I got my hair polished and left my oldest at college!

Another school week has come and gone and I have to say each day is getting better than the one before. I have asked for prayers this year because I know that prayer changes things. Sometimes it might change a child's behavior or attitude or on the flip side it might change the way I react to those things. Keep the prayers coming that I can meet the needs of my students academically, socially and emotionally.
Kids say the funniest things and I wish I had recorded all the funny things I have heard over the years. Last week I had to wash those grays right out of my hair. The next day at school one of my students from this past school year saw me in the hall and said " I like your hair Miss Leigh Ann. You got it polished." Loved that!!! Elijah, my cousin's little boy who is almost 2 years old and his little baby sissy stayed with us last night. Elijah noticed my tattoo on my ankle. (Yes I have a tattoo-it's the Greek letters from my college sorority Phi Mu.) I was young and adventurous at one time! :) Elijah asked me if my tattoo was a boo boo! Too funny!!!
So we got Kirk moved into University of Memphis on Thursday. I didn't cry. I guess I could have but he has waited for this moment for so long and worked so hard academically for it that I wanted to reassure him that as long as he was happy then I was happy too. It was a different kind of feeling driving back to Huntingdon with Marty and leaving him there but at the same time it was more of just that wondering of where the time went and also excitement for him in this next phase in his life. Classes start for him tomorrow so that should help get him on a schedule. From the pics he has put on Facebook, he seems to be enjoying meeting and making lots of new friends! He will come home this weekend for Labor Day since he won't have classes on Monday. Praying he continues to enjoy college!
Wishing you all a great week!!!

I survived the first 10 days!

10 days down and 170 to go!!! Oh my. I don't recall ever keeping up with the days in and days left in the school year-at least not keeping up with them in my mind. Going from 16 students last year and a student teacher at the start of the school year spoiled me. This year I have 20 students and no student teacher so I am minus an extra set of hands. I know it will get better though and I will lose track of the days in my mind at least I hope!:) A fellow teacher said her mother in law referred to teaching and the school year to childbirth. You forget how exhausting it is at the beginning because the end is so rewarding and you see the result of your hard work and often long hours. I think that is a dog gone good comparison! I have a precious group of sweeties this year and I have already been blessed by each one of them. I just pray that I can break through some of their barriers and be a blessing and make a difference in their lives this year.
We are moving Kirk into University if Memphis this Thursday the 22nd. He is the first of our three K's to leave the nest. I will let you know how the moving day goes. Prayers appreciated!!!
Don't forget to go visit TPT today and tomorrow and take advantage of the sale. Enter BTS13 for the discount.
Have a wonderful week and a quote I saw this week that I would like to share: "Kids spell love T-I-M-E." Be sure to give your sweeties whether at home or school lots of Time!!!

Dr. Jean, Vegas and What Summer? :)

