Lots of food and Giveaway Winner-Five for Friday

 2014 has brought lots of changes to my life, and it is only March(yikes). One of the changes has been eating better. To make a long story short- I was diagnosed with Graves’ disease when I was a freshman in high school. My thyroid was working so hard that it caused me heart problems, tremors, extreme fatigue, etc. I dealt with it for 4 years, and then had my thyroid taken out when I was a freshman in college. That was fun!(NOT!) I still debate whether or not that was a smart decision because for the last 6 years, I have battled with a lot of the same problems I had before the surgery. I have never been a horrible eater, but it was def. a weakness of mine. So, when 2014 rolled around, I decided that I was going to try to eat better and see if that helped my health.  I now eat gluten and grain-free as much as I possibly can. Yes, it has been a huge challenge, but I am now 3 months in and feeling AWESOME! I posted an egg casserole on my IG account this week, and y’all blew the picture up asking for the recipe. So…here it is! I cook it on a Sunday and package it so that it is ready to go for the rest of the week. It is easy and yummy! If you try it..let me know how it goes!

I seriously debated putting this picture up because of just how BIG of a deal this information in the picture is. I am proud of our kiddos but now that we are putting this out there-we have to keep it up! Our school takes Discovery Education Think Link tests 3 times a year. They help us assess our students. I am a data junkie, so I like using the data to drive my classroom instruction. Last year, our school started displaying data walls. It started with a few teachers posting them outside of their rooms and has grown to almost every teacher posting data walls to track student achievement. I love data walls for many reasons, but my biggest reason is because it holds students and teachers accountable.  When you display your data, you are saying, “Here is our work. This is what we can(or can’t) do.” We just took our latest round of tests last week. As a grade level, we were really proud of our progress. So, we decided to post a grade-wide data wall right in front of the office. Our theme this year is #secondgradestrong. Later, other hashtags were added such as #awesomesauce. I had to look up that commercial because I had NO idea what the reference was to when my teamie started saying it. 

This beauty hit my TPT store this week, and it has been a hot item. Test prep is coming soon for a lot of us, and I wanted to make sure that the kiddos were not just answering questions. I want them to EXPLAIN the answer to the question and give evidence to support that answer. The cards come in big and small, black and color, letters and numbers. I blogged about it here. I love them. The kids get upset when I say that we are not using them that day. Sadsville, I tell ya!.

 Have I mentioned that I have awesome coworkers? My student teacher did her solo week this week, so that left me wandering for a home. It has been a little challenging. I NEED to be with my kiddos, but she also needs this opportunity to see how things go without the lead teacher there to scaffold all the time. So, I gave her some space and headed off to visit some of the awesome teachers in my school. I saw everything from review in Math & ELA to animal research and math tasks. I visited 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade classes, and it was an awesome learning opportunity for me. I snapped this picture before I headed out to visit for the morning. I never go anywhere without my teaching planner from April @ A Modern Teacher or my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I know that having visitors, even fellow teachers, can be really stressful so I made up some little notes to fill out and leave with the teachers whose classrooms I was in. I really appreciated them opening their rooms to me.

My teammates are awesome, but you already knew that because I brag about them all the time. There are 5 of us in our grade level this year. I am not going to lie…it has been a little challenging because we are not all in the same building(2 of us are in portables), and we don’t have the same lunch time. We have to work really hard to see each other throughout the day. But, the four teachers are hands down the best. They are my role models, and I am glad to have had this opportunity with them. This week my “learning cottage” teammate and I invited the other second grade teachers to a planning meeting in my room. Because we are separated from the main building, we don’t get a lot of visitors. Usually, we plan in the big school. I wanted to change that up a bit. 

We all brought some food, and we CHOWED DOWN(don’t worry…today was my cheat day)

! I also used these sweet signs and some tulips to decorate the table and celebrate the first day of spring.