

2. Well, technically Mrs. B fits the bill for #1 and #2 since we both teach Kindergarten, but I am going to choose another Kinder blog too. I have to go with Look at My Happy Rainbow his was the first Kindergarten blog I ever followed (even in the days when I taught first grade and NEVER wanted to teach Kinder!). His blog is filled with stories about being a male Kinder teacher and the funny/charming/adorable/worrisome things that happen in Kindergarten. When I got reassigned to teach Kindergarten after living in Germany for a year, one of the things that got me excited about it was remembering some of his posts and stories about the unmatchable joys of teaching Kindergarten. And, after doing it for a year, I agree--It's magical! Also, I will give a shout out to Kelly. Her main blog focuses more on fitness, food, and travel. But, she also started a teaching blog called Kelly Teaches where she gives good descriptions of what she does in the classroom and why. I heart Kelly!

3. My choice for a blog about a different grade level is The Caffeinated Teacher. Sunny taught 5th grade last year and will be moving to 2nd grade this year. She has just decided to go for her National Board Certification (go girl!) and is the queen of organization, binders, and Diet Coke. I would love a chance to watch her in action for a day! She recently wrote a great post about using Words Their Way and she shares my profound love of books!

4. And last but not least...a cute button

http://misskindergartenlove.blogspot.com/

Hope you join in the linky party fun! If you do, leave a comment with your link so I can check it out!

Excited

Sometimes it's the little things in life that can make me really excited

Like eating an ice cream cone with a ginormous scoop of peanut butter and jelly ice cream and chocolate sprinkles on top (which I did today)

or getting a big hug from hubs when he gets home from work

or fitting into skinny jeans especially after devouring said ice cream

Does anyone else out there have skinny jeans? I don't mean the super tight kind of jeans that are trendy...I mean skinny jeans which are the opposite of fat pants.

jeans-the jeans you bought when you were in really good shape that you keep around and try on every once in awhile just to make sure you can still get the zipper up.

fat pants--the pants you wear when you just aren't at your fittest and you don't want to deal with a zipper struggle.

Anyone?

My skinny jeans are size 6 jeans from American Eagle that I got my junior year of college. The have huge holes in the knees and frayed hems. The summer after my HSBF dumped me, I got into really good revenge shape and they were my favorite jeans that fall. Hubs remembers seeing me for the first time that school year when I was wearing those jeans, a yellow T-shirt and sporting a nice tan. He was smitten.

Anyway, in addition to feeling pretty good that I can still get them on my body ::with just a smidge of sucking it in:: I am pretty psyched about this...

www.mpmschoolsupplies.com Fun with Phonics Carpet 8'4" X 13'4" $430.65

or possibly this...

Lakeshorelearning.com Learning Letters and Shapes Activity Carpet 9' X 12' $469

Both Mrs. Bee and I want to get new rugs for our classrooms. We both have big oval rugs that I use for my good morning greeting. There are letters around the border, so each kid technically has a letter to sit on, but even with only 22 kiddos, they didn't really have enough room. I desperately want a new rug for instruction. There are a few big reasons why...

• I want a bigger rug so the kids have more room to spread out. I particularly like the first one because there are 35 little squares so potentially I could stagger the kiddos and they would have their own defined space to sit on.

• I like how both of these rugs have specific spots, so I can assign carpet spots this year. I didn't do that last year because I do think kids should have the freedom to sit where they want to, yet I had a lot of kids who talked too much on the carpet and some kiddos who routinely sat by other kiddos and were a distraction to each other and the rest of the class. I think it would make transitions to the carpet easier if kids had a special spot. 

• Having the smaller squares to sit on makes it easier to put the kiddos in rows. I had them sit in rows when we used our math trays last year and it took a lot of time to get them organized in rows. Hopefully with one of these rugs, that would be easier to do. 

• I want to have two separate areas next year--one for morning meeting and a reading corner and another for reading and math instruction. Sometimes my kiddos had confusion about how to sit when I was teaching. I only wanted them on letters (in an oval) for our greeting, but often when they would transition to the carpet they would sit on letters during instruction time and clump together like a bunch of grapes. With two distinct areas, I think seating arrangements will be clearer. 

The drawback to getting a new rug is that they are SO spendy. Ugh! We do get a chunk of money from the district, so I have enough to pay for one, but it just takes up such a huge portion of that money, it leaves fewer funds for books and such ::sad face::

Mrs. Bee talked to Lakeshore and they said shipping is free and they could give us a small discount with our purchase.

I called MPM School Supply earlier today and the gentleman I spoke with said if we both buy a rug, he would give us a bit of a deal and we could pay $410 for each rug instead of $430 with free shipping. Not bad! Considering I prefer the rug from that store, it is a bonus that it would save us 59 dollars over the Lakeshore one. I have to check with Mrs. B, but I think we are going to go for it! It definitely makes a difference when a company is willing to work in a little extra discount for teachers!

