flash sale! December 31 only

Have you heard of this essential oil craze and wondered what it is all about? I use Young Living essential oils and they have been life changing! I'm very picky about my oils and where they come from and I believe that Young Living has really created the best oils out there. Young Living is the oldest essential oil producer and it also leads the world in essential oils. On top of that they own their own farms so I know where they come from. I wish I could show you all the positive effects they have had on my family. My little guy couldn't sleep a entire night without waking up, then i found essential oils. Lavender baby mixed with a carrier oil (that just makes the essential oil a little less strong) and he now sleeps all night! Let's talk classrooms! Stomach yuckies, colds, and of course the flu... not in my room (ok ok yea I have some but not like others) why? Thieves!! I'll post more about Thieves I promise but for now know that this germ busting oil is AMAZING!! It kept the sickness at bay at school, and protected me from what ever was going around right before Christmas. So here's the deal, I love these oils... LOVE them! And I want people to get off the fence and try them. I want people to know that you don't have to put just chemicals into and on your body, that nature (from my belief God) intended for us to use plants life blood (essential oils) to heal our bodies! We are fearfully and wonderfully made... just like all things on this planet. So it would make total sense that they would work together right? So here is a deal that my YL (Young Living) team came up with (we are called the Lemon Droppers- AWESOME right!?!?)...

1. if you purchase a kit I will add $20 to your account to purchase more oils later on!

2. If you are an existing member of mine and you purchase 100pv or more of product I will add $10 to your account.
Offers only valid through December 31st (that's today folks!)!

How do you do this.... text me (501 213 8076) and I'll call you back. Or email me keday56@gmail.com and I will get you set up! 

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Never a dull moment....

I am SO excited to share with everyone this amazing product.  Let's back up a minute and talk about the standard pencil sharpener. It's HORRIBLE right? Never gets the pencils sharp enough, and that grinding sound that tells you that the pencil is being "eaten" to death. I have spend many years looking for the perfect pencil sharpener. You know, one that is quite while sharpening, one that makes a sharp point, one that doesn't break or cost an arm and a leg.

Well that has all changed for me! See I found this beautiful PINK sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies.  I know what you are thinking... yes it is beautiful but honestly is this better than my electric one? Yes this sharpener is da BOMB! Y'all I can't say enough about how sharp my pencils are now! It's quiet- no loud grinding. It still sounds like a pencil sharpener but not like the pencil munching school district supplied monster that used to be in my room. This little beauty is awesome! Here is how it works:

Attach it to any surface using the included clip. It's the metal and black piece from the first picture. This holds the sharpener in place, although Classroom Friendly supplies also sells a plate that can be added to any surface. In my classroom, I don't have it attached to anything. I just hold the sharpener in place and crank. And no my hand doesn't hurt after sharpening 20+ pencils! I am telling ya this is the bomb diggity!

Now that you are all attached you are ready to sharpen. Ignore the fact that i need paint on my drawer.

Ok here is the cool part, and honestly it's the reason that I am letting my kinders sharpen their own pencils again! You pull the metal front out. It clicks into place when you have it out.

So this is the "start" position. To insert a pencil, you squeeze the black nobs on top together and slide the pencil in. Then crank!

Can you see the nobs on top? They hold the pencil in place. And crank... crank.... crank until you hear  the sound of the sharpener change. And you feel the crank change. It's almost like it gets smooth feeling because you are at the sharp stage.

And take the pencil out. LOOK at how SHARP that point is! Now lets talk wear and tear. I have owned many sharpeners from the school district monster to the expensive electric sharpener and nothing that I have owned has been able to withstand 5 year olds! Not until this beauty came along. I read lots of blog review saying how sharp the pencil is, how quiet this is, how the blogger loved it. But y'all, I didn't believe it until the end of this semester. I sharpened some pencils right before our class party. These are those glitter pencils that I never allowed to be sharpened in my room. Y'all know what I'm talking about... the monster sharpener eats them to the eraser and they clog up the electric job. But little pink sharpener would not be stopped!! 20 glittery Christmas pencils and it still sharpens like it did on the first pencil.

I know, I know... you don't believe me do you? I didn't believe it either. But y'all I let my kinders use it! And it still sharpens like it did the first day. I can't tell you how many pencil sharpeners subs or students have killed dead. Yet no one has been able to harm this sharpener. It has my stamp of approval (and that of my kinders!) You honestly can't go wrong with this sharpener.

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Keeping it real

Ok y'all I suck as a blogger! No really I do! I make all these plans. Mark squares in my planner. And the square goes slipping by! I have SO much to share and yet I can't seem to get it posted! So I am trying something new. Fingers crossed! And I apologize up front if I become an epic fail. lol!

Let's see... where to start. Well I LOVE love LOVE my new school! I love my little ones this year! I have some tough cookies but I love them! My tiny little classroom is an adjustment, as is not having the technology that I used to have, but a 5 minute commute and being right around the corner from my daughters school is a DREAM.

I miss creating things for my kids to use. I just haven't had the time... oh ok keepin' it real here... I have not managed my time well. There I said it! LOL! What I have done this year is lesson plan, lesson plan, lesson plan, and spend time with my kids! Here is the deal... new district new lesson plan format. And WOW is it a lot. Like hours and hours a lot. But here is the super cool thing that makes it all worth while. I get to pick my daughter up from school! Yep, it's awesome to have a reason to leave work at a certain time and be able to hang out with my kid! Now here is the hard part, I love spending time with my kids and I am horrible at time management so blog gets ignored as well my time to create.

