Five for Friday - September 5th

You can follow Tracy at her new blog: The Knit Wit Teacher

It's been awhile friends. Sorry!!! Today I've finally remembered to blog on Friday!! Thank you to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting Five for Friday. What would I do without you? 

Have you ever been so pumped up and then had something ruin it? That was the start to my year. Mold/Moisture are running my vibe. 

 This would be my classroom on Saturdays. Our A/C keeps kicking off and it's wrecking havoc in my room. Even during the week the humidity inside has reached 76%. Three weeks into my school year and we are still trying to get this sorted out. My room is smelly at the moment due to the dampness but hopefully my carpet will be taken out soon and replaced with tile. Fingers crossed. Send up some prayers teacher friends. My students and I NEED tile over carpet. Trust me on this.

One morning I actually I had to actually go home and change clothes. Nothing beats sitting down in your teacher chair and then having a wet rear end. Luckily I live close, had an earlyish morning special, and my principal let me run home and change clothes. 

My classroom is having some serious moisture issues. sigh....

I'm a girl that HATES winter. I despise it with ever fiber of my being. But, I love fall. Candy corn is my favorite and my current go-to treat. I'm thankful these bad boys showed up in my local grocery this week. 

This week I started making flip books. They turned out so cute and I can't wait to start using them. So far I've made my first Authors flip book set. I have another author set and then I'm working on inventors.

Edu-Clips has the cutest clip art. Anyone else have clip art buying addictions? "Hi, my name is Tracy and I need to stop buying clip art." Maybe we should form a club.

 I am finally admitting defeat and buying a new washer and dryer. This is a tad bit stressful for me because there are so many choices. This is a huge expense and I don't want to make a wrong choice.

 Front loader, top loader, steam clean, HE, or regular?

After going to my local mom and pop store I was introduced to the brand Speed Queen. They actually talked me AWAY from LG and Whirlpool.

Speed Queens are USA made, used in laundry mats, and have excellent reviews. I sat down and really thought about what I wanted in a washer and dryer and I realized it was simple.

Great smelling. Clean clothes. I don't need my washer to be beautiful and I don't need it to play a song when it's done. I need it to hold up to a family of 6. If they are used in laundry mats then surely it can handle my demands. I will hopefully be purchasing a new set this weekend. Anyone else heard of Speed Queen?

A few years ago my district adopted enVision Math. WE. HATE. IT. It has huge gaps in the curriculum and the order is insane. It jumps around all over the place and my students and parents don't understand it. The examples are poor and they don't give a lot of practice. Three weeks into the year and I've had parents emailing/texting/calling me like crazy because they hate the math. I realized I had to make some changes. I already us Accelerated Math but I went back and found our old Math series. Harcourt. 

I'm lucky enough to be able to scan in the math pages from the 1 student edition I have. I can then send them to my students using www.mybigcampus.com and they can save the pages as PDF's. Students and parents now how good examples to refer back to and the order makes sense. I will still be using enVision when I have too. But for now Harcourt is saving me. 

I'm finding out that going from 3rd to 4th is a big jump for my students and parents. They are realizing that 4th grade is more challenging and we have to move at a faster pace. What are your tips for helping your students and parents make this transition? 

Thanks for stopping by! See you next week.

-Tracy