Meeting Elsa and Anna!!!

This week was all about getting to Thursday night at our house. Thursday night Chic-Fil-A was holding an event to introduce their new ice coffee. What better way to get a bunch of people there that to have the ice princesses themselves there.

Here are my beautiful girls with Anna and Elsa.
Yes Victoria is wearing her Elsa dress she got for her birthday.

Then cousin Caitlynn joined them for a picture.

 After pictures there were lots of activities to do. First up was a game of snowball toss. I didn't get any pictures, but there were three buckets and you had to throw a large white pom pom into one of the buckets. The first bucket won you a sticker. The second bucket won you a small prize. Both Cristina and Victoria hit this bucket. Cristina won a pink bracelet. Victoria won a small kaleidoscope. The third bucket won you a crown. Caitlynn was determined to win a crown. She went for the third bucket each of her three throws. She threw  it far enough each time, but always off to the side. Her lack of a prize caused a melt down that was quickly ended when we stepped to the next activity. There is nothing like getting your nails painted with glitter polish to make you forget the game you just lost. After the nails it was time for hair. They had that color chalk to put in the girls hair. Then it was time to build a snowman out of marshmallows.  After that we decided we had had enough Frozen for the night. We had planned to eat at Chic-Fil-A but all of these activities were going on right in front of it, so we decided to leave the mall and go to the stand alone restaurant just down the street. It has a playground so the girls were all for it. It was a fun way to spend a Thursday night, even if we were supposed to by at gymnastics practice. :)

This week was an overwhelming week at school. There was so much to do outside of teaching that I couldn't even figure out where to begin. I LOVE teaching. I HATE paperwork and stuff. Our Monday staff meeting was just filled with stuff that needed to be taken care of right now. Despite all that, I did finally get all of my students tested for their reading level on AR Star. They are starting out low because this is their first time getting literacy instruction in English. I am confident that their levels will shoot up during the year.

Now for some of the stuff that had to be done. We are having a door decorating contest for college awareness. I love having all of the doors decorated. I hate doing the actual decorating. I think in the end my door turned out pretty cute. 

Although I did not have any secret weapons like my friend from Just a Second, It's Time for Third . She had a motion sensor that played the schools fight song and a piece of felt where you could smell the beach. Here is her door

To end the weekend we went Halloween costume shopping. This is them in the dressing room. I can't wait to see them with their hair and make-up done to match the costumes. They are so stinking cute!

Character and Setting, Independent Reading and Football

This week we were working on character and setting using Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night. We read the story, discussed it, did some workbook pages, then on Friday we put it together in these cute character and setting tents. On the outside of the tents the kids drew and labeled the characters. On the inside they drew the setting. On the inside flaps they wrote details about what Henry and Mudge saw and smelled. We did main idea and details last week, so I used the extra space to throw in some review. :)

One thing I really wanted to find time for this year was independent reading time. I only have 55 minutes to teach reading. That is not a lot of time, so this year I am really picking and choosing which activities I want to do so that the last 10-15 minutes is just focused on the kids reading books on their level. 

At the end of last year I got my AR station set up. Inside the black ovals are the level range that corresponds to that color. The white strip (which I have redone this year to make it straighter and neater) shows the levels in increments. I have gotten about 3/4 of my students leveled. They have a small card with their name on it that shows them what level they are on and what color books they need to read. I use a thumb tack to attach it next to the level they are on. This lets them see what color they are on and how far they are from the next level. On the back of each book I have written the level and AR number. The students can use that to take the AR test and then use the board to see what color box the book goes in. Its taken some practice, but books are beginning to be returned to the right place. Also there are at least 5 more boxes than in this picture. See the three boxes on the floor? That was the beginning of the overflow boxes. I taped large strips of colored paper to those boxes to identify the solid white boxes. 

Her is my independent reading time in action. Most of the kids are catching on to reading by themselves. Not showing your book to your friend or otherwise distraction them from their book, but concentrating on reading your own book. Once they have read a book several times they can take an AR test. We keep a list going so we all know who is taking AR test first the next day. By next six weeks I am going to incorporate their AR tests into their reading grade. This will help make sure that everyone is taking at least 1 test a week. Hopefully more:)

Now after all that hard work all week, we had some fun at the TCU football game on Saturday. 

