I am a full-time mom of 2 young children, a full-time elementary school teacher, and a somewhat-part-time/I-really-suck-at-this blogger/seller-on-TpT. Obviously I'm neither the first nor the only one to hold all of these positions, but that doesn't make it any easier!
When I ventured into this business known as teacher blogging and selling, it was summer time and I had a bit more free time on my hands. But once school kicked up full force -- for both my kindergartner daughter and myself -- I found my product creating time to dwindle down to... oh.. about 0. I'm trying not to be too hard on myself about it, but it's difficult when so many amazing teacher bloggers out there are both multi-faceted and majorly talented! Holy cow, how do you do it all?!?
Someone once told me when I was returning from my first maternity leave to not expect myself to be 100% at being a mom and being a teacher. That way, I won't beat myself up over feelings of inefficiency or guilt. I remind myself of this almost daily!
Every day or so, I get a few new likes on my little facebook page, which really boosts my morale (hey thanks likers out there!) But I can't stop the question of "WHY!?!?" from popping up into my head.
Self-doubt. Check.
Sigh.
Vent over.
So now that I have a minute to blog (ie. I'm procrastinating my lesson planning, my little guy went down for a nap, and little lady and the hubs are hitting the golf course), here's what's going on in my crazy, fast-paced, how-the-heck-is-it-almost-November life.
1. Do you guys own the Rooted in Reading: October product from Katie King and Amy Lemons?? Seriously, it is the best thing I've ever purchased. At first, I struggled a bit on how to incorporate it into my lesson plans while still maintaining our reading program (we use California Treasures). But then, I added it to my Guided Reading time at the end of each day and let me tell you, my kids LOVE the activities. I wish I had time to do all of them, but we really spend time on some of the bigger activities in the pack. I may also use it to
Crankenstein adjectives from Katie and Amy. Flowers and Starbucks from my wonderful room moms who knew I was having a tough week.
2. Halloween is coming up and can we just take a minute to celebrate the fact that the actual day is on Saturday?? With leap year coming up in 2016, next year's Halloween is going to be on a MONDAY (insert sobbing emoji here), so let's enjoy it while we can! My two co-workers and friends at work and I are going to be dressing up with matching costumes, which super top secret (mostly because we haven't made our costumes yet but also because I don't want to spill the beans). Then on Saturday, my little lady wants to be Elsa, which means little man is going to be Olaf. By default, mom and dad will be Anna and Kristoff, though I really pushed for the hubs to be Sven.
Seriously, though. I want my husband to wear this:
Do you do lessons on Halloween safety?? I've never really thought about it (we live in a bubble in our neighborhood) until I was emailed with this great graphic by Norm Reeves Honda Superstore in Huntington Beach. Isn't it great?? I plan on posting to my interactive whiteboard and talking about safety tips with my students this year. It's really important for them to know what's safe and not safe on such a crazy, emotional night. I remember learning about this from my parents and my own teachers growing up. Feel free to use the infographic in your own classrooms with your own kids! (Link up to Norm Reeves Honda if you use the graphic on your blog).
3. It's my favorite time of year -- FALL! Although, you'd never know it's Fall in California. We've been dealing with record breaking heat, awful humidity (sorry east coasters, we're not used to that here) and a pending, destructive El Nino season coming up. I'm eagerly anticipating the crisp Fall days where I can wear pants and scarves and light sweaters and maybe even my boots! Or a coat! I have a coat obsession and a major #firstworldproblem of not living in a climate that warrants coat-wearing. In any case, with fall and harvest come my Ancestry Social Studies unit where we study Life Long Ago. I love this unit because my students study their heritages and work alongside their parents to complete my "Where in the World?" project. We use the information gathered at home to complete activities like graphs and timelines and comparing/contrasting our traditions in the classroom. I love hearing them celebrate their heritages and discussing their differences! At the end of our unit, we have a Multicultural Thanksgiving Feast where each student bring a sample of a cultural dish for their classmates to eat. Parents come, too, and it's so much fun to celebrate our families together during this perfect time of year!
I just spruced up my Where in the World Project and posted it on TpT. Let me know what you think by leaving feedback in my little shop! :D
I'm also working on a Ten Commandments thing (surprisingly my Baptism Lap book has been one of my biggest sellers on TpT!) and I am hoping to have that posted by tomorrow. Translation: check back in about a month to see my 10 commandments product. Ha!
I think that's about all the time I have for today -- still have stacks of grading, 6 hours of lesson planning, and a growing list of housework to complete in the hour left of little man's nap!
Until my next post...3 weeks from now.... ;)
One year, I did Tiny Prints and the boys looked like they got orange spray tan. I asked for a reprint and they said it was the coloring on my computer but the reprint did come out lighter. It was SO weird... it did NOT look that orange. I also ended up with a whole extra set of cards because of the reprint. I still haven't taken them to get them shredded. I don't want to toss that many cards with my kids faces and information about them on there.
ReplyDeleteI went with Minted the following year because I got a 20% off coupon and I liked that they had a free option to address envelopes. I also liked the possible layouts that were available on Minted that year.