I Spend My Day with Nine-Year-Olds

Ok, to be fair, some of them are ten ;) But seriously, I spend my day with nine-year-olds and they say the best things! I just wanted to take a minute and share a couple things I've heard this week (and it's only Tuesday!)

Today, one of my girls was showing me the back of her book, which was an informational book about some famous person. It was listing other books in the series and she said, "Ms. Douberly, who's N-S-Y-N-C?" and I said "NYSNC??" and she was like "Uh ya. Who's that?" I just died a little inside. Then I said "Well, do you know Justin Timberlake? It was a boy band with him when I was your age." But you guys. It was so sad. Not ONE child in the vicinity knew who NYSNC was. Like didn't even recognize the name as something. Sad day.

Sorry I let you down, fellas

Then on a sweet note, the kids were reading about inherited traits yesterday and one of my boys got really excited and said "Ms. Douberly, did you know that if you have one parent that's African-American and one that's Caucasian, you get to kinda look like both?!" Haha I just said "Yup" and he was clearly disappointed at my lack of enthusiasm because he continued "I mean, you get BOTH. You get traits of BOTH races. Isn't that cool??" It really is fun to see them learn things that most people already know and be so excited about it. You forget sometimes how little they are and then they remind you. Also, this led to a conversation on Mariah Carey. I'm reppin' 90s pop this week apparently.

He only recognized her from American Idol. *facepalm*

Finally, today we were messing with the SmartBoard after we hadn't used it in awhile. The kids came in as we were playing with some programs and were curious if we were gonna use it this week. I said we might and one of my boys goes "Well it could definitely lead to some exciting learning opportunities!" Careful, your gifted is showing ;) I love them!

Hope your week has been as fun as mine's been! Also, my Gator's are playing my mentor teacher's Wildcats tonight, so here's hoping I get bragging rights tomorrow! Go Gata!

Chicken Gyro Recipe

Last night was one of those perfect nights with friends- complete with bonfire, acoustic guitar, nostalgic story telling, crazy dancing, and burgers at 2am. It was also a little celebration for taking my final FTCE (Florida Teacher Certification Exam). I'm SO glad to be done with those exams. They aren't too hard, but pretty pricey and way too long. Bad news is I have to take two Tennessee ones now [sigh]. Hopefully these won't be too hard, either! Certification is a tricky thing, y'all.

So after (hopefully) acing my FTCE and staying up late last night, I was so happy to sleep in today and decided to make chicken gyros for dinner! I spent the summer of 2010 in Paris with Cru at UF doing outreach on college campuses and we absolutely fell in love with gyros, or kababs, as they called them. You have to eat them with fries stuffed inside and you have to have a banana/Nutella crepe for dessert. Sorry. Those are the rules.

See- House of Gyros, what more could you ask for?!

My first Parisian crepe. Oh baby. 

So tonight I had a little taste of Paris again. Awwww. Before I tell you about the food, let me introduce you to my IPad stand I use in the kitchen. It is magical.

I use online recipes A LOT (and listen to music) so it comes in handy.
You can find it here by Belkin. 

Anyway, important things: I used the gyro recipe from Hungry Girl and doubled it so we would have 4 servings :

Ingredients (original amounts for 2 servings): 
Sauce
1/4 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt
3 tbsp. peeled and finely chopped seedless cucumber
1 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh dill
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. chopped garlic
1/8 tsp. salt
Marinade and Chicken
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/8 tsp. salt
8 oz. raw boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes
Gyros
2 high-fiber pitas
1/4 cup chopped seedless cucumber
1/4 cup halved grape or cherry tomatoes
2 tbsp. crumbled reduced-fat feta cheese

All of the above. And fries. Duh. 

Mix your sauce ingredients, cover it, and put it in the fridge.

Mix your marinade. 

Chop up your chicken and put it all in a giant ziploc bag for at least 20 minutes in the fridge.

Dance to music in the kitchen until your 20 minutes is up [optional].

Then you saute the chicken on the stove, put the fries in the oven, and mix together the chopped cucumber, halved grape tomatoes, and feta cheese.

When you are ready to assemble, you can warm the pita up in the microwave, then put some sauce, chicken, and cucumber mixture in your pita. Fries go last ;) Also, I put everything INSIDE the pita because it was easier, but the website originally said to put it on top. To each his own.

Mmmmm so yummy. 

Afterwards, homemade crepes from Skinnytaste! With bananas and Nutella, of course.

C'est bon. C'est tres tres bon.

Hey, let's just run away to Paris and eat like this every night. Who's with me??

Teacher Humor

Wow, it's February! Which means we're bustin out the heart patterned tablecloths and getting ready for Valentines Day and FCAT Writes. They're both outlined on my calendar with a big heart. Just kidding. Kinda. Anyways, instead of going to a super bowl party (not gonna apologize for being lame), I'll be staying in and quilting tonight and wanted to share a little teacher humor with you, seeing as how we're all so test crazy right now!