Does anyone have either of those rugs? Are the little areas roomy enough for little Kinder bodies?

I am getting so excited to arrange my room for the new year. We had to put everything away at the end of the year, so I am loving the idea of starting from scratch and reorganizing my different classroom areas. I have decided to take out the little play kitchen that I had last year :: mean teacher:: in order to allow more space for a little book reading/library area. The kiddos LOVED the play kitchen but we barely ever had choice time during which they could use it and feelings were always hurt when a few kids got to play there on Friday and others had to make a different choice. Kindergarten just doesn't have a lot of play time included anymore (at least at my school with a half day schedule), so I feel like having a play area like that is more of a tease...yes, it does provide a great opportunity to build social skills and learn through play, but for 15 minutes once a week, I need that prime real estate for books and reading. I want my kiddos to love being in the reading area as much as they loved playing in the kitchen.

What are you excited for?

What have you been working on for the new school year?

P.S. Yearn to Learn has posted a fun Blog Mixer Linky Party to help spread the word about new teacher blogs, make new bloggy friends, and discover great teaching ideas. I am going to link up tomorrow, so stay tuned! In the meantime, check it out!

Flags!

A few days ago I shared that I want to incorporate some learning about different countries/cultures with our letter practice this school year. We focus on one letter per week in Kindergarten, so I thought it would be fun to choose one country that begins with each letter of the alphabet so that we can be a bit more global in our classroom and learn about different places and people. I have the kids do morning work at their tables when they first arrive, so I found flags for each country we will talk about for them to color during morning work. The cool thing about coloring flags is that it will be an exercise in really focusing on the model and coloring the flags accordingly.

I changed my original country list because I couldn't find some flags. There are a few letter duplicates because I haven't made up my mind which country I want to use and Luxembourg is for x because I didn't come across any countries that start with x, so I settled for one that had an x in the name!

I saved all of the flags in a folder on my computer, but I also uploaded them to scribd in case anyone else wants to borrow. I put them into a collection so my hope is that you would be able to just print once and get them all...fingers crossed! Please feel free to use this as you like, but if you like it please let me know what your plans are! (just curious and I love ideas!)

I caved and started watching this season of The Bachelorette today since there is nothing else on TV and I had the first 5 episodes on Tivo. I am not sure how I feel about it so far. I already know about the Bentley drama and I just kind of feel like it's super cheesy. I have gotten really into in past seasons, but I am watching her beg Bentley stay when she knew from the beginning that he was there for the wrong reasons....smoothe move.

Are you watching? Who are you rooting for? Catch me up!

Wish List

It all started with an email from Amazon indicating that my free year long trial of Amazon Prime shipping is about to come to an end. ::tear:: I have until July 21st to get free next day shipping and after that, I will have to pay the fee to keep the prime shipping account in action. Because I am a student, I was able to have Prime shipping free for a year and now I can pay $39 if I want to keep the account. I guess the regular price is $79, so I am leading towards taking advantage of that deal. With all that I order from amazon, I think I will definitely get my money's worth in what I save on shipping costs.

But, since I am not sure if I will keep my Prime account, I thought I better order some of the books I want for the upcoming school year before my free shipping runs out. Mrs. Bee said I can ship anything I order to her house since I am still in Germany. I was emailing Mrs. Bee, who is my sweet friend and also teaches Kinder at my school, this morning and I got to thinking about all the amazing books I have read about on Books that Heal Kids. If you don't know about this blog, go there...now! (Actually, finish reading my post and then go there!). Roxanne has the greatest inventory of fabulous books that help teach kids valuable lessons and things about life. She summarizes the stories and gives a little blurb about why she loves the books.  In order to come up with the list of what I want to order, I just popped on over to her blog and used her list of topics to search for books that will help me with particular lessons.

I did not do a good job teaching our social skills program last year (because I don't like it) so I want to make this year better--by using stories to teach about these skills and concepts rather than scripted lessons based on photo cards. These stories will help kids to relate better and let's face it, I just love any opportunity to buy more books. I was just in the basement yesterday returning some books to their boxes so they are altogether for our big move in August and I was so happy to see all my books that I will finally have in my classroom again once our shipment arrives (in October?).

So, I searched and found many books that I would love to get and I started by just putting them in my amazon cart. I am not pulling the trigger on buying them quite yet because the cost is close to $200, but at least that gives me a place where I can refer to the titles I want and possibly find more reasonable prices on used books or something like that.

Without further ado, I present to you....my wish list! 

This first set shows books on skin color, culture, and diversity.

This next set is more focused on social skills, school rules, and behavior.

I think I am most excited for Rosemary Wells' new series of Kindergator books! She is devoting a whole series to social skills books and that is awesome!

