Where Have I Been?!

Ya'll. I have been a blogging failure this summer. It has been a busy busy summer and I have barely been home in the month of July! Let me give you a quick little update on my life. 

1. Next year I am going back to teaching 4th grade. I'm like 70% excited right now because I LOVED 5th grade but I understand that the STAAR Writing test is a beast that need someone with experience to tackle. (yay...) 
2. Next year is going to be ...challenging. Some of my very best friends are moving schools, moving positions or just plain moving. I'm so sad because I work with some of the best teachers on the planet but I know sometimes you have to share the wealth. 
3. Next year I have new teammates again. Don't get me wrong, I love all the people at my school. I'm not even joking, we have the best staff. But I am going to miss teaming with my bestie. and James. The CKJ trio was like the dream team for last year's group of kids. It just worked. I know I will love my teammates this year but why is change so hard?! 
4. I keep saying "next year" but really it's in like a week...where did summer go? 
5. I know where summer went: I sat in 10,000 interviews, went to various PD, shared at GT PD, applied for grad school, entertained my 2 year old, created new TPT stuff,and traveled. In fact, I'm typing from Mississippi right now on our way to Florida tomorrow. The beach is calling my name, people! 

So there is a little update...check out the pics below for a peak at my summer! 

Also, I have some guest blog posts coming, new products on TpT revealed, a review for ABCteach.com (( Check it out--there are a ton of resources on there! I could spend hours looking through everything.)) :) and of course, back to school pics! See ya soon! 

My girlfriends and I headed to Houston earlier this week to visit our friend Megan who just moved there. We are going to miss Megan sooooo much but her new school is absolutely blessed to have her! 

Car Selfie

Aren't my friends beautiful?! In this pic we have 4th grade, 2nd grade, academic coaches and specialists and admin. I am so lucky to work with my besties.

I'm going to miss Megan so much! 

I led a training about teaching gifted children with these 2 ladies and it was quite interesting! It was one of the largest groups of strangers I've presented to yet :)

My old partner teacher and bestie, Kristin, surprised me with an afternoon visit to the Gaylord Texan (which is like 10 minutes from my house) to see all of the Wizard of Oz art and decorations :) We had a blast on our adventure!

Y'all. I've been coaching volleyball for a summer league and these middle school girls are my favorite people right now. We laugh so hard and have a blast. And they are pretty awesome athletes. I absolutely love these girls. 

We tried to get a family picture and this was as good as it got. Jackson was only interested if it was "exciting"

Just living out of a suitcase. #teacherlife

See ya soon! 

5 for Friday--First Week of Summer!

This week was the first full week of summer...and although I did work, not waking up until 6 was awesome. I've decided to link up with Kasey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for a little 5forFriday action!

Ok, ok...I didn't actually feel like it was summer when my alarm went off Monday morning but I really love my curriculum team (Shout out to Amanda "The Boss" Ramos and Amalia "The Newbie" Ayers!). We worked our little buns off this week and cranked out the 4th grade Gifted and Talented ELAR curriculum for our district. It almost makes me want to teach 4th grade again (but I have grown fond of 5th, so...) Although my brain was totally fried by the end of the first 2 days, I still really enjoy doing it (and it's good money so that's a bonus!)

Since my hubs is a teacher too, (he deals with the scary middle schoolers), he also was supposed to start his summer this week, but instead he spent it getting certified to drive a school bus..yay. He coaches so he has to drive the teams too...Who would want to drive 60 sweaty 7th and 8th grade boys around? Not me. Gross. But alas, he got certified and now he is stuck with them! 

Now that we are both "home" for the summer, my baby J can be at home! :) He is 9 months old as of yesterday! I'll be honest there were weeks days that I felt like he would NEVER be past the crying 20 hours a day phase and I actually looked forward to him being "older", but now it's going so fast! He is adorable (yes, I'm biased, but it's true). He cracks me up and is such a character. 

I have lost 8 lbs so far. (yayyyy!) I'm not "doing" anything other than eating better and trying to be more intentional about moving during the day. We started walking around the neighborhood tonight and Jackson seemed to like it (although he got impatient about 40 minutes in...) so hopefully that will help me shed some more of this baby weight (and then some!) 

Today the reading vertical team at my school went to NTCTELA (North Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts) Conference-which was conveniently 15 minutes from my house..I LOVE living in the middle of DFW. It was an amazing conference and I learned so much, plus hanging out with some of my besties wasn't half bad! I'll try to share some of the amazing wisdom imparted on us in another post :) 


Alright, that's it! We are headed to visit my grandparents this weekend and I am excited to not have a major "must-do" list hanging over my head...it's nice when the to-do list is for the whole summer! 
Have a great weekend!

Reading in the Wild--You GOTTA read this!

Ok, I have been a total blogging slacker...but for good reason. I have been completely absorbed in reading. Seriously. I am reading this book

for a book study with several reading teachers, interventionists and librarians around our district and it has impacted me immensely. Not only have I received no less than a thousand ideas I want to implement or adapt for my own classroom (seriously...a thousand), it has reawakened the wild reader in me! I have read 3 books for pleasure in the past 2 weeks. Now, that may not sound like a lot but I have an 8 month old, I'm co-directing a play with 5th graders AND it's the end of the year. See, now you can be amazed. :)

This is an absolute MUST READ. Go get it now. 

