Let's Talk About Me!

I'm really excited to join my first linky correctly!  I tried to do one last week and totally screwed it up :/  Thankfully Grace over at First Grade's Hoot watches out for me!  

With that being said, I hope you are ready to learn all about me!

1.  I am OBSESSED with frogs.  I have been for forever.  I love that every time someone sees something frog themed they immediately think of me!  I haven't gotten tired of frog themed gifts.  It's pretty cool seeing all the things you can find that have frogs.  Right now I'm on the look out for a frog tea set, so if you find one let me know!!!

2. I am bi-racial and love it!  My dad is Indian (by way of Trinidad and Tobago) and my mom is African-American.  I enjoyed experiencing both heritages while growing but have had a hard time identifying solely with one. I do think it's fun that people have a hard time figuring out my ethnicity.  It makes me feel exotic! 

3.  This will be my 10th year teach (holy cow!!).  I currently teach 3rd grade and have for 7 years.  I taught 4th grade for 2 years and wasn't a fan.  My third graders have just the right amount of sassiness but still have a huge admiration for me.  They definitely make me feel like a rockstar!

4. I love, love, LOVE White House Black Market!!!  We have a very unhealthy relationship but I wouldn't give it up for the world! Everything I try on in that store agrees so well with me that I have only walked out twice without buying something.  If you have not yet experienced WHBM, you need to.  My co-workers joke that I am a walking billboard for the store.  When ever they see me in something new they ask if it's White House.

5. I never leave home without my Chi.  I have naturally curly hair (Ha! I sound like Frieda from Charlie Brown) but I'd rather wear it straight.  So, I straighten my hair every week!  I know there are so many ladies with straight hair who would kill for curly hair but I hate the up keep of my hair.  It's soo much easier to just straighten it and leave it!  I straighten my hair so much that my nieces didn't know my hair was naturally curly!  They fought me on it until I showed them a picture.

6. I can sit and watch the ID Channel for HOURS!  I love Deadly Women, Who the bleep Did I Marry?, Wicked Attractions, and so on.  Actually, I can sit and watch TV for hours!  TV is one of my many weaknesses.  Besides the ID Channel, I love Duck Dynasty, New Girl, America's Got Talent, Hell on Wheels, Melissa and Joey, and so much more!!  My all-time favorite show however, is Big Bang!  I watch all the re-runs and have all the seasons on DVD.  Sheldon is my favorite! BAZINGA!

7.  Food is another weakness of mine.  I love all kinds of food, especially snack foods.  My oldest brother lives in Michigan (near Detroit) and they have the best donughts! Oh and there is this place called "The Bread Basket" that has THE BEST corned beef and pastrami sandwiches.  I swear I ate there every day when I visited for the 4th of July.  Besides those I love pizza, Doritos, burgers, pasta, anything fattening basically...I need to break this!

8.  Even though I am a big TV watcher, I'm not a movie watcher.  I've never seen Titanic. I've never watched The Notebook in its entirety.  I don't know why, but it's always been tough for me to just sit and watch a movie.  I use to really enjoy scary movies but even those don't excite me anymore.  I'm not big in to romcoms but I do enjoy a good kids' movie here and there.  I have seen all of the Toy Story movies and am really excited to see Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University, when they come on demand!

9. If I'm not watching TV, I'm reading.  I read anything I can get my hands on. I really like children's lit because I like knowing what the kids are reading these days.  I also really like historical fiction, especially Phillippa Gregory.  I'm really excited that Starz is doing a mini-series on her book "The White Queen".  I find the Tudor-Era fascinating and read as much as I can about the time period.  I also read teaching books.  This summer I read Growing Readers, The Art of Teaching Reading, Revisiting the Reading Workshop, The Daily 5, and The Next Step in Guided Reading. Do you see a theme here?

10. I LOVE Toms!  If I could wear them every day I would. Oh wait!  In the winter I did!  Haha! I think I have about 6 pairs and want, no NEED, to add more to the collection.  I just saw that they came out with a pair that is covered with flags from around the world....they would look so great on my feet!  :)

I hope you enjoyed learning about me!  See you tomorrow! :D

Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Kacey for Five for Friday for my first time and I'm super excited!  It's going to be hard to share only 5 things, but I'll try! ;)

1.  MY FROG CHAIR!!!!
I am obsessed with frogs!!  I've been in love with them since watching Kermit on Muppet Babies.  My classroom is frog themed and I have frogs every where!  My calendar is frog themed, my birthday chart, my number line, I have even have a tape dispenser that looks like a frog!!  Ok back to the chair.  A few years ago while I was blog hopping, I happened upon a picture of a frog themed classroom and that's when I saw the chair!  I knew I had to have it.  So after a long, exhaustive search on Amazon, it was no where to be found :(.  Heartbroken, I gave up the idea of the chair and focused on finding other kind of seating that my kiddos would enjoy.  Then, in the beginning of July, one of my teacher besties, Grace, from First Grade's A Hoot, found the chair!!!!! She was blog hopping and found a link for it!!!  We then realized we had been searching for the wrong thing.  Instead of an inflatable chair, we should have been searching for an inflatable ball pit!!!  Needless to say, I was ECSTATIC when Grace sent me the link.  I bought it right then and there and couldn't wait to put it up.  