I love the power of a good story and I hope that I can get my hands on at least some of these gems to use this year. Yes, the library is always an option, but I do much better when I actually own the books, and if they are truly great, then I want to have them for my own collection. We found that we definitely had to break out The Bucket Book on numerous occasions last year so I was glad to be able to just grab my copy and remind the kiddos about filling buckets rather than waiting days to get it from the library in order to remind the kiddos of said bucket filling.

What are some of your favorite books for teaching kids about social skills, behavior, or diversity?

Lovely

What a view!

Our weekend in Austria was am.az.ing. We relaxed, ate wonderfully delicious food thanks to Veronica's culinary skills, swam, hiked, and I actually got a lot of reading done. 

 

This was a text for one of my classes at some point and I re-read almost the entire thing in the past few days. I am still trying to figure out exactly what to write for my next paper, which is called my "specialty" paper. It is basically a lit review on my educational interest, so I have been trying to plan my outline and this book is a great resource in the areas of multicultural education, diversity, equity, cultural differences etc.

I have big plans for lots of reading tomorrow. 

These are a few on my list. 

Hubs and I have plans to do a driving trip to Lake Como, Venice, and Saltzburg in about a week and a half and a trip to Barcelona in August, so I feel like the summer is very quickly slipping away and I am going to be so mad at myself if I don't get this paper done, so it's about time I buckle down and really focus on reading, taking notes, and writing. 

So tomorrow, the day should go something like this...

grocery shop

run

read

Here are some more pics from our lovely hike...

and my favorite...

ABCs Around the World

I said I probably wouldn't post from Austria, but I have something on my mind. After a beautiful and challenging hike up the foothills of the Alps, I sat down with one of my textbooks called Affirming Diversity and did some reading while hubs played in the pool with the boys. I was reading chapters about multicultural education and the importance of acknowledging the big world that exists outside our classroom walls and p.communities. I started thinking about how much I liked introducing different ways to say hello during our morning greeting circle and started brainstorming what else I could do to add in some learning about other places. Since we study one letter each week in Kinder, I decided to choose one country that starts with each letter of the alphabet that we can learn a little about when we focus on that letter. I am picturing putting a pin in a map of the world, learning how people who live there greet each other and adding each greeting to the wall near our circle carpet, and learning something special about that location. This is what I am thinking...

Afghanistan
Brazil
Columbia
Denmark
Ecuador
France
Ghana
Holland
Italy India

Japan
Korea
Laos
Mexico
Norway
Oman
Peru
Qatar
Russia
Spain
Thailand
Uruguay United States

Venezuela
West Indies
Luxembourg (I settled for any country with an x in its name)
Yemen
Zaire

I think in order to make this happen I need to do all of the leg work this summer so the materials and info I need are already prepped. That way I can possibly give the list to parents so if they are familiar with or come from any of these countries, they can share some info with me. I know many families at my school are from Mexico so that will be a fun week. We also do a snack that goes with the letter of the week so it will be fun to think about what people in other countries might eat. I would love to learn a little about China and eat with chopsticks the week we do the /ch/ sound.

I always have lofty goals during the summer, but I am excited to try and make this happen. I love visiting all these new places I have been traveling to and I always think it's important for teachers to bring their own interests and passions into the classroom.

Please excuse the typos if there are any...I am posting from my iPad.

Weekend in Austria

Mr. Sneaker and I are driving to Austria later tonight to visit some friends. We met them in Portland when Juergen was working there for a few years. They are German, but are now living in Austria. Well, technically Veronica is Argentinian, but her family moved to Germany when she was about 9 or 10, so she lived in Germany longer and she is fluent in English, German, and Spanish! They moved from Portland back to Germany a few years ago, then we moved to Germany, then they moved to Austria. Now we are going there to visit. They have two super cute sons, Luca and Hannes and I am excited to see their new(ish) house. They moved awhile back and Mr. Sneaker visited several times during my hiatus in the US, but I haven't been yet. The last time we drove through Austria on our way back from visiting Neuschwanstein, I was blown away by how gorgeous it is and I am really excited to go back! Luckily I did about a zillion loads of laundry yesterday so we can clean clothes to pack up. 

Actually, I think we could go months without doing laundry and still have enough clean clothes. Yesterday I went through Mr. Sneaker's clothes because we just have to get rid of some stuff before we move back and I counted 133 T-shirts. Yes, that's right....one hundred thirty three. And, then this morning I found some more hidden in my wardrobe. Sneaky husband... So last night we did a little sorting and I told hubs it would be ridiculous to keep more than 100 T-shirts, so he and I went through them all and made a large pile to get rid of. The only problem is that there isn't a Good Will or anything here, so I have to figure out what to do with this big box of stuff so that I can get it out of here before hubs has second thoughts! ::hehe:: Hubs is actually very good about getting rid of stuff, but he just accumulates so much working in the world of sports that no matter how much we give away, there is an ever reproducing pile.

