Currently...September

Linking up with the amazing Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for September's currently.

LISTENING: I am enjoying watching re-watching Season 1 of Once Upon a Time.  I forgot so much of the early stories.  Thank you Netflix for giving me something to listen to while working on school stuff.

LOVING: I am so happy I scheduled a 90-minute massage for later today.  My back really needs this!

THINKING: So many lil things to get done...hope I don't forget anything for the first day of school tomorrow.

WANTING: To visit my niece and nephews.  My niece is 2 and my twin nephews are 3 months old (tomorrow). I so want to go snuggle with those baby boys and have tea parties with my niece.  The twins were in the NICU most of the summer and just came home in August, so I don't feel like I got enough time with them.  They live 2 hours away, which isn't bad, except Washington DC is in the middle of the drive, so sometimes it takes 4 hours with traffic.

NEEDING: I really need to do laundry and put away the laundry I have done.  Maybe I should also pick out some back to school outfits for the week.

3 TRIPS: I have always wanted to visit Spain, Italy, and Australia.  I hope one day I will get there!

Summer SLANT Box!

The theme for #slantbox June/July was "Sunshine".

I was paired to send to Jameson at Lessons With Coffee.  No pressure at all sending to the creator of Slant Box!  I really enjoyed getting to know her though and to learn more about all the fun things she is doing.

The person sending to me was the fabulous Kristen from The Book Monsters.  I loved getting to know her as well and thanks to her I have lots of books on my reading list now.

I was so excited to come home earlier this month and find this waiting at my door:

I love mail and presents and fun surprises!  I opened it and found so many awesome things!

A chevron lunch bag, skittles (2 flavors), post-its, animal print items for our new theme this year, and so many other goodies.  I also loved her sweet card and the ice-pop maker.  This was definitely a box of sunshine!

Thank you so much to Kristen for all the treats and to Jameson for organizing!  Can't wait for August SLANT!!!

A Summer of Science

I have had a very busy summer so far.  I signed up for VISTA with my 4th and 5th grade teammates.   What is VISTA?  In June and July, I met up with 38 other Virginia teachers at Virginia Commonwealth University to participate in a four-week professional development institute designed to shift science instruction from the traditional teacher-led, lecture-driven classroom to a hands-on, problem-based learning environment.  You can find out more about VISTA at http://www.vistascience.org.


The program has been wonderful.   It has also been overwhelming and stressful and enlightening and completely worth it.  I have learned so much over the last 4 weeks.  I never felt science was my strongest subject.  To say that I was out of my comfort zone would be an understatement.  
One piece of this program was teaching part of a science camp for students with high need. I loved working with the students and teaching science in a fun, hands-on, and engaging way.  For the last three days of training we are working as teams to create a 2-week problem based unit to implement this upcoming school year.

We learned about discourse and teaching students to talk like scientists and really get into deeper conversations.  Here is a poster I made for my classroom.  I plan to reference it when we are starting discourse circles.  You can download it by clicking the link under the picture.

How Scientists Communicate

Another resource I made was a set of posters about NOS.  What is NOS?  Nature of Science...totally didn't even know that before this summer.  I have nine posters and you can download them for free from TeachersPayTeachers.  While you are there, feel free to follow my store!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Nature-of-Science-Posters-1334407

WILD about Organization

We have 13.5 days of school left.  Going to be sad to see these kids leave, but I am so ready for summer.

I am trying to get ahead of the game and prepare for next year AND our school's new theme.  We are going to be Wild About Learning!  I love printing my calendar and putting it in my binder.  Easy to take to meetings and planning sessions.  I hope you can use it too!

Head over to google docs and download this wild version of the 2014-15 printable calendar.  It goes from July 2014 to July 2015.  Hope you like it.

http://www.classroomfreebies.com/2014/05/Manic-Monday-5-26.html

~Alissa

2014-2015 Calendar

Several people have asked for the next year of my PRINTABLE calendar....so here you go.
This one goes from July 2014-July 2015.

Just click the calendar picture above to get a copy of it from my google drive.

I am thinking of also making another version in a wild theme since my school is going "Wild About Learning" next year.

Linking up with Classroom Freebies' Manic Monday.  Click below to join the party.

SLANT Box Reveal!

I had a great time with April's SLANT box book theme.  I got to send to Katie at A Basket Full of Apples.  I decided to go with a summer is almost here theme and sent her Pete the Cat at the Beach. Hopefully she liked the goodies I sent with it.

Yesterday I received my SLANT box from Becky at Cooking up Success in Third Grade.  It was amazing.  She sent me The Finisher by David Baldacci.  I can't wait to read it.  I am super excited about the Wonder packet she sent as well.  We did a whole grade level reads of that book this year and will be doing it again next year.  She also sent me Flair pens, snacks, an awesome personalized cup, and homemade zebra notecards.  (My school JUST decided two days ago that our theme next year is going to be Wild About Learning! How perfect are those notecards??)  Thanks, Becky!!!

I am really enjoying SLANT box exchanges.  It is so neat to connect with other teachers around the country.  I also love getting presents in the mail.  Can't wait for May's exchange.

Is it May already?

Wow! It is May.  For real.  May.  This year has flown by.

Time to link up with Farley from Oh' Boy Fourth Grade for her awesome monthly linky Currently May!

Spending my Saturday catching up on this week's Grey's Anatomy.  I feel like Grey's has been hit or miss the last few years...but I so need to see it through.  Besides...I want to know what's happening with Burke coming back for an episode.

I am loving this amazing weather the last few days.  I am so ready for the season of outdoor festivals and cookouts.

We had our first field day yesterday.  It was fantastic.  So organized and so much fun. The kids had a blast.

I really want to blog more often. I know I say this every few months and then I disappear.  I really am hoping to get my life more sane. Grad school is done for the summer and hopefully things are calming down.  I know that is saying a lot with this being the end of the school year....but you never know.

I need to organize my upstairs room.  So much stuff everywhere. It would be nice to get things in order around here.

My surprise shout-out is to Jameson at Lessons with Coffee.  She organizes a monthly SLANT BOX exchange.  I know it is a tremendous amount of work for her and I hope she knows how much people appreciate it.  I just received my April #slantbox today and I am so excited.  Go sign up for May's exchange by this evening if you want to participate.