As I hope most of you realize, teaching is hard. It's exhausting and teachers don't get enough credit for everything they put up with. Which is why it's important to have a good sense of humor! This post is dedicated to a handful of websites that make me laugh really hard when I have bad days. Hope they make you laugh too! =]

Fake it till ya make it baby

Remember that "Hey Girl" tumblr for Ryan Gosling-loving-feminists? Well this is for Ryan Gosling-loving-teachers. It's basically what every teacher wants to hear with a picture of a cute guy. I mean if that's not motivation, I don't know what is.

So great. The Gos just gets me, ya know?

I found this through one of the girls in my cohort (shout-out to cohort 76!) and it's a webseries about teachers. It's hilarious. I watched all 14 episodes in one sitting and they. totally. nailed. it. Here's my favorite:


"Just because you leave a shoe at his apartment doesn't mean you can show up whenever you want"

I've talked about it before, but New Girl is my JAM. I wish Jess (Zooey Deschanel) was still a school teacher, but there's still plenty of quality teacher jokes and the whole show just kills me. Between that and The Mindy Project, I feel like my life is adequately represented in sitcom form.

Don't forget Pinterest for teacher humor galore.

Silence means someone's feeling guilty...

Remember to laugh today!

Flying Solo (and other adventures)

Hello everybody! Hope you've had a great week so far, I sure have! I got a great compliment yesterday that every morning I have a big smile on my face and am super cheerful. That was really nice to hear because I love the environment at my school and it felt good to hear that I help add to it! Snaps for loving where you work =]

Today was a big day for us- the 100th day of school! Can you BELIEVE it?! It was so cute, all the kinders and firsties dressed up as 100 year olds, so there were tiny old people all over the school today in their little bow ties and hair curlers. PRECIOUS!

Yesterday, though, was an big day for ME, as my mentor teacher had to call in with a migraine and I was flying solo! I've taught for half a day alone before and I've taught with a sub for a whole day, but this was my first full day all on my own. Oh baby. But let me tell you, it went so well!!

I had already planned a math lesson for the day so CHECK got that covered! We did a review of equivalent fractions and how to reduce. Then, we played Bingo! Each of the bingo cards had a fraction like 5/15 and then I called out the reduced fraction, like 1/3. You could have heard a pin drop in that room, the kids were focusing so hard. No complaints here ;)

I found it here

Then we did some expository writing to a prompt (a post on that later haha), some FCAT reading practice, some vocabulary, and some work on the computer. Just a basic day, but I was all alone. So weird!

In job-related news, I've been working on all my TFA: Memphis requirements lately. Some things were small, like sending in a picture, joining the social network stuff, listening in to a webinar, and taking some surveys. Yesterday, though, I spent the whole afternoon updating my resume and applying to KIPP: Memphis and TeachMemphis to find out where I'll actually be teaching next year! Basically, you apply now and then interview during Institute over the summer for your actual placement. I was really excited to see that they want us to apply to KIPP, though. I still remember watching a video in my first ProTeach class about the charter school and being in awe. The idea of being a teacher there is crazy to me! Here's a little snippet about the school:



Ok, be honest, did you cry? I'm not that emotional of a person (hah!) but the kids at the end saying "I'm going to college" just made me lose it. So that's what's been going on with me! Still lots of unknowns about next year, but isn't it kinda exciting not knowing what's gonna happen next??

Teacher Binder Revisited

Happy Thursday! We had Monday and Tuesday off this week and, ya know, I think EVERY week should start on a Wednesday- just a thought ;) This week I wanted to focus on organizing so get ready for an overload of pictures:

One of my most popular post is this one on my "ultimate teacher binder". Unfortunately, once I started my internship, I accumulated a LOT more papers and soon, my cute little binder ripped :( Instead of buying a new one, I decided over winter break to break up my one big binder into five small ones! You ready for this??

My first binder has three sections: Important Info, Weekly/Monthly Lesson Plans, and Example Lesson Plans. This is where I keep all our schedules, school maps, phone numbers, etc. I created my own weekly lesson planner, then, I used the monthly lesson calendar I found at KindergartenWorks for a big picture. I also keep all my observed lesson plans in this binder. This way, if I need to plan, I only need to bring home one binder!

You may also notice I changed the cover- different school, different binder cover!

My weekly template

Monthly planner. I go back and highlight everything at the end of the week.
Everything gets color coded!

The next binder I made is Student Info, Course Info, and Meeting Notes. This is where I keep all my records on the kids (testing, scores, growth charts), all my course info for grad school, and the meeting note template found on the Ladybug Teacher Files blog. I bring this one to meetings and conferences instead of having to bring all of my stuff.

