FINALLLLLLY

Well things have been crazzzzzy and I have totally ignored my blog...  But here is a little of everything.  Starting way back from Christmas.  Ready??

Okay, before we get started, please don't get your hopes up because I am REALLY  bad about taking pictures, and a there are a lot of school pictures I can't put up because of kids faces!  But enjoy nonetheless. 

We made this poinsettias by measuring :) cutting, and gluing and they turned out really fancy looking!  And Michael insisted I have a wreath (really it's our old one and he wanted to buy a bigger one).  See my name above the door?  Pretty surreal. 

They also did some more measuring and symmetry doing and made these trees.  They sat on their desks and they could earn ornaments (stickers) to decorate their trees.  I loved these!

I made these little stars for their high frequency words and vowel patterns for the week.  They use them to point with and get excited when they come across that word or vowel pattern. 

Okay, get ready for my rant:

It snowed.  A LOT.  We still had school.  THEN we still had OUTSIDE recess.  And I was on duty. Whoomp whoomp.  I was so furious, so I took pictures and swore I was going to send them to the newspaper because this is OUT OF CONTROL!  The kids couldn't even walk in it!  So we basically just walked outside.  Stood in the cold, got wet and then went back inside. LAME.  But check out these pictures, because I am not just crazy, this is real life!

Valentine's Day! So sweet Michael! He made me take a picture of them and send it to him so he could assess the quality. 

April Fools!

I told the kids that I made them brownies.  Which I did.  And if they were good all day I would give them one at the end of the day.  haha.  They kept reminding each other to be good, they would say, "remember, brownies."  They were actually really good sports about getting brown e's at the end of the day,

I also changed my clothes FOUR times throughout the day and NOT ONE person even said anything!  I even started pointing out my clothes trying to get them to notice and they didn't.  I guess that's what you get when you have a class with 15 boys!

I also gave them a word search and told them every word they found I would give them a piece of candy.  Turns out there were no words actually in the word search.  haha it was really hilarious!  They were trying so hard to find them!  I gave the other teachers a copy of it and for the rest of the year, the kids refused to do word searches. :)

I had a WONDERFUL high school student come and help me the last trimester of school.  This is what my board looked like when she came (ignore the actual clutter on the board, focus on the ABC part).

And then she made it pretty!  Woo Hoo!  It inspired me to make the rest of it pretty and those pictures will come later, so get ready. 

You can't see this very well, but it was the cutest thing.  The last week of school I had the kids do a readers theater.  Well they read through the plays a few times and then I told them they could make some props and costumes.  Welllllll 3 hours later, everyone was ready for their play.  They started making all kinds of props and costumes, like really legit ones.  So much so, that I didn't have to heart to stop them.  This one group made a real curtain that moved out of construction paper. There was even a costume change for one play ;) I have tons of pictures of their costumes but can't post them here :( just trust me, it was awesome.

This picture is the first group to perform.  They wrote their characters names on paper and taped them to chairs, these kids are so awesome!

Alright, this has nothing to do with my classroom, but we went to Yellowstone and I got this really awesome Bison.  His name is Bernard and he is pretty cool.  I am thinking he will be our classroom pet. ;) He was drawn to the warmth of my laptop.

Thanks for your patience!  Look forward to pictures of my new and improved classroom (one that I have more than 4 days to get ready!)

October

This is currently what I am proud of!  We read the book Leaf Man, where the "leaf man" blows different places and become different things.  The class then made their own "leaf man" and a story to go with!  Most of them turned out REALLY good.  

I had to rush to get these up because we did them the day before parent teacher conferences.  I wanted to show off the the parents- I think it worked!  But anyways I forced myself to use the laminating machine, which everyone in the building says is the worst.  All I ever heard was terrible stories about it, but I faced my fears and now I AM IN LOVE!  

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I also rearranged the classroom.  This way all the students are facing the board and not each other (and talking).  It's working quite nicely actually. :)

Cleaned the whiteboard off so I can actually use it now!  Except now I don't know what to do with all the space.

 With the rearraning of the classroom, I had to come up with a new plan for the colors and scissors and glue. To make it easy I just placed them all out on the shelf.  Not that that matters, but I wanted to brag that this is day 3 of the kids using these materials and it still looks neat!!

This is my new way of keeping track of "school" and "home" lunches.  I have this wall that is like the soft side of Velcro so I got sticky Velcro and put it on the backside of these little lunch boxes.  One my students said, as I was cutting them out, "Oh! That is going to be so cute!"  And what can I say, my students are smart!

