Together We are Better: Office Space

 

Hi Everyone!

Today I am linking up with Shroeder Shenanigans in Second and Lucky Little Learners for the 2gether We are Better linky. This month it is all about home office spaces. Now I am a day late on this but oh well. Hopefully next month I will make it the day of : )

Our home actually has a designated office that we have decorated because my husband and I both do a lot of work at home. It is definitely the most interesting room in our house. It is the only room that doesn't match. We could not decide on decor for room so we split it in half. The half and half decor was our way of compromising, but it led to what you see below. Maybe someday we will find decor we both can agree on but for now this is what it will be. 

As much as I love my side of this space I very rarely work in it. For the last two years its been mostly my husbands office since he was taking online classes to finish his masters. Since I needed a space to work in at the same time I started working in our loft area at a coffee table. Not a very likely area but I have come to love it.

It is nothing fancy but it is now my favorite place to work. I have plenty of space on the table and on the floor behind me to spread out all my books, papers, etc. and not feel crowded. It is also in the same room as a TV which works to my advantage because I can't work in complete quiet. I always have to have music or a show playing in the background. It gets a lot of sunlight unfortunately I am usually working at night. My sweet girl is my main focus. I take all the time I can to play and cuddle with her. Time goes by so fast and I don't want to miss a moment working, so after she goes to sleep is when most of the creating and planning happens.

Someday I may decide that the floor is no longer a good work place and work in the office again but for now this is my favorite place.

Ashley

Mother's Day

Well this week has been a busy week. My sweet baby girl turned 1 on Thursday. Where did the time go?!! I can not believe it has been a year since that beautiful little girl came into the world. Time definitely flies. Its been fun celebrating with her and I am looking forward to all the future adventures I will share with her.

Along with that craziness came our Mother's Day projects in class. It was a beautiful project designed by my fabulous teaching partner. The kids had a lot of fun putting it together but it did take my kiddos a large amount of time because I have a group with some focus struggles. They tend to prefer chatting instead of working. It makes things entertaining but hard to complete projects in a timely manner.

The final product though is super cute. We made books out of large paper bags, scrapbook paper, and ribbons. Included in the book was a short story about their mom as a super hero, a pic of them, and 8 sentences about their moms.

For the super hero story they had to choose something that their mom was good at and turn it into a super power. For example one of my kids said their mom was good at giving hugs. She made her mom a super hugger that could make anyone feel better with a super hug. Once they did that they wrote a short story about a time when their mom used that super power to help someone. These ranged from really sweet, to adorable, to hilarious. Once they wrote them we typed it for them to glue into the book. It is definitely a writing activity worth repeating next year. To go along with their story they had to draw their mom as a super hero. An example of one is below.

With the sentences we gave them 7 prompts that they had to complete. The answers to these were really sweet. I love how honest and heartfelt first graders are. A list of the prompts are below as well as an example of a few that a student wrote.

I love my mom more than....
My mom would be good at....
If I could send my mom on vacation I would send her to....
My mom laughs when....
My mom is the best at....
My looks pretty when...
If I had $100 dollars I would buy my mom.... 

So far it has been a fun filled weekend of celebrating with my sweet girl. I look forward to spending Mother's Day with her tomorrow. I hope that all you moms out there have a beautiful Mother's Day!!

Ashley

Currently May

I can't believe it is May 2 already! My year with my little firsties is almost over. It seems like the year has gone by so quickly. I will definitely miss this group and their crazy energy. It's going to be a wild 15 final days with them as they are already in full blown summer vacation mode.

For this lovely second day of May I will be linking up with Oh Boy Fourth Grade for her monthly Currently linky. Hope you enjoy!

This morning my hubby and I are trying out the Netflix original series Daredevil. We are a super hero loving family so we will try any of these shows. Its pretty good although Superman will always be my favorite, especially the new ones with Henry Cavill.

I am loving my weekend with my little family. It has been a full year since we have had a full weekend to spend together. My hubby just finished his masters so we can look forward to many more weekends like this. I am so excited!

Along with spending the weekend together we are planning our sweet little girl's first birthday. Where has the time gone?! I can not believe she will be a year old this Thursday! She is definitely a beautiful blessing and adventure. We are excited to celebrate this milestone with her and look forward to all the adventures the new year will bring with our fearless, funny little girl.

I am in desperate need of motivation to focus and finish my lesson plans for the week. I believe my brain may have already started focusing on summer vacation. Hopefully at some point this weekend I will motivate myself to finish my work.

This summer will be a busy summer. First I get to spend all nine weeks with my sweet girl. I can't wait! I love teaching my little firsties but I really miss being a full time mommy as well. I am hoping to make my end of the summer SoCal trip a little longer so my sweet girl and I can spend more time with all our family and friends out there. I am also dreaming of being able to tag along to Texas with my hubby for a week. We haven't had a vacation together other than visiting family in SoCal since we got married. It would be a lot of fun to just travel together for a family vacation with just the 3 of us.

