High Five for Friday! x2

Linking up with Lauren Elizabeth for High Five for Friday! 

(This is actually two weeks -- this blogging on a regular schedule thing is hard than it looks! Props to all my blogger friends that can pull it off!)

1. Valentines Day & the almost-sneak peak of spring have put me in a sunshiny mood, so I'm trying to spread the love by surprising people with happy grams. (Also, I love on people with food -- so they all included candy!)

 

2. Basketball season is over -- and as much as I love the season and getting to know the girls on the team, I am excited to have my husband back. We went on two dates -- TWO DATES -- this week! It was wonderful and glorious and he even sent flowers!

3. I have been book-taking to my students like crazy this week! But, one of my favorite things in the world is recommending young adult books to adults -- there are so many great books that I think people of every age should read! One of my newest favorites is Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. Besides the glowing recommendation from one of my favorite authors, John Green, the book truly did remind me what it feels like to be young and in love -- all the excitement and uncertainty of being a teenager is fun to relive. Rowell also did a brilliant job of creating such unique, but well-developed characters! 

4. I am trying my hardest to get back into the #edufashionchallenge on social media -- while I don't feel my outfits are picture-worthy everyday (especially when I wear TMS hoodies on Fridays), I managed to get post a couple this past week. It really does help me feel more put-together and confident for the day!

5. I am so looking forward to this weekend -- I need time to catch-up, recharge, and spend some quality time with family! (And hopefully write a blog post or two!)

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful week!

High Five for Friday!

Linking up with Lauren Elizabeth for High Five for Friday! 

1. Is it possible to have a healthy week? Good, because I had one! I had a great weigh-in at Weight Watchers and reached my goal of exercising 4 days! I am looking forward to keeping these positive habits in place!

2. I took one -- ONE picture this week. Here it is. (Please ignore the fact that it immediately follows how healthy I was this week -- the cookies weren't all for me and the one I ate was deliciously worth it.)

3. We had another round of cold, cold weather this week. Kasey got to have an extra day off school while I bundled up and headed north. His accomplishment after a whole day home alone? Cleaning out the DVR!

4. My nerdy-self is loving what my students are currently working on -- we are reading The Diary of Anne Frank, and it is so awesome to see it spark their interest in history and World War II. So many have been visiting the library for additional reading -- WIN!

5. My final High Five is how excited I am for this weekend -- more basketball watching (HS girls tonight and our niece Kylee tomorrow), and several family meals our (our favorite weekend activity)!

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful week!

High Five for Friday

Linking up with Lauren Elizabeth for High Five for Friday!

1. This past week (during parent/teacher conferences) was our school's Scholastic Book Fair -- our staff and students do a wonderful job of supporting the book fair (and I absolutely love to see how excited our students get about purchasing and reading new books!). My classroom parents -- and my mom -- were so generous this year and purchased us six new books for our classroom! 

2. It has been a busy, busy week! With meetings everyday after school, it feels like work is the only thing I have to talk about! I am trying to keep up with my reading and blogging and socializing -- but there are somethings that are slipping (like working out). For the next week I'm really going to focus on stopping and being thankful for all the wonderful opportunities I have (even if they do include loads of meetings)!

3. How (I mean seriously, how) adorable is this new iPhone background?! Thanks to Pinterst (I wish I could remember who to give credit) for introducing me to the great app Cuptakes: wallpapers for the girly girls.

4. Today, as a reward for my very well-behaved students, we are continuing to watch the movie The Sandlot. My students are loving it and can't wait until we get to watch it again next week. We are only watching 30ish minutes at a time, but it is the best. I had forgotten how hilarious that movie is -- I am giggling right along with my kids!

5. Wanted to save the best for last -- this past weekend I was honored to be a bridesmaid in  a great friend's wedding. The entire day was perfect! The happy couple did a wonderful job of including their own personality into every bit of the event! Both days were so well organized and I felt so grateful to get to spend the whole weekend with one of my favorite couples. (Getting dressed up with my hubby was another bonus!)

I hope everyone else is having a wonderful week!

A Pinterest Classroom...

Pinterest, Twitter, and Blogs have changed my classroom. I have been on the look-out lately, but it still seems like Pinterest classrooms and Twitter lessons have been popping up everywhere. I love how much teachers have been sharing with one another, and how available great ideas are! I am a talker (a loud talker) so I have always communicated well with my classmates and co-workers, but social media has opened up a world for me where I can 'talk' to the greatest educators from across the world. I have discovered some of the greatest teaching-minds in nearby districts - and have even been able to 'steal' ideas from famous teacher-authors like Penny Kittle.

So, this year I will be stealing, borrowing, and sharing ideas all the freakin' time! Here are 5 of my favorites (so far) as I set up my classroom. Kiddos come in 16 days! (yikes!)

Make-over for my teacherbinder: This is an amazing post with great suggestions for sections/contents for your teacherbinder (it's a new word). Her suggestions will 'up' the productivity of my binder!

Favorite Bulletin Board: For the first time in my teaching career, I have more than one (seven, actually) bulletin boards. This will takeover two of them!

Organization for a Substitute: This is one of those ideas I'm going to have to 'age' a little for my middle school classroom, but it's still a wonderful idea. One place where all my sub copies and ideas can be - all you have to do is add the specific unit plans!

Favorite Motivator: I love the saying "Kiss your Brain" - even for Middle School! I am excited to keep this filled with Hershey Kisses for my kids that are really on-top of things that day!

Favorite Common Core Checklist: I love, love, love this chart! I had to 'steal' the idea and make mine using MS Language Arts standards - but it's a quick way to keep yourself and your students accountable for those Common Core and Iowa Core standards! 

PS: I can (and probably will) do an entire post on a-mazing anchor charts I've found!

Newsies

One of my favorite grown-up discoveries is watching a movie or reading a book I lovedwhen I was younger and finding a brand new way to appreciate it. Over Spring Break, I had a chance to watch the musical The Newsies and fall in love all over again....

The Newsies is based on the newsboys strike of 1899 -- the newsboys wanted to gain respect of the newspapers they worked for and wanted lower paper costs. So, inspired by the recent trolly workers' strike, the boys decided to go on strike and gain support for their cause. At that time, the only way to spread information/news in New York was through the papers -- if it wasn't in the papers noone knew about it and it didn't happen. (Here comes my favorite part.) The most powerful men in New York were Pulitzer and Hearst -- owners of the World and the Journal -- who didn't want to spread word of the newsboys strike, and refused to publish it. The newsboys all but gave up, they were too small to fight alone and had no way to spread word and gain support. As all good Disney movies do, The Newsies has a happy ending -- the newsboys found a way to publish their own paper encouraging all child labor to join their cause. Cue big singing/dancing finale.

My recent love of this movie comes fron recognizing how opposite our students have it now -- around the turn of the 20th century, those with money and power determined what was news; now, barely a century later, the average person has the power to share the news. Anyone can have a blog, or social media account. CNN.com ranks it's online articles by reader popularity (not by publisher opinion). And just a few years ago on twitter, Ashton Kutcher (an Iowa boy) proved that one person can have more followers than the most popular news network in the world.

The possiblities are endless for our students -- they don't need to gain the permission of newspaper publishers to get out information about their cause. It's possible for them to spread the word and enlist help on their own. What a powerful concept. Social media is shaping their generation. Information has never been so readily available, and it has never been so easy for students to publish their own stories. However, (here comes the teacher twist) students need to be and deserve to be taught how to use this power responsibly.