I feel like I am rambling. Is this post going anywhere?

This afternoon I am headed to meet my friend Christy for coffee, whom I haven't seen since I left last summer. (was that the correct usage of whom?). I am looking forward to catching up with her and then skyping with my bestie, Cristina, a bit later. Cristina and I are both just a little bit excited that there is a new book in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series...I thought it was over, but no...there's more!

I want to download it on my iPad, but it's $16.00 and that seems like a lot for a book that I can't sell, loan, or donate to anyone else. Even the hardcover is only $13. I thought that electronic books were supposed to be less expensive...oh well...We'll see if I can wait it out for it to become cheaper. Speaking of books, I read two Emily Giffin books in the last week.

Both were good, but I preferred Love the One You're With. She is the author of Something Borrowed, which is now a movie with Kate Hudson. I also re-read her book Something Blue while I was in London.  I kind of feel like it's a waste of money to buy a book that I will read in about 3 days, but I like to have something good when I travel because there is a lot of waiting around.

Now, I need to delve into some of the readings and books for my next paper! Somehow all this free time has not resulted in me working on that! I need to get it done this summer before I go back to work!

I don't think I will post this weekend, but I will be back with pics on Sunday night!

Wedding Weekend

Whew. After all of the busyness over the weekend and being overtired from all of the wedding festivities, I am very proud of myself for getting up early this morning and getting to work on my mile long to do list ( I actually made one today!). I have already been grocery shopping, unpacked our suitcases and put all the clothes away/in the laundry and am working on load # 3 of laundry. There is still a ton to do and I need a quick turn around because hubs and I decided to head to Austria this weekend to visit some friends. Do we ever stay home? We are pretty much on a mission to do as much as we can before moving back to the states because when else is Austria going to be a 3 hour drive away?? Hopefully the rain holds off because last time Mr. Sneaker went to Austria he did some great hiking and I would love to give that a try. 

Speaking of giving things a try, despite my best efforts to hang with the rest of the bikers in Amsterdam, I have to say that if I never ride a bike again it will be too soon. I feel like I should have worn a sign on my back saying "biker in training" or something because then perhaps the other bikers would have given me a bit more space and proceeded with a bit more caution as they whizzed past me. Some of the streets were so busy with cars, vespas, and other bikers, that I think it is quite a miracle  I managed to not hit anything or anyone or injure myself. Although I really enjoyed spending time in Amsterdam, I don't know that I would ever want to live there. 

The rest of the wedding festivities were super fun and I had several I can't believe this is really my life moments throughout the course of the trip. We never made it to the Anne Frank House, which is a huge bummer, but we did a lot of other really fun things and this trip was more about the wedding than sight seeing. On the 4th we went on a boat cruise around the canal with the majority of the wedding guests. We cruised around for about three hours with the champagne flowing the entire time as well as a full on BBQ from the front of the boat. 

 Mr. Sneaker and I both spilled on our holiday attire. 

I guess we just don't do well with light colors..

The following morning we had breakfast at the hotel and relaxed until checkout. Then we headed for the bus that took us to the wedding venue. The wedding was held about 45 minutes away from where we had stayed and was on a gorgeous grassy golf course. Absolutely beautiful. We had been told that we would be staying in cabins and I was very unsure of what the accommodations would be like, but the grounds were amazing and the cabins were super cute.

We had four beds in our little cabin, but it was only the two of us staying in it.

When we first arrived, we put our stuff in our cabins and then there were some drinks and snacks to enjoy while we waited for the ceremony. At about 3:30, we headed over to the main building and J&M tied the knot. It was a beautiful ceremony, led by the bride's father, and everything was elegant, simple, and fabulous. They chose not to have a wedding party, they wrote their own love letters to each other, and wrote their own vows. 

After the ceremony, we enjoyed cocktails and snacks on the patio, followed by a delish BBQ dinner, several hours of dancing, and some late night marshmallow roasting. 

The groom surprised his lovely bride with an iPad and Mr. Sneaker helped get it all ready by downloading some good apps, downloading some books and getting People magazine all set up for the bride to read on the way to their honeymoon. They took off the day after the wedding and the location of the honeymoon was kept a secret until she opened her iPad and saw the location on the travel book that hubs had downloaded. He even put cute photos of the B&G as the background on the iPad.

It is so fun to tour around and visit new places, but there is nothing like climbing into my own bed when we get home. I slept so well last night and I feel energized for a day of organizing and cleaning!

Preview

We just got back from our trip to Amsterdam and I am too tired and worn out to write a real post, so here is a sneak peak of how I spent my time there...

so. much. fun!