Pretty self-explanatory

The next binder I made is my Standards and Assessments binder. Here, I have the Read Naturally assessments for 4th grade, the spelling lists for the year, the 4th Grade FCAT Specifications for language arts and math (it's all here if you want to print it out), and the 4th Grade Common Core checklist (we bought it here). This is also mainly a reference binder, so I can leave it at school if I don't need it. Score!

This is what we bought on TPT

This is an "I Can" checklist for all the standards

Finally, I have a binder of lesson plans that my mentor teacher gives me. Basically, every time we have an extra copy of something, I put it in that binder. Never hurts to have some extra stuff stored up! Especially because my mentor teacher is fabulously innovative so these are not your run-of-the-mill worksheets, but fabulous units and lessons!

Every subject has a tab!

Ok, so that's it! Hopefully all this info helps if you're trying to get organized. The pictures are also kinda fun if you just like looking at other people's organization ;) And where do I put all these binders?? In my new teacher cart I got for Christmas! Thanks daddy :) Remember, if you're curious about how I made the covers of these binders, you can see on my original post for the links.

Everyone come see how professional I look! hehe

I'm Baaaaaaack

Please tell me you read the title of this post in a sing-song voice. Because that's the way it was intended ;) Well world, I'm back! Did ya miss me? You did? Aw shucks. Well a LOT has happened in the last month. We had our two week winter break (hooray!), celebrated Christmas and New Years (double hooray!), I turned 23 (what?) and I accepted an offer to teach in Memphis for the next two years with Teach For America (hooray!). So, like I said, A LOT HAPPENED. And I'm not even mentioning Les Miserables coming out, which was, um, life changing. Picture tiiiiiiime (also in sing-song voice)

Jess, Matt, me and my mom on Christmas Eve

My dad, Matt, Jess and me on Christmas Day
(notice I'm always shoved in the front)

Sweet puppies! Sabre and Sadie on Christmas

This pretty much sums up my Christmas- lots of family time and puppy time =] And then it was Les Mis time. If you haven't seen it yet, GO SEE IT.

The key is to see it with people equally obsessed ;)

Then came my birthday, which I celebrated multiple days in a row with multiple groups of people. It's birthmonth, people, I do what I want. When we went back to school, I had a surprise for me! A giant chocolate cake and 22 precious handmade birthday cards. They are SO sweet and remind why I do what I do. Also, those kids gorged themselves on cake like they'd never seen chocolate before in their lives. It was terrifying.

If you can't read it, the top right card says:
Dear Ms. Douberly, First of all you are the best intern ever. You are very nice and kindhearted. I hope you had a great birthday with lots of cake. Have a marvelous school year. PS: Boo Gators!

And the sweet child's hope came true. I had a great birthday with lots of cake. THEN, I came home and found out I was accepted to TFA: Memphis to teach elementary school! What a whirlwind.

Eeeeeek!

After thinking about it a lot (Atlanta was the only city I imagined being accepted to), praying a lot, and talking with friends that live in Memphis and TFA staff people, I decided to take the leap! A verse that came to mind and really encouraged me was Deuteronomy 31:8 "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." A guaranteed job, the TFA network, perks of Americorps, and a built-in community in a brand new city sound very appealing as a new teacher! I'm so excited to start this new adventure in my life =] I'll be going up there for Induction and Institute (training) at the beginning of June and I'll have my own classroom this fall.

Ok so now you're updated. Haha hope your last month has been as wonderful as mine's been! Enjoy your long weekend =]

Thanksgiving Break and Final Observations

Can you believe it's already December?! It's still about 70 degrees outside, so it doesn't QUITE feel like December yet, but still, my calendar says it's December so it must be so.

We only went to school for two days the week of Thanksgiving and it was really nice having a little break. We had tons of family come over and we ate more food than I thought possible! But that's ok, because I ran my first 6K that morning! I was super proud of the fact that I didn't have to stop to walk, even if my time was a little slow.

Before and after pics with my mom (who runs much faster than I do)

Back at school, I had my final observation and taught a lesson on identifying the theme in a story. I was very happy with how it went- after a morning pep talk, the kids were absolute angels (thanks kiddos!) and it all went according to plan (which happens, um, never).

I wanted to share a resource that I used at the beginning of my lesson on theme. It's called Wing Clips and it's an online database of short movie clips that are all categorized and all clean for school! I showed one clip and modeled how to identify the theme of the clip, then I showed another clip and had the students identify the theme and three supporting details that helped them find the theme. So fun! You could use these to teach mood, theme, topic, anything!

Such a great resource. Check it out!!

This upcoming week is going to be very exciting. I have my interview with Teach For America on Wednesday and it's going to be all day. I've been preparing for that and making sure I have everything ready! Then I'm going to Atlanta on Friday after school for the weekend to visit with a friend. Who knows? Maybe I'll be living THERE next year!