A first time Monday Made-It :)

I have been admiring all the "Monday Made-It's" all summer and finally decided to jump in and share what I am doing! Admittedly these stools took me more than a couple days to make, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

I got the idea (and directions) for these on Pinterest. I have been wanting something nicer to go under the kidney tables that wouldn't take up a lot of space, but that was also taller than the crates. Still not sure what grade I will be teaching so I wanted something older kids could sit on. My 7th grader was not such a willing model, but you can see they aren't entirely too small for him:

I used a heavy duty material for them since so many teachers have commented about them getting dirty. 

And if you follow the directions on that link, I would recommend making the second row (the bottom row with elastic) at least a few inches longer than the directions recommend. I wanted them to go over the ridges in the buckets completely.

Also, I didn't want to deal with spray painting buckets. I also didn't want Home Depot orange or Lowes blue since my classroom colors are black and white with lime green and pink accents. So I went to the local (uh, there are a MILLION of them!) hydroponics store and bought their black buckets. Shop around--- they varied in price from $7 to $3 each. Also, if you don't want to paint over the writing on the buckets of any color, just use acetone and a green scrubbie (with some elbow grease!) to scrub off the ink on them. 

If you have any questions or want more pictures, just let me know!

My next project was my white boards! My oldest daughter and I went to Lowes and they cut two sheets for me. I got 36 whiteboards that measure 15x15 inches. I found some cool duct tape that I liked and covered the edges to help them last longer. They came out pretty!

That's all for now. I'm working on a matching stool cushion as well as several printables that I am getting ready to laminate.

Excited to see what everyone else is doing!

Trying to add myself to Bloglovin...

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3, 2, 1 CLEAR!

Hello! I have decided to bring my blog back to life :) I know I was gone for, well, forever... and I didn't really think I would do anything with this once I was done student teaching. But the last couple months have found me trolling a lot of teaching blogs and in order to post and respond to them, I sort of want to have my blog back. I'll be making a lot of changes to it and trying to figure out how to get it "working" like other teacher's blogs (and maybe even get some cuteness involved??) so that I can share and learn more. 
I did a long term subbing assignment this past spring through the end of the school year. Wow-- did I learn a lot there! My school was in Detroit and inner city schools are so much different than outskirt suburbs schools! I thought about blogging while I was there, but truthfully there were so many negative things that were going on that I didn't want to record it all. In the end of course I left loving (most of) my students and wishing more than anything that I could take a handful of them home with me. Life down there is CRAZY different than in Belleville. 
There were days down there though that I would cry the whole way home (an hour's drive). I remember my son had a band concert one evening and I went to Keystone (where I student taught as well) and ran into a couple of my 2nd graders that I student taught with. Oh, that was bad-- it made me miss them so much! 
I'm still looking for my classroom. For some reason the schools aren't fighting each other to employ me :( Seriously though, I went into education knowing that it is bleak in Michigan- I knew this. I couldn't tell you how many people told me I was crazy. But I followed a dream- and when you follow a dream you don't worry about what everyone else thinks or says. So, for now, I remain unemployed. I look for a job every single day. If there is a job for me to find this school year, I will find it. God has a plan- and I will just keep that as my focus and not completely freak out that I have student loans kicking in this month. Oy! I was offered a job where I did that long term sub assignment but I declined. There were too many factors in that situation that I just couldn't overlook- the biggest one being the commute.
To keep my mind clear and busy while I'm still searching, I have been making things for my classroom. Oh I have some beautiful things I'll be posting pictures of! I'm so excited! Anyway, for those that are still following me, I'll take you with my through my next adventure if you'll have me! 

Krystal

How do you say goodbye?

This week is going to be hard. VERY hard. I told the kids last Tuesday that this was my last week and I have had several of them come up to me and ask if I will please stay. I have gotten a couple of cards and one little angel even promised me that he will behave himself better if I don't have to leave. Of course I love all their attention, but the reality is that RM is ready to have her classroom back and these kids will simply ADORE her once they adjust back to her! She is an awesome teacher who will help them bloom like never before. I look forward to visiting them and seeing her in action- they are going to do so well!
But before that all happens, they have to say goodbye to Mrs. Leece. Oy- just thinking about it makes my heart hurt. I'm so used to seeing them every day and giving them my "all".
I have been thinking about different ways I can honor our time together and show them that they mean the world to me- without spending a lot of money (since I'm not getting paid to do this-- and had to quit my paying job to student teach- I have to be frugal) I picked up some bookmarks and am writing a note on the back of each one to personalize it. Then I wrote each of them their own letter from me. I will put these in their backpacks on Tuesday when they are in specials so they won't have to read them in class. I went to an art fair this weekend and met an author of a children's book that is set in the Traverse City area- so I purchased that book and will give it to the class on Tuesday- so a book and bookmarks. Plus their little notes. I hope this will show each of them in some small way what they have come to mean to me!