Wow! Where did summer go? It really does get faster every year!!! I had a wonderful summer with my family and attending many teacher meetings and conferences. I saw Dr. Jean Feldman at Nashville for a 2 day PreK-1st grade Summer Camp conference. Marty was having his two week camp for guard in Nashville so it worked out great because he had a hotel room paid for so I had a mini vacation when I went to the conference.:) I love Dr. Jean because her philosophy is mine-children need to time to learn through singing, playing, dancing and exploring!!! There is a time for worksheets but NOT all the time. :) She truly is a jewel and I feel very blessed to call her friend and know that I could email her anytime or even call her and she would immediately give me feedback to any questions I had for classroom ideas. Love Her!!! We need more Dr. Jeans in the world. :)
 I also attended a Common Core Math training for 2 days in June and learned a lot about how to help the students with exploration and problem solving in Math.
 Of course, going to Vegas for the national I Teach K! conference seems to be on my list of annual summer list of things to do. This is my third summer attending. I keep going back because it's the best of the best teachers/presenters that SDE has to offer all in one location!!! I have met so many wonderful teachers there and so many of them I am blessed to call friends. :) One in particular, Alessia Albanese, www.mrsalbanesesclass.blogspot.com, is one of the dearest and sweetest teachers I know. She is my special Canadian friend!!! The only bad part of Vegas is that I never have enough time to visit with all my teacher friends. :( If I go next year, I'm hoping to go a couple of days earlier so we can hang out by the pool and do some shopping together before the classes start. :) There are many other friends that I would encourage you to follow their blogs. Here are just a few:
Deedee of www.mrswillskindergarten.blogspot.com, Kim and Megan of www.kindergals.blogspot.com, Fran of www.kindergartencrayons.blogspot.com, Kathleen of www.growingkinders.blogspot.com, Deanna of www.mrsjumpsclass.blogspot.com, Kimberly of www.kinderbykim.blogspot.com, Shari of www.kidscount1234.com , Rachelle of www.whattheteacherwants.blogspot.com and Katie of www.littlewarriors.blogspot.com  I will list more of my new friends and their blogs on another post. These are enough to get you started. :)
We had open house last night for Kindergarten! The students come Monday. I am looking forward to another wonderful year with a wonderful group of Kindergarten sweeties!!! At the moment, I have 19 sweeties on my class list.
Kirk, Kara and Kali had a great summer! Kirk and Kara attended California for FBLA Nationals and  Jamaica for mission trip. They have also stayed busy with work. Kali enjoyed hanging out with friends and going to the pool. She also spent a week at Lakeshore Camp.
I always look forward to meeting a new set of sweeties but get a little sad when summer is over because it just means that time is passing so fast with my own three kiddos. Our family has been blessed with good health and lots of good times this summer. I am thankful for the memories we have made. :)
We also enjoyed spending a lot of time with Elijah and Annalesa, our most favorite babies in the world and had several sleep overs. :)We are looking forward to many more of them!!! It has been fun to watch them grow and change over the summer and we are thankful their parents let us spend so much time with them.
Hoping you and yours have a blessed school year!

woo hoo!!! I will be there this time in 3 weeks at I Teach K! in Las Vegas!!! This will be my 3rd year attending and I'm so excited!!! I can't wait to see all my dear teacher friends from across the country and from Canada :) It's going to be so much fun and the presenters are AWESOME this year as always! In the meantime, I will be attending Dr. Jean Feldman's 2 day workshop this week in Nashville. I love Dr. Jean!!! She is such an inspiration to me! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer! It's going way too fast so enjoy time with your family and friends as much as possible. Blessings to all!!!

End of Year and my niece is going to be a Kindergarten teacher! :)

I am so excited to make this post! We finished up school on May 22. I can honestly say I had one of the best years ever teaching. Note: I always have the best class. :) I just feel that this year I did a better job teaching than I ever had before. Maybe it was the common core standards that made me dig deeper to accurately teach them (I still have much room for improvement I assure you) and maybe it was the smaller class size but I really feel that I was able to help my students grow more this year than I have been able to in the past. It makes me wish I could get all my sweeties back from previous years and teach them the way I am and the way teaching is being done now.

We don't have a formal Kindergarten graduation at our school but I think it's something we might want to look into. When I first started teaching many many years ago, we did have a Kindergarten graduation ceremony and it was always so sweet! On our last day of school, we had a party and then I presented each student with a diploma and their memory book. I also shared with the parents about how hard their children had worked this year and what a wonderful year it had been.

This past Tuesday-Friday my oldest daughter- Kara, my youngest daughter-Kali, Kali's best friend Faith and myself went down and stayed at Pensacola for a little fun in the sun time! We went there in the fall and stayed at Navy Lodge on the navy base there. We loved it so much we are going back this fall break. The last few weeks of school I just got an itching to go to the beach for a few days so we were able to get a room there (only because they had a cancellation) and so me and the girls took off. We didn't even ask the boys-haha! Marty and Kirk are planning a boys only trip to Atlanta later this summer so their time is coming.

I have several inservice days and other conferences this summer that I am attending-some are mandatory and many are optional but either way I always gain useful information that I can take back to my classroom. It's all about attitude. :) 

So my big news is that my oldest niece got hired today to teach Kindergarten at a little town about 10 miles from here. We are beyond excited! Emma just graduated in May from college and already has a teaching job-woo hoo!!! I almost feel like Kim Adsit and Megan Merrell from www.kindergals.blogspot.com. :) I pray that like me she will always consider it a blessing and a gift to be a Kindergarten teacher.

