By Our Powers Combined...Pickles and Ketchups Unite!

I want to say a BIG 'thank you!' to some of my bloggy friends who had nothing but positive and kind words for me in regards to the trials and tribulations that teachers, especially first year teachers, face as they take their first leap of faith to try to establish themselves in the teaching world... thanks to your kind words and loads upon loads of prayers (especially on my part) I should be getting called in either this week or next week to sign my paperwork to teach this coming school year.  That I am aware of, there are 2 teaching positions available at the school (Kindergarten and 2nd Grade... my *preference* is 2nd, so hopefully they place me there) but nonetheless I will be in my FIRST classroom and experiencing my FIRST year teaching Elementary!!! I am "to infinity and beyond" excited!!! So, be on the lookout as I post the rest of this summer and upcoming school year.  I might even need to revamp my site to match!

Anywho, in other news... as I stated in a previous post, this is definitely turning into a "Pinterest Summer".  I gotta start getting the ball rolling (especially now that I have a job sorry I just love saying that it is still very surreal that after all my hard work I am going to have my very own classroom!) and going into overdrive making all of the amazing things that y'all have posted on the internet to get my classroom ready.  This is going to be overwhelming, stressful, blissful, exciting, nerve-wracking and any other adjective you could name to describe my excitement and nervousness all at the same time!

Sorry, I guess I ramble a lot... but on to the post for today.  Pickles and Ketchup! So, I am sure that many of you have seen this amazing idea online and I traced it back to Callie over at Teach-a-Roo.  She offers it as a freebie {so go and print them out HERE if you like the idea for your classroom}.  Below is my version of her fabulous idea... maybe it will give you some inspiration to create your own, just as Teach-a-Roo inspired me! :) So, here's the low-down on what this is... basically, on Fridays you put these up on your board and you or the students can come up and write their names themselves under the appropriate heading and if they have no missing/incomplete work they go under the "pickles" heading {which means they can 'pick' from various options (depending on what choices you want to offer for them) like: games, tubs, stations or activities that they can complete while the "ketchups" catch up (pun intended! Ha!) on whatever work they need to finish! Genius I tell you... just genius!

Here's the original that has been making appearances all over Pinterest...

And here is my version... I used the Cricut: Accent Essentials cartridge to do the cutout of the frame on some pink and green design paper cardstock that I had lying around; then I pulled out a pencil and a sheet of red and green paper and got to drawing my ketchup bottle {didn't like any online} and pickle {again, didn't like any clipart online} and then made the headings and labels on microsoft word using the font MTF Cutie Patootie, which can be downloaded HERE  for free-99! {P.S. while you're on her site, browse around cause there are some super-duper-ooper cute fonts that are also free on her site}.  Now all that's left is to laminate these babies and attach some adhesive magnet to the back of each and they will be ready to make their debut in my FIRST classroom!!!

Happy Pinning!

It's a Pinterest Summer Ladies!!!

If you follow me on Pinterest then you know that I have a board for practically everything that you could possibly think of  including the kitchen sink! except for the kitchen sink! So, in anticipation of my first year teaching and because of my O.C.D. tendencies I created a board titled "Projects to complete over the Summer for my classroom"... well, I am here to say that I have officially checked one of those "pins" off my list and I have ONE very talented individual { from: Create*Teach*Share}to thank for this fabulous and extremely organized Teacher Toolbox.  Considering that this will be my very FIRST year teaching I figured that it couldn't hurt to make my classroom as organized as possible so that while I'm running around like a chicken without a head teaching in my beautifully decorated classroom I can find everything I need with ease.  So, it is with a GIANT thank you, thank you, thank you... for this amazing idea that I check off my very first Pinterest project of the Summer.

P.S. Even though I have absolutely NO IDEA what subject/grade or even what school I am going to be teaching at yet I have decided that my color scheme will be: black, white, raspberry/watermelon pinkish and turquoise... so, with that in mind, I hope you like how my Teacher Toolbox turned out and be sure to look for more projects that I will be posting this summer.  And if you'd like to follow me, The Teaching Bug, on Pinterest you can click on my "Follow Me on Pinterest" button at the top of my page.

Happy Pinning!

Keeping the Faith

Catching up... I graduated on May 12th and am now officially on the job hunt.  It seems that no matter how many hurdles, molehills and mountains you climb as soon as you reach the top you find yourself staring at another one! *Sigh* such is life! It's almost the middle of June and I still have no idea where I am going to be come August but, I have faith and I know that God would not have given me the will and desire to be a teacher without providing me with a classroom to teach in.  In the meantime, while I can't begin to prepare things for my classroom {since I have no inkling whatsoever of what grade/subjects I am going to teach} I have determined to use my time wisely by pinning all of the amazing ideas that I love that are out there in the Internet Universe and joining some of your book studies.  So, I will be posting some thoughts and activities/worksheets that I create along the way as I follow along with all of you through the book studies of "Guided Math" and "Daily 5/CAFE" so stay on the lookout for freebies.  Until then, please pray for me as the job hunt and interviews continue and best of luck to any of you who are on the same boat as I am and are trying to start your FIRST year teaching!