May Currently and a Freebie

Happy Tuesday Everyone! I hope you have all had a great week so far. My week has already been busy, busy, busy. One of the tasks of being the Title I Teacher is being a member of our school's Administrative Leadership Team. It's a great privilege to be a member but it is also a lot of work and a lot of time away from my kiddos.

I love being able to have a say in how the school operates, help plan events, come up with ideas for teachers and students, and voice the concerns of my colleagues face to face with my principal and assistant principal.

With us only having 11 10.5 school days left we were busy this morning making sure that all of the end of the year activities are ready to go! I can't wait to be a part of my very end of the year celebrations, field days, graduations, etc.!

This past week I've also been very busy trying to reteach standards to the students, in 3rd-5th grade, that we have targeted as most likely to have to retake the CRCT (Georgia's state test) based on their benchmark scores. The students will begin retesting on Monday so we don't have much time to help them master these standards.

Ok, let's get away from school for a minute. How about my May currently? May is an exciting month! I can't believe that my first year of teaching is almost over. It's been a very busy, stressful exciting, sleep deprived year.

I'm sure many of these are very self-explanatory but I'll give you a little more anyways =D 

Listening to the rain! It's been raining cats and dogs here in Georgia for what seems like forever! I will not complaining though, unless it's during my morning commute, because I love just listening to the rain. It's so relaxing and beautiful. 

Loving life! As stressful and tiring as life has been these past few weeks I love life right now. I have so much to be thankful for: good friends, great family, a very supportive fiance, completing my first year of teaching, knowing that I have a teaching position next year, purchasing my first home (very soon), and so much more. 

Thinking that the end is almost here!!!! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We only have 10.5 school days left. 

Wanting to finish the paperwork for my new home. I don't think I could be anymore excited about purchasing my first home! It's going to take a lot of work, but I am in love with my soon to be new home. We are just waiting HUD to get our paperwork/contract back to us so that we can begin the inspections and get our loan in order. I can't wait. 

Needing a personal day. I've been working 13+ hours for over 3 months now without a break. I don't even take a break on the weekends. I'm sure you all remember your first year of teaching (if you're not there yet, be warned) as being non-stop work. I would love to take a day to just relax and get to feeling a little better; I hurt my back last week and it's getting a little worse each day. I think a day off would really make me feel a lot better. 

Summer Bucket List. There are so many things I want to do this summer, but these are the top 3 on my bucket list: 

1. Marry the love of my life! I'm getting married on July 21, 2013. I can't believe I only have about 9.5 weeks until my big day. I've been working very hard on every last detail of the wedding. I'm planning the whole thing on my own and making almost everything. So it will be nice to have some time to get wedding planning done after school ends. 
2. Move into my new home! If everything goes as planned we will close on our home no later than mid June. I can't wait to start working on my house and get moved in. 
3. Last but not least, I want to take a much needed vacation to the beach. I just love the beach! I use to think that Florida had some of my favorite beaches (have you even been to Mexico Beach, FL? It's beautiful) until I traveled outside of the US to the Bahamas a few years back. I took a graduation trip their last May and I would love to go back again this summer. Even if I can't make it outside of the US, I'll take a day any beach. 

Don't forget to go check out Farley's Currently and link up, if you haven't already. Just click the image below and have a look around. 

Now, if you stuck with this post for this long you more than deserve a freebie! This one's not very cute or fancied up with graphics/colors but my 3rd graders have LOVED it! 

Two weeks ago I introduced a Count Down To Summer activity/reward chain. Each day I randomly pick a student to come to the board and remove the bottom chain link and tell the class what their activity/reward for the day will be. I did 24 days so that all of the students would have a chance to come up and remove a link. I came up with things that would work well with my class and typed them into a simple document then printed each page on a different color of card stalk. The rewards/activities include things such as:

• Math with Chalk
• Lunch in the classroom
• Random Dancing (This has been the kid's favorite so far) 
• Nature walk 
• New pencil (what kid doesn't need a new pencil at this point in the year?)
• Piece of Candy
• and much much more!

This is a Word document and I have left it fully editable so that you can adjust it to better fit your students! 

If you think you can use this in your classroom you can download it by going to my TPT store, Shanon's School Supplies, or by clicking on the image above. 

Well, that's it for tonight! I hope you all have a wonderful week and just remember, school's almost out for summer!