Thankful, Helpful, and Beautiful

It's Friday. 

I have been at school for 3 days that I had to be there and 2 days that I chose to be there. . . 

and I'm not ready yet. . . . 

So I'll be back there on Monday.

Here's what I have to be thankful for:

• We have Air Conditioning. I know so many Michigan (and other states) that don't have air conditioned classrooms and I feel so sorry for them. I know you can't be productive if you can't breathe, move, think, or be happy when sweat is running down between your boobs. 
• At our back to school welcome, our administration did a pretty good job of highlighting the positives our district has been doing and that we are going in the right direction. (I've heard of other districts that gave downer  "Welcome Back" speeches.
• I say, "pretty good" because the one thing our Superintendent "forgot" to mention is that our building, our little building of only 150 kids was given the award of a "reward school." We are the only one in our county! In Michigan they rate you from top to bottom and last year we were at the 37 percentile. This year we are at the 94%. I'd say that's quite an achievement. . . So sad that he forgot to announce that!
• I have 25 kids in my class as of today. Next week that could be a different story.
• I'm glad that I'm going back to teaching this year. When I thought long and hard about whether I should or not after my mom passed away, I just wasn't sure. But now I am. It's a great way to keep my mind busy and I really do love my job!
• My bathroom remodel is done. . . of course, I'm going to share some pictures with you. . . hang on a bit.

I also want to highlight two helpful things I bought during the Back To School sale that you might want to see. 

First I bought What's My Job? By Jeanie Hunter. 

She has a blog called The 2nd Grade Surprise!

You can click on the picture to go to her store.

There are cards that go along with these pictures. The cards have statements on them that give clues to which person is being described.  I will use this to read one card at a time to help my students see how good descriptive clues can help your reader get a better picture of what you're writing.

Aren't they so cute!

The next thing I bought is by Deana Kahlenberg 

from Primary Punch. 

I love Deana!

I'm sorry this picture is so blurry. This actually was a set of Theme cards for 4th grade. . . but I truly thought it would fit my 2nd graders too. My plan is to have students identify the theme of the stories we read this year by looking at this bulletin board and reading the qualities each theme would have.  There are many other activities that she created to go along with this, but for now this is how I plan to use it. You can click on the picture to go to her store.

She also has a free game that is played like the game called Hedbanz.  You can grab that by clicking this picture below.

And finally, I thought you might like to see 

an update on my beautiful bathroom remodel. 

If you want to see the before pictures click here. 

Keep in mind that it's a little bathroom.  Making it into a bigger bathroom wasn't an option.

I can now show you pictures of the finished bathroom. 

I love it. I feel like a queen every morning. . . 

or like I'm taking a shower in a fancy hotel.  

 The ONLY thing that isn't new in this bathroom is the Toilet! We had purchased that a couple years ago and didn't think it needed to be replaced yet.

 You can see the new door in the reflection. We also put these same doors on the bedrooms. They were brown before, but I'm lovin the white better!

That's all for now. I have to wrap my head around my lesson plans for this next week. Thank goodness we have a half day on Tuesday and then really only 3 days the first week. That's a nice way to ease into working full days after a great summer.

Thanks for hanging in there with me (if you're still here reading this!)

Patty