And the best thing is I laminated them and so the names are able to come off so I use these next year too!

Only in Idaho

So this last Friday, the Farm Bureau came to Burton Elementary and they talked about farming. They talked about wheat and the process it goes through to actually make food- then the kids got to grind wheat themselves! I was actually VERY impressed with how much these kids knew about the farming pocess and equipment!

 

 

 

 

They also talked to us about cows! Did you know that one milking cow will produce 8-9 gallons of milk per DAY?!? Then the kids got to milk a life size cow! It was pretty exciting.

 

 

 

And to top things off they got to eat pancakes made from the wheat they grinded!

 

 

And just because I know you were wondering...my class got yet another 4 in PE this last week!  And they continue to get 3's in library, which I am pretty happy with!

Oh and this week I am totally committed to finishing decorating my room.  So look forward to pictures!!!

Mrs. Wilson's 2nd grade :)

Here is my classroom as you walk in.  I only had about three days to get my classroom ready, so this is what I have.  I keep thinking I will have time to work more on it, but that just isn't happening right now.  

I did however finally get all my materials in-as of today! - The school wasn't going to have four 2nd grade classrooms until the last minute- less than a week before school started.  Therefore all my teaching materials for the reading and math programs that we use did not exist.  But two and a half weeks in, I got everything!

Stations- my counter doesn't look so bare anymore...

So I know this is lame, but it was the coolest thing to me to have my name on a phone :)

Now it is time to brag about my awesome kids!  So when the students go to PE or library the teacher will give them a number 1-4.  1 being so terrible that they get sent back to class, and 4 being EXCELLENT.  My students came back from library on Thursday with a 2.  I was really upset about this.  We talked about it as a class and let them know that a 2 was unacceptable.  So Friday they went to PE and came back with 4!!!!  The PE teacher said that they were the first class to get a 4 and they really earned it!  I don't know who was more happy, the kids or me!

Don't mind the mess, you guys know me.  But despite the mess, my class won the "golden plunger" award!!  This means that our classroom was the cleanest in the whole building all week!  Even though this may come as a surprise to most of you- I can keep a clean room :)

Hope you enjoyed!

New apartment

Okay, so I stink at decorating and I know it, but here are pictures of our place so far. Enjoy

This is our living room- I know it's a mess but we have been busyyyyy, point in case Michael is sitting in his usual spot doing homework.

Our kitchen from our living room

I LOVE all our rooster things- the salt and pepper shakers and the rooster above the stove!!

You guessed it, the bedroom. That is our closet to the left.

The closet...Michael's closet.

My closet/storage area

And the bathroom

Wedding deats part II

Well, I am doing better than expected with the wedding blogging. While browsing my sister's Facebook, I found a picture of the completed bridesmaids dresses. It is now yellow instead of pink, as you can tell, and a new pattern than the original.

Isn't she cute??


So for the boysssss, Michael found these suspenders and he had to have them. Luckily, they come in pink AND yellow. Michael wanted pink, so he will have it along with a pink tie. While the other boys, hmmm or should I say men will were yellow suspenders with yellow ties.

Michael bought his suit this past week as well! It's a gray pinstripe and it looks SO good! And his pink tie looks great with it! Whew!

We are getting our invitations out soon! Okay so soon as in maybe a month. Michael's aunt was kind enough to help us out with the invitations, but introducing us to a great website!
www.annsbridalbargains.com

And finallyyyy, we finished our registry at Target and Kohls. We went to Target today and Michael insisted that we go down EVERY aisle, so we did. By the end of it, we were tired and ready to go home, and so we did!

As for fun

So for fun lately, Micheal and I went to the Rodeo in Pocatello. It was a pretty serious rodeo with REAL cowboys and such. And since Michael is always on top of things, we got REALLY good seats, right next to the bucking chute.

Everything happened so fast and we were enjoying it so much, it was hard to take pictures, but we got a couple.

We really like the Bronc riding. It was so intense, and since our seats were right on the floor next to the arena, we got to see all the action up close. There was even a bystander that got hurt because of one of the horses :(

And get THIS! On our way we rode by this house, and I caught a glimpse of what I thought was a Rhino head on their wall. And so we pulled over, parked and walked by the house, just to make sure I wasn't mistaken, and SURE ENOUGH, this house had a RHINO head on their wall. I know the picture isn't great quality, but really, it's a rhino head.

Rhino says, welcome back to Idaho.