One busy day at a time...

I feel lucky to have now taught on both sides of the elementary teaching spectrum.  From kinder all the way to third grade.  Though I miss kinder, I feel like third grade fits too.  Now if I can only figure out how to balance teaching third grade and blogging.  So I ask for your grace as I run through some of the thing that have happened second semester at K.E.S. in room 203!

For the 100th Day at KES "Old Man Flores" made a reappearance!  My costume worked so well that some students and staff didn't even recognize me.  Most of my students dressed up and those who didn't were transformed when they arrived at school.  We had computer lab and our Achieve 3000 assessments on the 100th day, students who made a 100 on the 100th day took a picture and received 100 jellybeans.

At the end of February I attended the Cowtown Children's 5K with our running club (shout out to coach Lewis).  I went to the race early so I could decorate our booth, since last year I saw so many other schools had done the same.  Just my Cricut and paper plates for the banner, in front of a black table cloth.  Unfortunately we we not able to run.  Anyone who is from Fort Worth knows Mother Nature loves to make an appearance at most outdoor events.  It stormed and it poured delaying the race for almost 3 hours.  This ran into our parent pick up time, so we had to go home.  At least we had fun at the warm-up!

After that we had benchmarks, then fast-forward to Spring Break.  Our school chess team made it to state!  Through the guidance of  the chess coach Mr. Agosto and hard work from the students, they qualified for the state tournament.  It was a race to get district approval for a trek across the state, but it came through!  Our wonderful parents drove their children to Houston to make this an experience they will never forget.  We gathered snacks, raised money, and even had one of our local news channels to run a story about them.  The competition was though in Houston, but they played hard and made us proud.  I'm happy I was able to be there to support them.

Time out from all if these school events to present to you my adorable baby niece Gemma Eloise Chavez.  We are all CRAZY about her!  Aaaaaaaa, she's so adorable!

This school year I had the honor of being chosen by our staff as The Kirkpatrick Elementary "Teacher of the Year."  It is not something I take lightly.  I work with many hardworking and passionate people who have on many occasions helped me get through the journey from Kindergarten to third.  I appreciate their kind words and help whenever I needed it.  Thank you to my administrators for supporting me and mostly thank you to my third grade team.  As a small token of my appreciation I made the staff some banana pudding.

 Now we're in full STAAR countdown mode!  The pressure is on and the kids are taking on the challenge.  Our principal, in efforts to alleviate the stress of keeping up with bulletin boards, let us put up inspirational bulletin boards.  I used a the Pinterest inspired board.  My student's names are on each star. The scrapbook paper squares are to spotlight any students showing use of their test taking strategies.  Our principal was excited with their work and sent us some pictures.  They could not believe we had received a text from her!  Now my STAAR countdown chain has 9 links left...We can see the finish line and we're working hard to get there.

-Cindy❤

Spring Break & a little bit of Dr. Seuss

Hey Friends!!

Spring break was about 2 weeks ago and I’m barely recuperating from my trip! It was such a whirlwind. We visited 5 countries in 10 days and it was AMAZING and exhausting at the same time. We went to Milan, Italy then to Lucerne, Switzerland, then we headed to Vaduz, Lichtenstein, then Salzburg, Austria and we finished our tour in Germany where we went to Munich and Regensburg. I took way too many pics to post them all here but here are a few of my faves from each country.

 

 

Next year we are headed to AMSTERDAM!!! Can't wait.

I know this is late but I love, love, love Dr. Seuss and all the activities we do!! Here are some activities we did for Dr. Seuss’s birthday in our class and in the library. We made Green Eggs and Ham in the classroom and then my little friends wrote a “How To Make Green Eggs and Ham” paper. YUMMMMM!! How delicious does that look??

We also did a Cat in the Hat directed draw from the brownbagteacher.com. They always turn out so cute.

Our librarian had RIF in the library and then had my little friends do some Dr. Seuss centers. My friends loved them and they were so engaged in the activities. 

 In the first center they tried to see how many hats they could stack. In the 2nd center they sort goldfish crackers.

 In this center they tried were putting "apples" up on top and then they were reading sight words on green eggs

In this last center they were matching capital letters to lowercase letters. This last pic is a pic of the library ready for RIF and Dr. Seuss's birthday.

This past Thursday was opening day for the Texas Rangers. For over 20 years my friends and I have attended opening day and we always have a blast. Here’s a pic of Cindy and I at the game.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our blog!!