Getting Started

My first teacher blog post!  I've been playing around with blogging the past year with a personal blog I created to keep family and friends up to speed with the going ons of my sweet little family but I never thought about creating a teacher blog till now. To be honest, I didn't even realize there was a whole world out there of awesome teacher blogs and now that I've found them...I want to join the club. I just finished my first school year...at home.  I recently realized I spent less time in a school this year then I have since I was two years old.  So what have I been doing at home the past year?  Caring for my love bug born last July 16 (on my birthday!). 

 He hasn't been much of a sleeper and has kept me so busy the past year I rarely thought of what I left behind when deciding to become a stay-at-home-mom. To help me get out of the house and get some of my teacher energy out, I did some volunteering at my previous school, organizing and running a Math Competition.  I was content with this until about two weeks ago.  Just as my friends are counting down the days till the end of the school year I am longing to be back in the classroom.  So why don't I just go back?  It's just not as easy as that.  Although I miss teaching, I've grown to love spending so much time with my little man and can not imagine being away from him so much if I were working full-time. In addition, my husband is in the military and away often.  He is about to leave us for six months and then again for a few months at the beginning of next year.  We live far away from all of our family and close friends so I wouldn't have that support system if I went back to work.  I also want to be able to go visit our family when my husband is gone and be available when he is home. So here I am...looking for a way to get out all my pent up teacher ideas. 

This blog will be a mix of things I've done and created during my five years teaching, new activities and lessons I make for my friends and family who are teachers, and some fun things I do with my number one dude.

I'll start with an oldie but goodie.  Since it's the end of the school year, I'll share one of my favorite end of the year activities.

My ____________ ABC Book

While this activity can be done any time throughout the year and for any subject, I prefer to keep it till the end of the year and have student title it My "Third" Grade ABC Book.  This way students can pick words from all subjects and any topic we learned that year.

Instead of writing the definition for each word, I had students use the word in a sentence that would allow the reader to infer the definition.  For example, adaptation - An adaptation that a cheetah has is that it can run really fast so it can catch its prey. Or, circumference - I measured around the circle to figure out the circumference. This took some modeling and guided practice but the students got it and it was a lot more meaningful then simply writing a definition.

I wish I had taken a few pictures of the work my students did this year.  They really turned out great.  To snatch a copy of the book for yourself click on the image below:

I hope you'll travel with me on this journey of learning to be a stay-at-home-teacher whether you are a teacher who teaches in the classroom, a teacher who now teaches at home (like me!), a teacher who does both (rock on!!), or a mom who is just looking for some ideas to do with her children.  Thank you for stopping by!