Life

So it has been quite sometime since I last posted, but I am making a commitment to try and be a regular blogger.  Here is what has happened since my last post, it has been quite an adventure so hold on to your seats :)

Mu husband and I wanted to move out of Florida and try some place new.  He has family in rural Minnesota near Fargo, ND so we decided in December, that at the end of the school year we would move out there to be closer to his dad and all the cousins.  Well... that April, I found out I was pregnant (April 2013).  In June (2013) we pack up everything, our two dogs and hit the road for Minnesota.  During our move I received a phone call from a school I applied to in Fargo asking me to come in for an interview (yay!) and I got the job... teaching KINDERGARTEN! That summer we bought a house, which was a gigantic fixer upper.  I started the school year at Centennial Elementary School which could not have been more opposite from my previous school year.  My students were wonderful , the staff was great, and life was perfect. We welcomed our son on December 13, 2013 (14 days past my due date). It was freezing the day he was born was -27 and the "feels like" temperature was -41 BRRR! That Spring as the school year winded down it became apparent that due to low enrollment numbers Centennial would be loosing a Kindergarten unit, and since I was the last hire I would be the one having to leave.  I was heart broken but I had faith that it would all work out.  About 4 weeks later I was given wonderful news that I would be transferred to Horace Mann Elementary School.  This was a very small school K-2 and three sections of each grade level (9 teachers total). That school year was my 3rd year teaching and each year I started off at a new school.  This school will always have a piece of my heart.  There was not one single day that I did not 100% love going to work and being with my colleagues and students.  Everything about that school year was wonderful, except for the fact my husband and I desperately missed our family back in Florida.

After many debates and pro/con lists we decided that we were going to move back to Florida at the end of the 2014/2015 school year.

In the Spring of 2015 we put our house up for sale (it sold in 4 days...thank goodness), I was able to get a teaching job back at my previous elementary school I worked at, and we began saying our goodbyes and packing up our lives once again.  Once it was time for our journey back to Florida (I flew with our son who was 17 months old, and my husband drove back with our 2 dogs), we quickly settled in.

It was Summer 2015, and our whole lives were about to drastically change... I found out I was pregnant (we were trying) however, I found out I was pregnant with TWINS (which was totally un expected)! The remainder of my summer was spent sleeping (who knew you could be so tired) and chasing our 19 month old little guy around the house, park, and back yard.  At the beginning of the pregnancy there were some issues that required me to be very mindful of my overall activity. Since the beginning of August I have  a doctor appointment about every 9 days.  We found out these little babies will be IDENTICAL boys (mono-di twins) which adds to the risk level and increased doctor appointments.

Start of the 2015 school year was quite a roller coaster, our registered kindergarten numbers did not grow as expected (typically we have 100-120 kindergarten students, this year we had 54 to start the school year) after the 10-day count numbers were still too low and two teachers would be displaced off the kindergarten team, and since I am the transient teacher I was first on the list to go.  One teacher moved to first grade and I was in a state of limbo for 3 weeks as my principal tried to come up with a solution to not loose an entire unit from our school.  So after first being told I would be our school's music teacher (she is out on medical leave), then possibly 5th grade, I was finally given a temporary home in 2nd grade,  Moody (the school where I teach) has a very young teacher population which means there are tons of wedding and pregnancies taking place every school year.  So I am a long term sub for a second grade teacher who is out on maternity leave until November 30. Once she returns I will be a math resource teacher for the primary grades, go on my maternity leave, and finish the year most likely in a 3rd grade class as a long term sub for a maternity leave.

So... now that you are all caught up stay tuned for all the 2nd grade happenings and the crazy that is my life :)

WOW...

What a whirlwind! So last week was the first week of school and it went well rough almost horrible as I talked about in my previous post.  Luckily I was hired with 3 other first year teachers that I went to USF with :) and we could all talk about our overwhelmed ,what am I doing, life is crazy feelings of being a first year teacher trying to find the balance of everything. When I say it went horrible, to an observer they probably would think it was fine, but the standards and expectations that I had for myself, I felt like I fell  quite short. As I started the second week of school I was a third grade teacher, but as I ended the week I am now a first grade teacher!
There are two new charter schools that opened in our school district this year and that resulted in dramatically lower numbers of students in all the schools in our county. After the five day count, my Principal was notified that he would be loosing one instructional unit in a grade 3-5 position because our student numbers were simply not there.  At my school there are seven third grade teachers with about 15 -16 students each, so that is where the position would be lost, that happened to be me. My class was then split up among the remaining six teachers classes. Fortunately  though there was a teacher who at the beginning of the school year decided she would be taking a year leave of absence, so there was a vacancy in first grade, so that is where I was being moved to.  I will be starting with my new class Tuesday.  At first I was beyond overwhelmed, moving classrooms, setting up my new room, planning, and taking over a class where there have been 3 previous subs since the start of the school year, and leaving an amazing third grade team! After meeting the little firsties on Thursday all of the overwhelming feeling went away and I am so excited.  I am such a primary person, and those third graders have a lot of sass.  I did my final internship in a first grade classroom with an amazing teacher (The Go To Teacher Blogger) and I feel like with my progress towards the work-life balance and being in familiar territory of first grade that it is going to be a fabulous year!