Let's see what else, oh yea. If you follow my blog you know that I suffer from IBS and that this year I was diagnosed with an enlarged liver. It's been a rough year health wise for me. And we've made a lot of decisions about our family when it comes to what we doing to be healthy. I promise to get into that more later, but for now I want to say that I have come off all medications for both issues and am using essential oils and other holistic approaches to treat my issues. I plan to add some information about essential oils and Young Living (the company that I purchase my oils from) and the Lemon Droppers (the Young Living team that I am part of). But in the mean time if you have questions about essential oils please email me (keday56@gmail.com). I LOVE to share how my life has changed!

Now some fun stuff. We marked two items off our bucket list this fall. The first was to see the Eastern  Caribbean islands of St. Martin, St kits, Puerto Rico and Haiti. We took a cruise over Thanksgiving and I LOVED it! Yep lots of love happening right now! The eastern caribbean is stunning but not what I had imagined. I could easily go back to any of the places we went. Then for Christmas, my family went to Disney. I have always wanted to be at Disney on Christmas Day. We did that! I got to see Elsa "ice" the castle and it snow on Main Street. I have been very blessed this year.

That would be me and the mister. We were on our cruise over thanksgiving. He is pretty wonderful! I'm blessed to have him in my life!

And me and the kids hanging out on the ship! Love these two more than words can say! 

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Getting down to work with Math Workshop...

I can not believe that this is the fourth Wednesday that we have been in school!! My kinders are getting into the swing of things nicely. Today I want to share my basic workshop model. I set my time into 4 sections: 1) warm-up/ number talks, 2) journals, 3) guided math/ mini lesson, 4) tubs/ small group. Now let's talk about what each of those mean to me.

Number talks are new to my workshop this year and already they are the superhero of math workshop. I have used number cards for several years now, but they always felt contrived. This summer I did some youtube searching for teachers working with dot cards and children. Some videos were better than others but what I learned is that if you are just "flashing" cards you are missing out! We have spent the last two weeks working on the procedures and talk that surround dot cards. For example when I hold a card up my children place a finger on their noise when they know the number. Right now I am not flashing cards but leaving them up long enough for kids to count. Also we are only using dot cards 1-6 right now. Why 6 and not stop at 5? Honestly, I didn't get all the 6's out of my stack when I started this year. 

I personally own Deedee Wills all the credit for math journals! Man does she rock them. We have been using her Math journal prompts and the kids are getting excited each day to see what their question is.  I love the growth we see in using a math journal. I want to dive into to math journals as it's own post at a later time. 

This is the biggest area of growth for me personally. I have always used math small groups as RTI for math. I really want to grow this area of my teaching to match what I do in literacy stations. I am working on a post for that as well. 

So there it is... Workshop Wednesday ;) Until next time...

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Before... a view of my room!

These are the pictures of my room. I was surprised when I first saw it... it is so small compared to my old room. But very quickly I fell in LOVE with it. So lets get started. This is the front door (well actually only door). I am going to use this BB for a focus wall and my birthdays. 

This view is just down from the door. I LOVE this long shelf! It has hooks under it. Now to be honest, the day I took this picture my room was FREEZING so the fan on the wall confused me.

At my old school the projector was in the ceiling and it caused all kinds of shadows and you had to use speakers from the computer to hear. I am so looking forward to having these big speakers on either side of the smart board. Oh the carpet is going down the hall to a first year teacher who has an Eric Carle theme going on. I think the caterpillar is going to be so cute in there!

This corner is where I plan to put the teacher area/ small group table. That computer table is HUGE and has got to go! I think that I am going to use that cart or maybe get a student desk... 

I have new chevron fabric to use for the curtains. And I plan to slide these computers down a bit. The book cases are going to move too...

The door there is to the bathroom. And the file cabinets are going going... 

These last 3 pictures are the shelving that I have across the back of my room. They will be cleaned up and have curtains over them. The fabric is grey and white dots.

So that is the new room. Can't wait to share the finished room!

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It's the little surprises that are the best!

WOW! Where oh where did the summer go? I am so excited to be blogging again. I started this summer thinking that I would be moving to first grade. I planned, met with the first grade team, and basically accepted that I would no longer be a kindergarten teacher (read that as grieved the move). Then in the middle of the craziest two weeks of Arkansas A+ training, I got a job offer to teach K at my neighborhood school! YEP... it was a God thing. I still can't believe that I teach 5 minutes from my house, and in the district that my children are in. I even get to pick up my daughter from school. I hope to get my classroom reveal up soon.

And here is my first day at my new school picture. 

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A Confession....

I have a confession to make, well actually several. First I did not have a good school year. I did not enjoy working with several of the children in my room. It was very difficult this year. The icing on the cake came last week and that leads me to my second confession.... I almost quit. No one will ever know exactly how close I came to saying "take this job and shove it!" I could go on and on but I have always tried to blog with the attitude of if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. So I haven't had much that I could post this year.

And to my last confession... the final blow came in early last week. I've been reassigned to first grade. I'm much better with this decision now, but it has taken a LOT of prayer and crying to get there. I love kinder and was looking forward to another year working with some of the best teachers I know. I was looking forward to a new group of littles to help grow. I was looking forward to not having some of the most difficult students... and then. I don't know if any of you have ever face moving grades or if you teach First. It has not been easy for me to get to a place that I am ok... and I can honestly say that I am ok.

I do need your help though.... I need to know what First grade blogs you follow or love. What First grade sellers on TPT meet the expectations of sellers like Deedee Wills, Kim Adsit, and Deanna Jump. I also need morning work... I use The Printable Princess for this and I need something that would meet the needs of my firsties..... I need HELP!  And I know that the blogging world will come to my rescue.

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