Thursday, December 19, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 19

The elves took out the girls air rocket and tried to go for a ride. One elf hugged the rocket while the other jumped off the table on to the launcher. Unfortunately the elves are heavier than foam rockets so they didn't really go anywhere. 

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Working as Partners

I work in a Dual Language Enrichment program. One of the major componets of the program is that students are to work as partners. I did a lot of partner work last year, but this year I have been distracted with new math curriculum, new students (I looped with my students last year), a class that makes me question why I am a teacher (luckily my other class makes me so happy that I am a teacher) that I just haven't done very much with the partner thing. Every year we are required to do six hours of training to refresh or increase our knowledge of the program and of teaching ELL students. I chose a training on making partners work. This idea came a day or two after the training as I was reflecting on what I could do to increase partner work in my room. We have privacy folders for when we take tests. Now we have partner folders for when we do work as partners. The point of the partner folder is to remind the student that they have to work with their partner (not take turns doing the work, but discuss the work together) and that it is not a time that the whole table can sit around talking. One of my classes LOVES to talk about anything anytime. So far this has really worked well and the kids are loving that they get to talk to each other and I am loving that I can stop telling them to be quiet. Other great benefits are they share papers so I make half the copies. That also means when they do something I want to grade I only have to grade half as many. Totally a win win. After Christmas I want to introduce rubrics where they grade their partner on how well they worked together and what they can do to improve next time. I am also thinking of ways I could get them working with other partners. My husband uses a clock where they sign up for twelve different partners and he tells them which hour partner they have to work with that day. I'm not sure I want to use that many partner choices, but I am trying to think of something that would give them four or five choices. 
So here are pictures of my students working as partners with their new partner folders. 






Elf on the Shelf Day 18

The elves had so much fun with the swings from the night before they decided to make them into a trapeze. 

Elf on the Shelf Day 17

The elves were looking for some entertainment tonight so they made swings that they hung from the light. 

Elf on the Shelf Day 16

While we were gone the Christmas cards from my mom arrived. She always makes handmade cards for the girls each year. The elves were holding the cards for the girls. 



Elf on the Shelf Day 15

This was our second night at Great Wolf. I guess the elves were as tired as we were. They pushed all of the bags and clothes off the couch so they could take a rest. 

Monday, December 16, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 14

The elves are reading up on the new game that Great Wolf has.
 It is called Shadow Quest. Sounds like it will be a good time. 

Elf on the Shelf Day 13

Several years ago we started a Christmas tradition of spending a night or two at Great Wolf Lodge. This past Friday night we headed to Great Wolf for this year's trip. Friday morning the elves were asking to go with us with a note, goggles, and a doll bathing suit. 



Thursday, December 12, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 12

The Potato Heads' Revenge.
Back on day 6 the elves had fun taking apart the Mr. Potato Heads.
 Now the Potato Heads have had their revenge. 

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Elf of the Shelf Day 10

The elves found the new skirts we bought for them. They decided to try them on and check themselves out in the mirror. 



Monday, December 9, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 9

The elves must have decided that they deserved a movie night.  
Here they are checking out the Santa Tracker channel on U-Verse. 

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 8

Today the elves tried to be stealthy. 
They hid in the Christmas tree to watch how the girls were behaving.
 Here is a close up of the elves in the tree. 


Saturday, December 7, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 7


Yesterday was a snow day here. The girls passed some of their time playing with their Playmobile Zoo. They left it out, and the elves took their turn playing with it.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Winter Weather

Its an old saying yet so true. If you don't like the weather wait a few minutes and it will change.
Here is Cristina on Wednesday in short sleeves. She took her tights off as soon as she got inside.


Here are the girls on Friday. Cristina enjoyed listing the layers she had on to keep herself warm. A t-shirt, a jacket, a sweat shirt, a pair of jeans, a pair of pajama pants, two pairs of socks, and a scarf. Unfortunately what was called a snow day should have been called an ice day. What looks like beautiful snow is actually frozen sleet. It is frozen solid on the ground. There were no snow balls or snowmen to be made out of this stuff.  

It happens quite often, yet it amazes us every time. We have beautiful warm weather one day and freezing cold weather the next. 

Elf on the Shelf Day 6

We have a Snowman Mr. Potato Head and a Christmas Tree Mr. Potato Head, but the elves seem to have trouble figuring out how to put them together. 