It's a Career... not a job

A wise woman who works in the district office in the county in which I teach said ,"it is essential for teachers to find a work-life balance, once attained you must maintain for the entire year." This was said prior to starting my Level 3 internship for the county, I kind of brushed it off thinking yes this is true and never put anymore thought into it. During the new teacher orientation this August prior to the start of school she again stressed the importance of have this balance daily throughout the school year. As a first year teacher, each day feels like I am flying by the seat of my pants, not knowing what to expect and not completely confident in the lessons that I was teaching. I was getting to school around 6:15am ish leaving around 4:30pm and working at home until about 10:00pm just to get up and do the same thing again. After a week of this I was burnt out and regretting my career choice that weekend I applied to graduate school and my mind set was this is just a job- get me to the end of the year. Giving up is not something I have ever done in any aspect of my life normally when this get rough it makes me more determined to find the solution to make it work. I knew that this mind set would not be good for an entire year. I really started thinking about why I was feeling this burt out feeling already and it hit me, the wise words from a very wise woman, "it is essential for teachers to find a work-life balance, once attained you must maintain for the entire year." From day one this balance was already lost, this second week of school I decided I needed to work on achieving this balance. I still arrive to school early I am the first person there (next to the custodian) but I am also one of the first people to leave. no matter what I am doing at 3:30 I stop and leave for the day, I go to the gym, then I come home play with the dogs actually have conversations with my new husband when he gets home and then I do a little work and stop at 9:00. This work- life balance is tough and its not completely evened out yet but I am getting there and loving the career that I have chose once again :)

My Future Classroom!

This week I had the pleasure of meeting with the entire 3rd grade team I will be working with- there are 7 third grade classes for the upcoming 2012-2013 school year! We were all shown our rooms, I will be in a portable this year and I am going to try and have a "cozy" classroom vibe.  I will be posting pictures of before and after so hopefully all the ideas that I have in my head come out in an organized manner for the room :)

Books Galore

I have been quite the book scavenger lately- scrounging from old friends and family for any unwanted books and scouring the local Goodwill's to find quality literature to start building up my classroom library.  I feel comfortable with the amount of books I have now to start the year off, my shelves will be semi-occupied :) I also decided that as I get the books to level them.  The school I will be working at levels their classroom libraries using AR- I am not a huge fan of this so I decided to put the AR level and points of the book on the back and then use a conversion chart to label the F&P levels on the front of the book- which will be easier to then covert to the other leveling programs depending on which reading assessment program/tool we use.  I do know that we will be using the LLI (Leveled Literacy Intervention) Program (reading recovery based) which I was exposed to last semester during my final internship and when used properly it seemed to really help a majority of the students in the program- so I am excited to be able to use it again!

Hired!

Ecstatic- truly the one word that sums up every emotion I am feeling right now. I just graduated this past May from the University of South Florida and last week experienced my first ever "formal" interviews, (yes I have had interviews for various part-time jobs; hostess, server and secretary) but never any interviews that I have been consider a "Professional."  Nerve racking to say the least, but it is a wonderful feeling to finally accomplish the main goal of becoming an elementary teacher, that took five long years to reach. 


Not only did I get hired, but it is at a school 1.8 miles from my house, which beats the heck out of the 18 miles one way that I am driving now. I am fortunate enough to have the pleasure of working with three friends at the same school as me! I will be teaching third grade and two of my friends and former USF classmates will be on the same team as me, and then the other friend will be teaching 4th grade.  I could have not wished/hoped for a better first year of teaching scenario.  To put the icing on the cake the principal and staff that I have met seem to be amazing! 

Wedding Heaven

OH MY GOODNESS...Wedding Chicks you are quite possibly the best wedding website find yet! This website has everything you could possibly need to help you with all of the crazy things that come with planning a wedding.  My favorite part is the INSTANT FREE custom monograms! I am in wedding heaven <3 Check them out!