Cristina was excited to have "girl time" where they lay under the bleacher seats while the adults watch the game. According to her they discuss "high fashion" while under our feet. 

Then it was time for some treats. First a lemon chill follow by a bucket of popcorn.

Go Horned Frogs! They won!!!

The First Two Weeks of Survival Mode

     I can't believe tomorrow starts the third week of school. The first two weeks were such a blur and I honestly don't think I have ever felt as tired as I did during the last two weeks. My classes are crazy this year. I have SO many students. My homeroom has 28 and my partner's room has 23. That's 51 students that I have this year. But, my students were really nice and decided to all have the same name. :) I'm talking 4 Leslie's (all spelled differently Leslie, Leslye, Lesly, Yesley) 3 Francisco's, 2 Stephanie's, 2 Ivan's, 2 Cesar's, and 2 Christian's. I finally have all the names with the right students, but now I need to work on last names and remembering which one is in which class. My head is just swimming with names. And I promise I am *completely* over any jealous or bitter feeling I had about teachers in the regular program (I teach in the Dual Language program) that have 13, 14 or 15 students in their classes. Really it was just shock at how many kiddos I had and panic at being able to get to know them all. Amazingly I feel like I already have bonded with both classes much better than I did last year. Last year was a struggle to get to that comfortable place. Add to all that craziness that we have a new math curriculum and all the supplies have not shown up. Its kinda hard to teach a lesson based on a big book when I don't have the big book and no idea what the story is even about.
    I worked really hard last week to finish all lesson plans, grading, and other school work by Friday afternoon. After all the exhaustion caused by the first two weeks I really wanted to focus my weekend around my family. So, Saturday morning we got up and went to Hurricane Harbor. We had been once before at the end of the summer, but I was sidelined during that trip and we are used to tag teaming with the girls. We each take a partner for any activity we do, so taking them both in the water alone was a bit of a challenge. This time around we went in full force. One slide followed by another, followed by a waterfall, then a pool. We had a blast and it was great to recharge with those who I love so much. Our season passes come with lunch, so we didn't even have to take any money with us. Can't beat an amazing family outing that doesn't touch the budget!
    Now it is time to get some sleep. I feel this week will be just as busy as the last two, but much much better. I really like all of my kids, they are doing really well, and I feel ready to take on this challenge. Plus next weekend is another fun family outing. TCU home game!

Bucket List # 4 Cousin Sleepover

For a very long time Cori has been asking if her cousin could sleepover. The answer was always during the summer. Well it is summer and so its time for a sleepover. All good sleepovers include taking about the couch, eating pizza for dinner, and watching a movie with popcorn. They had a great time and many different things with he couch cushions. And don't let the windows fool you, it really is evening time even though it looks like the middle of the afternoon. 

 Then it was time for bed. I wasn't sure how this would go since it was the first time they had slept together, they were sleeping on the floor, and they were surrounded by toys, but the excitement must have worn them out because it didn't take too long for them to all be asleep.  First cousin sleepover accomplished. 

Bucket List #3 Going to the Movies

Cristina REALLY wanted to see Maleficent. I'm not sure why because she has never shown that much interest in a movie before. She enjoys movies, and loves when we have movie night at home, but has always been happy when what we have of DVD or on Netflix. However, when she saw the previews for Maleficent she really wanted to go. So one afternoon we left Cori with Gigi because she is not into anything remotely scary and thought Maleficent looked way to much for her. We headed to the movies where we enjoyed time with our oldest. 

Bucket List Activity #2 Fixing My Car Problems

I spent the last few weeks of school driving around with no air conditioner. The frustrating part was that my air conditioner actually worked. The problem was my truck was leaking coolant badly, so if I turned on my air conditioner the engine would start to overheat. We were pretty sure that the leak was from the water pump. As soon as school was out, Eddie went to buy a new water pump and we set to work taking off the old one. It went smoothly. Everything came off just like it should, but it was late and we were just outside the girls bedroom. They wouldn't go to sleep because they kept looking out the window at us. We decided we would wait until morning to put the new one on. That was where things stopped going well.

New and old water pumps

The next morning Eddie starts working to put the new water pump on and a bolt breaks. The whole day is spent trying to get it out. Tools are bought, places are visited, but the bolt in completely stuck. It broke off even with the water pump and nothing is getting it to come out. Finally, we gave up on it. We had figured out that the original water pump was fine, it was the gaskets that were bad. We had the gaskets from the new water pump, so we decided to try to put the old one on with new gaskets. This time two bolts broke. Luckily they broke off high and easily came out.

