Sweet!

Came home,

and... what's this?

Why, it's a gift from some of my Little Free Library patrons!

Awwwww!!!

Yeaaaah, I've Been Busy

Welp, I haven't been posting,

but that doesn't mean I haven't been getting my creativity on.

I've been actually doing activities I find on Pinterest...

... going cuckoo-bananas with other Pins

I've found on Pinterest...

... and harnessed the creativity of other teachers

to do a week's worth of

engaging math, language arts, and social studies activities.

So, yeah, I've been a busy little student teacher.

Well, This Is Surprising

Huh.

I've recently discovered I possess a weirdly specific skill:

I can write science-themed songs set to the tune of folksongs

for kindergarteners and first graders.

Presented for your singing enjoyment:

This is sung to the tune "Clementine",

which to refresh your memory goes like this:

Oh my darlin', oh my darlin', oh my darlin', Clementine,

you are lost and gone forever,

Oh my darlin', Clementine.

I plan to be topping the charts soon with my crow's-voice rendition of

"Thunder" 

(sung to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star")

and "Hurricanes"

(sung to "Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore".)

Drafting Off Genius

I someone else is a genius!

A teacher shared at a meeting that you could use a binder

with the clear, front insert as a whiteboard!

She said that you could put a pencil holder inside

with the dry-erase markers, sock eraser, etc.

But those can be 

priiiicy.

And they didn't have any at Target.

So until I find some cheap ones, how about this?

I put packing tape along the edge of a heavy-duty zipper bag,

then hole-punched it!

Genius, right?

I also added a binder clip to turn it into a clipboard.

Then the back can be used for hundreds charts,

ten frames, or whatever.

Teacher hack FTW!!!

Dia De Awesomeness

It's Day of the Dead!

I was so crazy-busy this year

 I didn't put up any Halloween decorations inside,

but I did do my little Dia de los Muertos alter.

Close-up!

It's a wonderful way to remember my

abuelas and abuelos,

my dear prima,

and my gatos and perros.

Trickery, Trickery, Trickery!

I picked up some dice at Target

to use for math games when I'm a teacher.

Cool, huh?

But then I looked inside the container,

and...

You sit on a throne

cardboard tube of lies!

Throwback... Saturday?

My sister recently unearthed some photos from her garage:

Nope, that's not some gauzy Instagram filter;

it's an honest-to-goodness photo from 1972.

I'm the one standing in the back, and the tiny red-haired lady?

My great-grandma O.B.,

born Ernestine Stockstill in 1898.

Here she is as a pretty young girl:

Family lore is that her father was a riverboat gambler,

and whether or not that is true, 

she certainly had both the affinity for cards

and the salty language to make it believable.

I dunno... I love how easy cellphones and digital cameras

have made taking a photo,

but I worry we'll lose out on the delight of finding an old photo.