Parent Teacher Conferences

So I survived my first parent/teacher conferences. Most of them went really well and I enjoyed spending a couple minutes talking to each parent about their awesome children. There were two that weren't very comfortable though. And I think those were the two that I learned the most from. I don't like confrontations. I never have. And I never will. I have learned over the last 40 years how to handle them and how to effectively prevent them most of the time. RM had told me that she loves conferences because she likes getting to know some of the parents that she normally doesn't see. I agree- that was a great part of it.
I had been talking to one of my peers from UoP about conferences and how he liked them. He is going through student teaching with me and we have been on several learning teams together through many of our classes through this master's degree. He had conferences several weeks ago (Washington state starts school in August) He told me that he learned things about his students that he didn't expect and that there were some very sad things he learned too that were disturbing. I remember saying to him "Oh, that won't happen to me-- we don't have those kinds of problems in our community" (I was saying this in response to his statement about a couple of specific things that he learned about students that saddened or frustrated him) Unfortunately, I too learned some things that I didn't see coming and that made me sad or frustrated. It simply amazes me how children can have some issues at home that they are dealing with (not necessarily the fault of the parent- just life circumstances) and yet they are still there at school and still doing their work. I found a new admiration for a couple of my students for sure!
But mostly I enjoyed the conversations. Mostly. I did walk away from one conference frustrated at the parent but I'm sure that will happen with most conferences.
We had our conferences on Thursday evening and all day Friday. Even though we didn't have kids at school on Friday- I was whipped by the end of the day!

Abandon ship!

Last week was a short week due to conferences. So that meant that we had to get everything we normally get done in five days- done in four. This also meant that we had a lot of assessments on Thursday- which made the students rather unhappy with me! I would have been unhappy too if I had three assessments in the  morning and one in the afternoon- but it was what it was.
On Wednesday I had tried to assess them in their math. We had been working on coins for over a week and I was confident that they would do well. HOWEVER when I passed out the assessment and was walking around looking at their papers, I realized that I had not been clear to them about something in the assessment. The longer I walked around and thought about it, the more I realized we needed to abandon ship and reteach what was missed. I had looked over the assessment of course before we handed it out, but to be honest, I had made the same mistake my students were making- which was an obvious sign that I needed to pull those assessments and reteach. So that's exactly what I did. I had them put their pencils down and took the assessments. Then I retaught what the confusion was about and told the students we would assess the next day. Unfortunately, that meant an additional assessment on Thursday, but it was better to do that than to have them not do well on the money assessment when they did indeed know the material!

I had a student make me a necklace last week. It was a very sweet gesture and it made me smile like nothing in a long time! He said that he was playing in his mom's craft stuff and wanted to make RM and I something. He took some pearl string and some apples... yes, you can imagine what it was like :) He taped the pearl string together to make a necklace (scotch tape of course) and then taped two apples onto the necklace. The picture I have of it is crude- but you get the jist of it. Of course the apples fell off within a couple hours (they were taped onto the necklace) I had said how much I loved the necklace and was wearing it- so when the apples started jumping ship, I had to fix the problem. I got a paper clip and attached the apple to the paper clip and then that to the necklace. My neck was itching like MAD from where the scotch tape was holding the necklace together, but I was not about to take it off.

I wore that necklace all day- and when it came home it was hung in my office proudly so that every time I look at it I will think of that kind gesture and my sweet class from student teaching. 

I'm still alive!

Wow- I can't believe how long it has been since I have blogged! I have been very busy with my students and finishing up my student teaching experience. Not to mention the university is still demanding all kinds of crazy assignments for me to finish up my master's degree!
I have done so much since my last post! Most importantly, I have experienced parent-teacher conferences and we are finished with our science unit on plants and will assess this week.  I finish on Tuesday with the kids and then have professional development on Wednesday before I finish up.
I can't even THINK about being done without tears welling up in my eyes! I know this may seem silly, but I have grown seriously attached to these students and don't want to say goodbye! I know I will be equally attached to my own classroom of students, but these are different I guess. They learned right along with me. Luckily I will get to still see all of them because my two kids go to school at the same school- so I'm not going "cold turkey" from them. I have to find a job though- so I won't see them regularly like I would like. Hopefully I will get a long-term subbing position soon. I learned one of the teachers at my school is expecting and due in April- so maybe an opportunity will open up there. That is a long time away though. Next week after I'm done I will pursue all the paperwork to sub at the school and get myself situated. First though, I'm going to sleep a LOT ;) (well, except for Black Friday- where I will not sleep at all!)
Ok, so to catch up....
I'll post a few posts so that it isn't one huge post.

Our plant unit is nearly complete. The students have observed their plants several times and the plants are nearing the end of their life cycle. We planted brassica seeds which have a fast life cycle so that we can see everything during the time we are doing the unit. The kids have been so excited about it all- and I have loved seeing them excited to learn and doing all the activities! 

We included in our unit a rather large writing assignment as well. I taught them about the life cycle of sunflowers and read several stories to them about sunflowers. Then I had them write an expository paper about it. Oy- THAT was a challenge! Some of the students got it right away- some... well, it was a learning experience for us all! We spent several days learning about what a topic sentence is and how to compose one; what a conclusion should include and how to write one. Then I gave them three different graphic organizers and had them start writing down what they wanted to say as well as what they needed to include to meet the requirements for the assignment. Of course I want them to be able to do great things and write like pros... so I had to realize that they have never done something this big before and I had to slow down. This was a learning experience for me! After they had all their information in several different places, I wanted them to put it all together in a rough draft. We did the rough draft, proofed it with peers, used a checklist to make sure we had all our requirements met, and then after a final time with proofreading, we wrote our final draft. Most of the students submitted it on Wednesday of last week. I am still waiting for two of them, but I'm sure they will come tomorrow. The final papers are very intimidating to score! I mean, I created the requirements and I lead the students to their writing, but I'm still intimidated in how many different aspects this assignment covered!