Thursday _____???

I’m still learning all the Teacher Blog hints and tips :)

So thanks to Sharing Kindergarten for this post on her Facebook page:

I really felt like that the past two summers and so this summer I decided to avoid the extended feeling of anxiety by using July to do as much planning and prep as possible so that I can enjoy August as stress-free as possible. Blog-reading is part of that, so this weekend I plan on highlighting a few posts that have really just blessed my teacher socks all.the.way.off. I already heard of few coming down the pipe that I can’t wait to read. Follow me on Instagram @teachitkate and my brand spanking new Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/windowsintomyclassroom.

I’m growing up y’all!

Thanks for peeking in!

A twist on the Wednesday Wish list: Getting my teacher life right, and I could use your help

Anyone who knows me, know that I can be very transparent, sometimes overly so, once I get comfortable around you. So in the spirit of extra-transparency now that I am getting into blogging every few days, here’s a modification of the Wednesday Wishlist:

Things about me <<I WISH>> were better

• Better about managing my space.

I am downright messy. There, I said it. While my classroom stays a lot neater than my apartment, I have been having difficulty getting a handle around the spaces. And it is a little depressing. I fight off the depression by taking it one day at a time. But I am running out of days before the business of the school year gets going, and I don’t have the funds for a professional intervention so…

• Better take-home income.

I love everything about where I work…I just could stand to make a little more, especially with student loans coming due shortly. So I’m on the hunt for a second job, a side-hustle if you will.

• Crafting and designing skills were better.

Just the ideas are hard enough to come by. I’m more of a practical person, so you will be hard pressed to find any TpT goodies here…not for lack of trying. But I’d like to. I tired my hand at it two summers ago and was frustrated by layering. I’m looking into tutorials but I haven’t found anything expressly helpful for this. If you know of anything, HELP!!!

For that matter, if you have any guidance for me in any of these three areas, I’d love to hear it! 

And as always, thanks for peeking in!

Monday Mulling...

Hi there!

If you follow my personal Instagram account or are my Facebook friend, then you already know where I’ve been! DC Baby! Can you tell I’m excited. Okay, so one thing I did not really go into detail about on my bio (since this blog is really about my adventures in teaching), is that I am an active member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. I had the distinct pleasure of not only catching up with Sorority Sister from across the nation and around the world, but I also got to celebrate the Centennial of our brother organization, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Incorporated. All the blue and what was such a lovely sight! Here is just one pic for you to get a glimpse of what it was all about:

Sigma brothers I went to Cornell with and me in the middle in the lobby of the Centennial host hotel. 

Women of Zeta joined Men of Sigma and reaffirmed our bond and partied like nobodies business. I am not big on partying but I was glad to just be apart of the number.

Now back to real life…

As I’ve grown I’ve come to understand somethings about myself. One is that I need sleep (which I got today seeing as the about picture was taken around midnight), another is that I am crafty but have difficulty finishing a project if I can’t make it as close to perfect as possible. Do any of you deal with the same thing?

I’d like to get this blog and maybe even my TpT shop really going but right now I am thirsty for the creativity to do something different. I’m not about to abandon this blog again, so any ideas or nuggets of inspiration would be extremely helpful. 

As always, thanks for reading!

Kindergarten's 3 R's: Respect, Resources and Rants: Re-Post: Popsicle Sticks, Colored Cards and Clothespins Aren't Classroom Management Tools

Check back in with me later about this. Read in the mean time...

Kindergarten's 3 R's: Respect, Resources and Rants: Re-Post: Popsicle Sticks, Colored Cards and Clothespins Aren't Classroom Management Tools

Off to school to finish moving and have a chat with my Dean :) Happy Wednesday!
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Alright I’m back! No really, I’m back! This post marks the official re-launch of my blog, and what a re-post it was! Many thanks to Michaele at Kindergartener’s 3 Rs for this profound insight into behavior charts, etc.
So now for my thoughts about this:
I’ve never been gung-ho about the charts, etc, but I have bought in because the color-coded behavior management system is apart of the classroom management expectations of the charter organization to which my school belongs. In my conversation with my Dean this afternoon, I acknowledged as much.  This I mentioned the repost to her and some of the thoughts shared there, I also noted how important it is to me that I work on building and maintaining relational capacity with my scholars right from the start of the year.
I went in thinking about taking the blue and red cards out; I would ask about ways Scholars believe they can get the distinct honor of moving up to “perfect purple.” Everyone would start the day on green and those who needed it would move their card to yellow while also taking some time to write/talk about what they needed to do in order to get back on track. My Dean affirmed the track along which I was thinking and reinforced that our social contract process may also be used to establish expectations for moving to purple and that would include, I hope, how we interact with and engage one another in and around our class/school.
Again, all of this is just preliminary, but I would love to hear your thoughts. This is going to be awesome!