Two broken bolts successfully removed.

We decided we needed another tool to make sure no other bolts broke. The one we had was too big for what we were doing. We headed out in Eddie's car. The first Home Depot didn't have one, but when we got back it his car it wouldn't start. After a little panicking and banging on stuff, it started. We then went to a hardware store close to our house. No tool, and again his car didn't start. After some more banging, it started and we went home. Now we had no car at all. Not a huge deal, it is summer after all, except that Eddie had training everyday the next week, and the girls had swimming lesson and gymnastics practice. Lucky for us my parents are extremely helpful. My dad brought us the tool we needed and let us borrow his car. We successfully put the water pump back on, put in two bottles of coolant, and took a look underneath. A very small drip that might have been where some was spilled. Looking good. We started the truck. It sounded good. One car fixed and one to go. We started to clean up when we took another look underneath. That's when we saw the coolant basically pouring out. Back to no cars fixed.
The next day was Monday (Eddie training didn't start until Tuesday). My mom took the girls to swimming while we took Eddie's car to the dealership to get fixed. Turns out the drive trains had been over stretched and it was completely covered under the warranty. So amazing to not have to spend one cent getting it fixed. We then headed over to a Kia dealership and took care of my car problems. We bought me a new car! Yea!!! Now I don't have to worry about overheating or no AC in the summer. Plus with much better gas mileage I don't have to constantly buy gas.

My first ever new car!

Bucket List Activity #1 Ice Skating

This was on our bucket list last summer, but it never happened. We put it first this year to make sure it happened because both of the girls really wanted to go. We checked the internet and found out the rink opened at 11:00. We arrived just after 11:00 and found a group was playing broom ball until 12:30. We detoured to the food court for some lunch. At 12:30 we headed down to the rink to rent our skates. Getting the skates on was easy enough, getting used to walking on the skates was a lot more difficult. We are used to skating on quad roller skates, so it was very different. We made it to the rink, and after some trouble getting Victoria on the ice, we started off. We were doing okay. Slowly Eddie and Cristina found their footing and were able to skate a little. Victoria, in her usual fashion of extreme confidence, thought she was doing great. She repeated, "I'm getting better" over and over, even as she would fall to the ice. She was impressed at anytime she let go of the wall, no matter how long. Everything was going great until we came to the part of the rink that was sectioned off for skate lessons. Two-thirds of the rink was for open skate and one-third was for skate lessons. That meant that once we had gone two-thirds of the way around we had to cut straight across the rink to make it back to where we started. I was doing okay staying on my feet, but no way could I make it across with Victoria. Eddie managed to get her across, but Victoria didn't make it easy. Luckily by the time we made it around the next time the cones were gone and the skate lessons had been integrated into open skate. Cristina had a great time. She made a friend and spent some time skating with her. Victoria decided she was done with skating forward and kept trying to skate backwards and to do spins (despite the fact she can't go three feet without falling). I love her confidence! :)
Towards the end we did have a minor accident. During one of Cristina's few falls her skate came forward and went across her finger. It looked kinda nasty, but a quick band-aid fixed it and she was back out on the ice.

The best part of eating at a food court is everyone gets to pick what they want to eat. 

Watching the Zamboni clean the ice after broom ball.  

 Putting on our skates.

  The ice ring seems so far away right now.

Getting started.  

Doing better. 

Time to go. We had a great time! 

Cristina's injury. Ouch!

Summer Bucket List

This summer we chose not to take any big trip. Instead, we decided to have a bucket list summer. Our bucket list is all encompassing. We have included many fun things to do with the kids, lots of projects we really want to get done (because they just won't happen during the school year), and a few fun things just for us, plus we are changing and adding things as we think of them. We have also included some goals we hope to reach. My goal for this blog is to document each bucket list activity once it is complete.
Do you have a bucket list? What things do you hope to do?

Cristina's Birthday from way back in March

It's quite late, but here is Cristina's birthday pics.

Cristina decided that she didn't want a party this year. She wanted to go to Rain Forest Cafe. We let her invite two friends, but the big problem with a birthday over spring break is that everyone is busy. So it was just the four of us for lunch.