Last week, this week and one week in July are the only weeks that I don't have something on my calendar related to school so I am wishing all of you a wonderful summer and a much deserved summer break!!!

Graduation

These past few weeks have simply been just taking one day at a time and getting through one thing before I move on to the next. I never realized how busy High School Graduation time could be nor how emotional it would be. :( Kirk-our son and oldest child will graduate high school on Sunday. It has been a blink of an eye since his birth until now. He has taught me a lot about life in his 18 years of life. He has always had a gentle spirit and a heart for Jesus Christ. He spoke Sunday at church for our Senior Sunday program and delivered the message. He could of simply talked about his memories but instead he shared how the pastors-we belong to a Methodist church so he has had 6 pastors from birth until now :) -and the people in the congregation had shaped his life and what each pastor (all very different) taught him about the Christian walk of faith. I am thankful that the Lord chose Marty and myself to be his parents. It was a beautiful service and such a blessing to see the young people carry out all components of the service. Prior to that service, we had a UMYF Progressive dinner two weeks ago where we roasted our seniors, Baccalaureate was on Sunday night, a dessert get together at our school for the teachers whose children were graduating today, next will be Graduation Sunday afternoon and then a meal here after Graduation for family and friends. :) 

School lets out Wednesday, May 22nd. I can not believe this year is winding down. I have really had a wonderful year with my class! They have been such a joy to work with and watch them grow through the year. I hope I don't start crying on Wednesday on their last day!  Once again, I have been blessed to make new friends with their parents through the year. Success for the child could not happen and would not happen without the parents help throughout the year. I am so blessed that this year I have had an exceptional group of parents and grandparents to work with!

I am always looking for new ways to teach and new things to help my students learn. Every day I go home exhausted and I always think of things I could of done but I can always say I did the best I could. As long as the students can say the same, then that's all that we can ask or hope for from them and from ourselves. Data is just a number but if it can help me be a better teacher then let it. It's been a tough year adapting to common core while still juggling RTI, AimsWeb, Discovery, and everything else we juggle but I can see how all of it together has helped my students this year and it has helped me evaluate myself as a teacher and areas that I need to improve. 

My goal when I started this blog was to give an idea each time I made a post and I've failed to do that the last few times so I will try to do better. My idea today would just simply be to smile and greet each child each day when they come in the room and remind them how special they are to you! :)  

WOO HOO! TCAP IS OVER!!!

The TCAP test (Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program) is over! Kindergarten took it again this year for the first time in 4 years-it is not mandated for K so we were able to get by with a break for a few years. For fear of saying something I might regret, I will just say that I'm glad it's over and so are my kids.:) In their words, they said "it was boring." We are ready to get back to our usual daily schedule of activities and lessons. We only have 3 full weeks of school left so in between getting all of our lessons done I will also need to check the students for mastery of all the K standards. I also need to get their scrapbooks done so it is definitely going to be a busy time as always.
Kirk has been in California this past week with DECA national competitions. He was able to attend by placing first at the state competition earlier this year. He has also managed to have fun this week by visiting Disneyland and other CA landmarks. :) He graduates high school May 19-3 weeks from today...which means we have lots of activities to help/host in the coming weeks.
Kara has been busy with school, cross country training and babysitting. She has also been busy planning and saving money for a trip that she and Kirk will make back to California in June for FBLA nationals.
Kali also finished tcaps this week for 4th grade and she is also glad it's behind her for another year. :)
My cousin, Lesa, passed away last Sunday from brain cancer. She was diagnosed in October 2012 and fought a good fight. She leaves behind a precious family and a testament of faith that we should all strive for. I have been blessed to be able to spend time with her 1 1/2 year old grandson and 3 month old granddaughter for the last couple of weeks. I hope to be able to share in their lives for many years to come as we hold them and all their family dear to our hearts.
There is an awesome giveaway at www.rockinteachermaterials.com for a trip to I Teach K! this summer. You can enter it but I sure hope I win since I've paid my own way to it these past two summers and I would love to be able to go for free this summer! :)
Have a great and blessed Sunday!