Ok, now on to the fun stuff I've been reading: 

These books are GREAT! I was not expecting them to be this good and frankly, I only read them because one of my students insisted they were awesome. (He was right, but please don't tell him...it'd totally go to his head!) Besides funny (sometimes cheesy) little side jokes, the actual story is really great. I highly recommend these books to upper elementary kids. 

Ok. This book. Seriously. Just. I can't even explain. This book was such a surprise. I ordered it on a whim from Scholastic and I read this beauty in 2 days. My kids were dying to know what it was about and why I wanted to have extended independent reading time. It's about this girl who accidentally meets a boy via email--he sent his email to the wrong address (not exactly the best book for teaching internet safety, but you've gotta read it!). I would love to give you more info or a more complete summary but I promise, after the first page, you will be hooked. My partner teacher (the Math and Science teacher) has been cursing me the last two days because she has stayed up late reading it. I totally think it will be a movie soon. 

And now, I'm reading this: 

My partner teacher from last year (I seriously love that I have other book people that teach with me!) texted me last weekend and insisted I start this book immediately. I read the first 150 pages in two nights, then one of my terrible, horrible, no good students RUINED the ending for me. Ok, my student isn't terrible and horrible, she's actually awesome, but that stinker ruined the book for me, because she was telling me how someone else ruined the ending for her. Life is so unfair sometimes. {sigh}

I still want to finish it because I am not a book abandoner by nature and it is really good so far. Plus, if I want to see the movie, I have to read the book first! :) 

So, that's the reason for my blogging absence. Books. I mean, that's an acceptable reason, right? 

I'm curious: Have any of you read any of Donalyn Miller's books? What'd you think? What was your biggest "aha!" from them? AND, what are you wild readers, reading? 

Don't forget to follow me on Bloglovin'! 

Five for Friday {Linky} Spring Break Edition

I haven't posted in a while because the week before Spring Break was chaotic and then Spring Break was here! These last 2 weeks have FLOWN by. Here's a super brief summary 5forFriday style of what I've been up to..

Our last week before Spring Break was only 4 days, thanks to a "snow" day. Then we had Open House on Thursday night and my grade level planning day on Friday. The week blew past with several things not getting accomplished on my to-do list. It was kind of a bummer. I had every intention of doing some reader's theaters to let my kids analyze drama before the break (something that would keep them AND ME entertained!) but being out of the classroom for 2 days didn't allow for that. Hopefully we will find time in the coming weeks but we have officially hit the home stretch before our state testing (only 2 more weeks) and it's time to put the pedal to the metal. [In TX, 5th graders have to pass to go to the next grade level so it's a ton of pressure for the kids and teachers but I am trying to stay positive! We haven't done much "test prep"..as in a benchmark and that's it...because I wanted to make sure I taught the content as in depth as possible.] Anyway, that brings me to #2

I decided when we get back to school Monday, I'm going to teach some "test taking strategies". I looked all over Pinterest and TpT for a collection of strategies I liked and I compiled them to make this foldable. 

I used pieces of this pin from the Savvy School Counselor and the RELAX acronym I found here. I plan to go over general strategies on Monday and then on Tuesday, my kids are going to make an accordion foldable using tips found in this awesome download I got for free from TPT. Then we will spend the rest of the week in stations called "Put It Into Practice" for fiction, nonfiction and poetry texts. If it goes well I'll give more details later :)

One of the things I started within the last 2 weeks was a book study lead by one of the coordinators in our district. We are reading Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. It's very interesting so far. My principal is actually going to have our entire faculty read it over the summer. The basic premise [so far] is that people have to choose their mindset. A fixed mindset is when you believe you have reached your "peak"...whatever ability you have (intellectual, creative, athletic, etc.) can't be improved...a sort of "it is what it is" take on life. But a growth mindset is when you believe your basic qualities can be cultivated through effort. If we teach our students that their is purpose to their failures, that it's totally okay (and even) encouraged to not experience success immediately, then they learn to always seek more. We need our kids to know that their intelligence and abilities don't ever "max out" and we as teachers need to show them the "goodness in failure" (to take a line from my friend, Demesha). Anyway, it's worth a read!  

I love, I mean LOVE, jewelry. Specifically Stella & Dot jewelry. I got this package in the mail and it made my whole week before Spring Break happier. 

We made the drive to Cincinnati...all 16 hours of it. Jackson was over it on the way after we hit Tennessee which was only 7 hours in...yay. Then when we arrived, we grabbed dinner and went to my sister-in-law's house, where my hubs and I promptly BOTH became super ill. As in stomach viruses and food poisoning. Mine was over in 24 hours and my poor hubs endured almost 48 hours before we took him to the doctor and got some medicine. I am so thankful that my in-laws took care of Jackson while we were down for the count. Then, (praise the Lord!) Jackson was AWESOME on the way home. He didn't cry until the last 30 minutes but I can handle that! All in all, not the best trip to Ohio we've ever had BUT J got to meet his great-Gram and I think everyone else was spared our near brush with death virus.

So, there you have it...a super brief summary of the last 2 weeks. I hoping for a more restful rest of my Spring Break because, thanks to all the ridiculous snow days, there are no more little breaks until Memorial Day. (uh, what?!) Happy Friday!

-Caitlin