Thursday, December 5, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 5

Victoria brought home Christmas library books. 
The elves enjoyed a good story time reading one of the books. 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 3


Today the Elves decided to hang out in the bathroom.
Cristina's Elf hung from the bar like a little gymnast. Victoria's Elf played dress up with the hair bows.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 2

Today the Elf on the Shelfs tried to get dressed in the clothes laid out for the girls. 


Sunday, December 1, 2013

Elf on the Shelf Day 1

      Last year Cristina came home from school each day talking about the Elf on the Shelf that lived in her classroom. She very much wanted one for home and therefore so did her sister. We set off one night while she was at practice to find one. We found something so much better for our daughters who love imaginative play. Plush Elf on the Shelves that you can touch! Their story is a little different. They have a poem that says "I'm not the Elf on the Shelf that you know. I do not fly through ice and snow. My job is to simply stay here and play. You can touch me, and squeeze me, and play all day."
      Last year it was a bit of a struggle to get the elves to do anything creative, but I have a feeling that they have been thinking up ideas all year long.


Bedtime hit right in the middle of wrapping presents. 
The elves tried to help us finish. The girls loved what a mess they made of the tape. 

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Amazing Customer Service is a Rare Find

                 Fitbit Zip                    Fitbit One

        Last Christmas my husband bought me the Fitbit Zip. I loved it! It kept track of my steps and automatically synced whenever I was near the computer. Then I got the app for my phone and it synced whenever it was near my phone. I went a straight five months taking 10,000 or more steps a day. Then the battery died in the Fitbit. Not a big deal, but I was sad that I had a few days on my dashboard that said zero steps. We got a new battery and I was good to go. This battery didn't last so long. By June it was dead. I decided to upgrade to the Fitbit One that had a rechargeable battery and did more that the Zip. I loved it even more than the Zip. It can track steps, stairs, sleep and it emails me when the battery is getting low so I can charge it before it dies. Everything was great. Yesterday I went Christmas shopping for my daughters. In total we went to eight different places. Sometime after we got home I realized that I didn't have it on anymore. We search the house, but no luck. Today we went back to each store and asked if it had been found. I encountered many different reactions. The best was the restaurant where we had eaten lunch. They checked their lost and found, checked the booth where we had sat, and took my name and number to call me if it turns up. Most stores checked their lost and found and were apologetic that it was not there. One store simply said no but didn't look. 
      When we got home we started searching to see if other people had lost their fitbit and what they had done. We read story after story about the great costumer service experiences people had with fitbit. I really wasn't expecting much for myself other than a sorry that you lost it we hope you buy another one. We went to their website and found their help site. You could submit an email with the help you needed and one of the options was I lost my fitbit. I filled out the form and explained how I had lost it. Within two hours I received an email asking for a copy of the receipt or screenshot of the order and shipping information. Luckily we had ordered through Amazon so we pulled up our account and took a screen shot and submitted the other information. The email had said they would review it and may replace it. Fast forward another couple of hours and I received an email saying I should receive my replacement within 5-7 days. I was completely shocked. Their customer service was quick, polite, extremely helpful, and went above and beyond what was actually necessary. They easily could have said sorry and that they hope I buy a new one, or offered a discount when I buy a new one, but instead they sent a new one when they was no defect in the one I had. 
       I find this incredibly inspiring. I don't work in a business or customer service area, but I can still strive to be more like this company. Helping others simply because it is the right thing to do. Going above and beyond because it makes everyone better and happier. 

Saturday, November 9, 2013

I have a wonderful husband!

Last weekend was the time change. I thought woohoo an extra hour of sleep! I read on a few blogs where moms were complaining about how hard the time change was on their kids. I thought I know it is in the spring when you lose an hour, but we gain an hour here. What are you complaining about. I don't remember the time change really being a big deal in my family before, but this year it has hit us like a ton of bricks. My kids of been tired and cranky all week. Cristina had several instances today of getting really angry about something and not making any sense about it. Eddie told her she needed to lay down and take a nap. Not only did she not argue about that, but she laid down and immediately fell asleep.
Now I might have been exhibiting some similar behaviors to my daughter. I might have slightly over reacted to Victoria not listening to something I asked her to do. I was trying really hard to hide my bad mood, but apparently I am not any good at that. I ended up laying down during the TCU football game and falling asleep. I don't have any idea how long I slept, but my wonderful husband (who had been dealing with tired and cranky girls all day) hung up all of the clean clothes, washed all of the dirty dishes, clean up the drive way, swept and mopped the playroom floor and who knows what else that I didn't notice that he did. He deserves an award for not only so gracefully dealing with us, but getting done all that needed to be done without saying a word about it. I am a really lucky woman.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend was the fair. This weekend I used my free time from getting all my work done by Friday afternoon to go with the family to the pumpkin patch.
Victoria liked all the different wood cutouts they had to pose with.