But I had to :( The floors in my school were being waxed so I had no where to put it. One month later, it was time!!! 

Once the chair was finished I couldn't contain my excitement!  I was so happy!! Of course I need to take the first week of school to teach my kiddos how to be respectful of the chair, if I want this awesome chair to last!  The cute pillows are from Target, my second favorite store, Amazon being my first :)

2. Working on My Classroom
I have been working on my classroom for the past 2 weeks!  First, Grace and  I decided to make our libraries unified and purchased lots and lots of bins from Really Good Stuff.  So I spent the past two week sorting and organizing all of my books.  I'm not quite finished, I need to put labels on the bins, but here's a peek at what my library looks like:

I plan on letting the kids take the ottomans and move them around the room during reading time.
On top of changing the library, I also decided to change the color scheme in my room.  I am in love with all of the awesome files Ladybug's Teacher FIles creates so in order to coordinate with my purchases, it just made since to change the color scheme!  I played around with a lime, turquoise, black theme, but decided to stick with just lime and black since I already had a lot of colors in the library.  Here's what the front of the room looks like please excuse the mess!):  The borders are all the same, Frog-tastic Frolic by Trend.

3. Working on my schedule 
This is the most dreaded part of the school year for me.  It's so hard to get schedule everything I want to do!  And having to coordinate with my partner teacher makes it even harder!  This year I plan on doing readers' workshop (like I said in my earlier post) but have also decided to incorporate the Daily 5.  I'm not quite sure how it will work out, but I am positive that it will be fine! (Cross your fingers!  Haha!)  Anywho, here is a look at my schedule, which is probably going to change because I haven't touched based with my partner teacher yet.

4. My crazy research for reading
At the beginning of the summer I decided I wasn't happy with how I planned my reading block for that year and wanted a change for the coming year.  So I discussed my thoughts with Grace and we decided we were both going to read up on reading workshop.  We began with Growing Readers.  I really connected with a lot that was in the book and began researching units of study for third grade.  I found some and was really excited to begin planning.  I planned out all of September and then was ready to start!  I discussed with Grace my plans and playing devil's advocate, she helped me to see that during my schedule when I pulled a guided reading group, they would miss independent reading time and what is the most important thing to being a good reader?  Practice!  So I went back to the drawing board.  Grace suggested that I read the Daily 5 and to see how I could fit it in.  I was resistant at first. I wanted to do readers' workshop!  But after reading I realized that I could both (hopefully!)  So I will be spending this last week of summer vacation planning and interweaving these two "programs".

5. Monster!
Monster is my 7 year old pomeranian.  

He's such a cutie!  And he is so sweet!  He loves to cuddle and give kisses.  He also LOVES green beans and will follow you around until you give him some!

A few years ago I visited the allergist and guess what!  I am allergic to dogs!  Of course!  So all of Monster's fluffy fur has to be shaved off every few months or so, so that I can have some relief.  Now instead of being a fluff ball, he's a fuzz ball!

How can you not fall in love with that face???  I just want to cuddle with him all the time!!

I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about me!  Stop back soon for more musings of this third grade teacher!

-Shar

Let's Try This Again!

Well it looks like my idea of blogging everyday has not happened. :/  Once I get into teacher mode, I forget about everything else!  It's getting to be that time and I am very excited for what this new school year has in store for me!  
A few of my co-workers and I have been doing a book discussion on Jan Richardson's Guided Reading: The Next Step, which most of us bought last year to help us launch guided reading in our rooms.  We work at a private school so the push for guided reading is not like it is in public schools.  I can't wait to start another year of assessing and grouping and watching my guys grow as readers.
I am also excited to be launching reading workshop in my room.  I have played around with my reading block for many years and have not really liked any of them.  I tried centers two years ago, and did my own version of a workshop where students participated in workstations. That went pretty well, but I didn't feel like my students were involved in authentic reading activities.  So after MUCH research and reading (thanks to Grace! I don't think any of this would have been possible or would have happened if she wasn't there telling me all about her ideas) I have decided on trying a reading workshop, where the students....READ!  The ENTIRE time!! I have gotten many ideas from Beth Newingham, Debbie Miller, Kathy Collins, and multiple blogs that I feel prepared and ready!
Right now I am working on my September long range goals.  It's very hard deciding what to teach first.  Do I want to introduce partner reading first thing?  Or do I want to wait?  Some many decisions!!!  And seeing that it's 11:23 PM on a Tuesday night, you can tell my teaching life is beginning to consume my regular life...
I hope to be back soon to post about my classroom and to share my ideas, ramblings, things that were great, things you shouldn't try, and so on.
Happy Tuesday!

Welcome!

Welcome! My friend Grace, over at First Grade's a Hoot, has been hounding and hounding me to blog, so here I am!  I am a third grade teacher, who is obssessed with frogs and finding new, fun ways to teach my tadpoles. This year I am working on guided reading in my room and have been researching all I can, so if you have any idea I would love to hear them!  My plan is to blog once a week about things I have done in my classroom.  My ultimate goal is to become a blogging fanatic and blog everyday!