Well friends, have a happy Saturday and enjoy the beautiful day!

Ashley

Five For Friday

Good morning! I am so excited to bring you my first Five For Friday on this beautiful first day in May.

On Monday my little firsties got to watch our local fire department help our eighth graders with a science experiment. They did an egg drop from the top of the ladder. Although they enjoyed watching all the eggs drop in their different containers, it was the ladder that was the highlight of the experience. Over half my class wrote about the ladder in their journal assignment.

Our school has a flag raising on the last Wednesday of every month. Each class takes a turn leading. This past Wednesday was our turn. My kids did such an awesome job leading pledges, reading verses, and saying the prayer. They looked and sounded so grown up. I couldn't help but flash back to how little they were at the beginning of the school year.

We began working on our Mother's Day writing. My awesome teaching partner had cute mom/superhero writing idea. They had to think of something their mom was good at and turn it into a super power that will help people. It was sweet and pretty funny to read about all the different super powers. We had everything from super hugs to super bakers to the super cleaner.It will be fun to see how it all comes together in the final product next week.

I get to plan the weekend adventures with my little family. My husband is done with his masters so this will be the first weekend in a year that we will have the entire weekend to be together with our sweet baby girl and crazy dog. I am so excited!!

This week we used the song Big House by Audio Adrenaline with one of our Bible lessons and I thought I would share it.



Ashley

Hello Sunshine

Today I am excited to announce that I have teamed up with 11 amazing bloggers to bring you a collaborative teaching blog called Hello Sunshine. We are all Arizona bloggers who  are passionate about teaching and sharing with others. 

We are kicking off this weekend with a giveaway you won't want to miss. 

Along with this HUGE giveaway, we have a hop set up for you to give you a chance to win a gift card from each of us.  Don't forget to visit the Hello Sunshine blog when you are finished visiting each of us to enter the big giveaway.  You don't want to miss out on the chance to win $100 to spend at TPT.

Today I am giving away a $10 Starbucks card and $10 to spend in my TPT store.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 
Now you should check out Pam at Little Bird Kindergarten to enter another giveaway.  Remember to complete the hop so that you can enter the final amazing giveaway at the new Hello Sunshine blog!

Celebrating Easter

The last few days have been filled with conversations about Easter and Christ's resurrection. I love talking about this with first graders. They have such open hearts and tend to be very passionate about their faith.

One way we talked about it, is by reading The Legend of the Easter Egg. I love these stories. They turn every day objects into reminders of God's amazing love. This story uses an egg to remind us that Jesus broke free from the tomb and gave us new life just like a bird breaks free from a shell with new life. To go along with the story we made the project you see below. They had a lot of fun with their pictures and they are now hanging in our classroom.

These will be a nice reminder in our room of God's love for us as we finish out our school year.

Currently - April

Hello Everyone! I can't believe today is April 1st. Time seems to be going by so fast at some moments and at others it seems to be moving at a snails pace.

We have made it into the home stretch for our school. We have 35 more days and it seems like there is so much left to do. We will see how much I can fit in before I say goodbye to my little first graders.

So today I am trying something new. I am linking up with Oh Boy 4th Grade for her Currently. This will be my very first link up. I am very excited to be learning so many new things in the blogging world. Here we go...

As I started working on this I was listening to Curious George tunes. My sweet girl loves to fall asleep snuggled with mommy or daddy and listening to the music from that show. There is something about that show and its music that is calming. My first graders love watching the TV series on rainy days or days that we have to eat in our rooms. It is about the only time my room is quiet. I am blessed with a very expressive group of kiddos this year.

The first graders that we have had the last year have had such a wide range of abilities in reading and math that we have decided to restructure for next year. That is one of many reasons why I love working with two of my closest friends every day. We sat after school today and designed a plan for next year and brainstormed all sorts of cool ways to make learning more effective and exciting for our kiddos.

However all that planning makes me think about my sweet girl. I am so excited to spend the next four days with her and just be a mom. I have stayed up way past normal the last few nights to make sure that all I have to do is be a mom for the 4 day weekend. My teaching hat will be hung up for the weekend. Which is probably good since now I really want and need more sleep. Hopefully my sweet girl will allow for an extra hour and a midday nap.

Well tomorrow my room will live up to my blog name. We have our Easter activities, a Fun Run with K-2 grade, a movie, and math tests. Our room is going to feel a lot like a jungle. When we have this many special activities and tests in one day my kids tend to lose control a little. Thankfully they will get to run a little energy off at the Fun Run.

Well I seem to have made it through my first link and currently! Yah!!

Have a great day!