Before we left she opened her pile of presents. 

She wanted the Poly Pockets that attached to the wall. She already had a few of the smaller pieces.

We got her several more.

She has continued to add to her collection since her birthday. My favorite thing about it is no toys end up on the floor so there is no clean up involved. We have a small table that we keep next to the wall where she can put the small pieces that move around, but other than that it all stays on the wall. Another plus is no other storage place is required. Once we found the wall space for it we didn't need a shelf or cabinet to store it in.

 The main thing Cristina wanted was the chocolate volcano dessert. Last time we were here she saw someone else get it. She couldn't wait to get it herself. Victoria enjoyed the Wiki sticks. 

Cristina's favorite part of her birthday was getting sang to. The waiters at Rain forest Cafe sang to her, then the workers at Build-a-Bear sang to her. She is every bit of an extrovert that I am an introvert. 

The Bombardment of an Introvert

    I am an introvert. My favorite things to do are stay at home with my family and read books on my kindle. In general I don't like people. It is really hard to find people that I feel comfortable with. Kids I like. That is why I love my job: lots of kids, few adults. I am very blessed to work with two of the few people in this world that I do feel comfortable with (On a side note, one of them surprised me tremendously. I am learning that you should not judge a person by other peoples opinions of them) One of the things I hate more than anything is defending myself or debating an issue because I usually feel like I can't get the other person to understand my point of view. I'm not necessarily even trying to change their viewpoint, just show that another valid viewpoint exists. Because I can't get them to understand my viewpoint on a particular matter I often feel like they dismiss my viewpoint altogether and I go back to wondering why I spoke up in the first place.
Today I felt bombarded by the need to defend my viewpoint on a situation that I am dealing with. I was told what I needed. (Please don't tell me what I need. I may be quiet but I am actually quiet capable of meeting my own needs, and my needs may not be the same as yours. Just because you need something does not mean everyone needs that. - Not to mention the difference between a need and a want but that is a different matter) I was told how much could be handled (Again please don't tell me how much can be handled. If a person is choosing to take on a certain amount only that person can decide if it is too much. Maybe others can handle more than you can. Don't put your limitations onto other people. They may be striving to achieve more than you are). Lastly, the situation was judged to quickly. I understand that changes and doing things differently can be uncomfortable for people (they usually are for me) but you cannot judge the validity of something before it has been given the time to succeed. Successful people don't quit after the first attempt and being forced to quit before a full first attempt has been made makes all of us failures.
      I live by the motto that things will work themselves out (again so that I don't have to talk to people to makes things work out) and I am sure this will work itself out also. I also believe that everything happens exactly they way it is supposed to happen even if it is not the way we want it to happen. I am quite sure all my stressing on this matter won't have any effect on the final outcome. However I do wish that people not involve in the matter would stay out of it . . .

Shapes Shapes Shapes

We have been working hard to learn all the vocabulary that goes along with shapes. Vertices, faces, edges its hard for English Language Learners to keep all these words straight. Today we got to have some fun and be creative with out work. First we use nets of seven different shapes to make the solid shapes and filled out a chart about the number of vertices, faces, edges and a real world object that is that shape, then we got creative and started building things out of out shapes.

 This is the beginning of a robot. The legs and body started out really well, 

but then the top of the body and head got too heavy. 

 Different versions of cities. 

Several years ago when I was still in first grade I got some inflatable shapes from 

Donor's Choose. 

It did not come with a rectangular prism so I took a box that the math papers came in and covered it with construction paper. This worked for my first year in second grade, but this year we have new state standards (for us in Texas called TEKS) and the shapes we learn about have increased. We have added rectangular pyramid and triangular prism. So while the students were creating there shapes, I tried my hand at creating my own. I think they came out pretty well. I don't like how messy the tape looks, but maybe I can improve on them next year.

 Rectangular pyramid made during my morning class. Triangular prism made during my afternoon class. 

And here they are all hanging up and labeled. I really wish the fire marshal would let us hang things from the ceiling. I think it would be awesome to have these hanging around the room all the time. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to hang things from the ceiling and I need the board space that I covered up when I hung these up. As soon as geometry is finish these have to go back on the shelf. Maybe next year I will work on finding a permanent place to hang them up in my room when I set my room up in August.