Cristina went with her dad to do the corn maze (which was 4 and older) Victoria tried out each of the 5 different bounce houses.


Hay ride.

Train ride.

Pumpkins! Cristina went with the smallest pumpkin she had ever seen. Victoria walked right up to one and said this is the one I have been looking for. 

Fair Day!!!

I have been working really hard this year to finish all school work by the time I leave school on Friday. And I can't stay late on Fridays because Cristina has gymnastics practice, so I really have to work to get it done. I have been doing it. I leave my classroom with all plans planned, copies copied and filed and everything cleaned up and ready to go. This has left me free on the weekends to enjoy my family. Last week I did that my going to the fair with them. Here is our fair day in pictures.
Victoria has really gotten over her fear of animals and wanted to feed every animal in the petting zoo.


The girls really loved getting to pet this animal.

Trying out the Springfree trampoline is always a favorite.


The girls found these big pillow rocks on fake grass and thought it was the best playground ever. They really loved jumping and falling on them.


Victoria was harder to get a picture of, but I finally got one.

Dressed as a cowgirl.

Posing with a Big Tex head in the Big Tex exhibit.

The Little Hands on the Farm is another favorite.

He really wanted to get one of these last year but didn't. He made sure to get one this year. When no one thought he could finish it he ate it all to prove he could. He then didn't eat anything else the rest of the day. That is a lot of corn dog.

At the end of a long fair day it nice to have older cousins around to help tired little ones.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Catching Up Part 1: Donor's Choose and Hot Dot Pens

This year my schedule is crazy (as I have talked about before.) I really love doing math centers, and at the end of the year last year I had a set of centers and a rotation down that was working perfectly. Unfortunately the minutes are just not in my schedule this year. I may be able to squeeze them in my morning block of time soon, but in the afternoon I have 120 minutes to teach 55 minutes of reading and 90 minutes of math. Obviously that does not happen. The first thing to go was center time, and everything else just gets squeezed in. I may panic every time I look at the clock from 1:00 to 3:00, but my students and I make it work. Even with the time crunch I still have those early finishers. I was at a loss of how to handle it. Should I do some modified centers? Should I just have some early finisher activities? I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. Then my principal gave every teach $100 to spend. I scoured every approved catalog trying to decide the best way to spend my money. I came across Hot Dot Pens and thought that is something that the early finishers could do with no prep work from me. (We have brand new math frameworks for our math lesson this year and that is taking all my prep time and then some!) For $100 I got a set of six pens and a couple of boxes of flashcards. Being the ever greedy teacher, I wanted one for each one of my students. I went to Donor's Choose website. It was perfect timing because Kia was doing a matching promotion. I asked for 20 Hot Dot Pens and a whole bunch of flashcards and in a stroke of genius I asked for enough AA batteries for all the pens. The total including shipping and the donation to Donor's Choose was $666. By far the biggest project I have ever done on Donor's Chose. My wonderful parents donated some money and it was matched by a different organization. I donated some, and it was also matched. An anonymous person donated some and it was matched by a promotion at a local mall. Within 3 weeks 1/2 my project was funded and 1/2 was matched. What an incredible website with incredibly caring people who donate to it to help students they know very little about. A few weeks later I got this in the mail. Awesome!
It's like Christmas for a teacher! :)

I had to figure out how I was going to keep 21 pens safe. I was afraid of pens being thrown into baskets. The teacher who was in my room before had left these stands that she had never used. I put them together, bought some freezer bags, and stuck on some sticky hooks that came with my easel that I had never used. Then to add some extra education punch I put odd numbers on one stand and even numbers on the other stand. Its hard to see in the picture but on the blue strip above the hooks I wrote the number of the bag that hangs there.

Here they are being used. We have had them for a couple of weeks now and the kids absolutely love them.