Earthquakes

My teammates reminded me this morning that we were going to be having an earthquake drill sometime this week. I mumbled and grumbled about how I needed to fit that in this am, just in case it was today. Our principal is going to be out tomorrow (with my team for a training) so it was going to be either today or friday. 

So, first thing at our morning meeting was learning about what to do if there was ever an earthquake. I told the kids that they hardly ever happen in oregon, but that we need to be safe and prepared just in case.  I'm always nervous that at this age they will freak out like it is GOING to happen (this happened when I taught fire drills a couple of years ago)

 Little did I know that a 3.4 magnitude earthquake hit just north of Mt. Saint Helen's last night. That's less than 90 miles away from us...Yikes!

Maybe we should worry....?

**PS. Happy 100th post to me! :)

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Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon training plan

Today i'm linking up with Nicole at Running in Heels to share my next training plan (for running). I've talked about running very little on this blog, but I'd love to share my love for running with you and what i'm doing right now! (besides teaching, of course!)

If you're a runner and would like to link up your training plan, you can click on the link above. Even if you're not, I would HIGHLY recommend clicking on the link below and checking out Nicole's blog. Nicole is a fellow duck like me, but her awesomeness doesn't stop there! She is a self proclaimed "running addict,coffee-loving, jesus believing, (dog) adorer, shoe-aholic!" Umm hello!? How have we not met? lol. Anyways,  She's awesome! 

  

I am about to begin training for my first half marathon (although i've run 3 full marathons and a 200 mile relay!) and could not be more excited!! We are running the inaugural Rock and Roll Portland 1/2. I've heard such great things about these races, it should be a lot of fun! And I definitely love that this race doesn't offer a full, so I won't feel bad ;) While I have loved (and will run again) marathon's, I am definitely excited for the different challenge of a half-marathon. I am going to be running it with my best friend Ms. Baseball. This is our first race together (and her first 1/2 too!) and I can't wait to share the experience with her!

I'm also excited for the training! It is going to be so much more feasible to fit in my daily life, whereas when I have trained for fulls in the past they seemed to TAKEOVER my life. I love running, and don't mind following a schedule, but sometimes the time it took for me to do them seemed overwhelming! 

I took this plan (basically) from Jeff Galloway's Run Injury Free program. I've never done his plans before, but this one looked good for both Ms. Baseball and I! 

Are you training for anything? Have you before? link up and share your experiences with us! I'd love to hear all about it!

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3 little pigs

Don't you just love the story of the 3 little pigs?

Well, this week was P week in kindergarten and as our art activity (we only get 1 a week! sad, I know!!) we made the 3 little pigs houses out of food items. I always love this project, but get nervous about tackling all of the supplies. It went awesome! here's what we did:

First, we watched a short disney version on youtube. Last year a kid in another class got scared from a disney character and poor Mrs. Sneaker had to get the wrath of the parent, so this time I warned the kids about the "scary" wolf and we talked em  how he never hurt them and that in the end he is the one who runs away scared. Man, those old school disney characters can be kind of creepy, though!

then each kiddo got their own "3 little pigs houses" to decorate and a supply tray. we used sticks to "paint" on the glue.

the "straw" (aka shredded wheat) was a big messier, so I had the kids bring their papers to me after they put glue on the first house and I applied the straw. This made it a lot easier to handle!

then they created the rest! 

didn't they turn out cute??

It took awhile to finish because the kids were so precise, but I loved it! The only problem was, my room was "borrowed" for testing that afternoon. Normally I am warned asked to use my room, but this time the testers showed up without my knowledge and the desks were filled with projects. I was pretty annoyed, but overall the guest were respectful of the projects (I only found 1 on the floor, a table moved and chairs everywhere when I got to school this morning...)

Anyways, I love art in kindergarten!! If only we could have it everyday (Seriously?? What has this world come to when art is not in kindergarten???) Now i'm off to plan next week's reading, writing, and math (oh ya, and the one art lesson...). 2 hours and 20 minutes is just not enough time anymore!!

Do you get art everyday? If you do, what kind of math/reading curriculum are you using? Do you have to stay on a lesson-a-day format or can you be flexible to add these activities in?

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Snow days?

Well, here in the NW they have been threatening "Snowmageddon" since sunday....now it's come and gone and while other districts have had delays and closures...my district stayed open. EVEN during the active snow (ok, so it never accumulated. Just slushy) storm yesterday. Probably a smart decision, but it was ridiculously hard to keep the kids focused. You see, we NEVER get snow. so it is pretty exciting! Just to make it worse, yesterday was DIBELs testing too! I was so nervous. but, we got the scores back and my kids rocked it! woohoo!!

my kids also earned our "honeycomb" party for filling up our behavior chart. Our party was an impromptu field trip walk in the snow :)

Now it's just really windy. Not so fun to play outside in.

I told Mr. Bee last night that while i've never been on board with moving to washington (near our families), I am finally "in", considering they are completely covered with snow right now! I'm so jealous! I <3 snow!

the view from our front door that Mr. Bee sent me while I was at school! (Sorry I can't rotate!)

our reading specialist while organizing DIBELs :)

my kiddos watching the snow fall while waiting for DIBELs to be over

snow coming down

anyways, this is kind of a random post. I promise to go back to a real blog topic tomorrow :)

On a more fun note...
I just got back from yoga class with my friends at our high school! My family friend is a yoga instructor and is also the curriculum secretary at the hight school, so she teaches a class to just female staff in the library on wednesdays after they are done with work. Today I joined and it was my friend, the front desk secretary (I worked with her as an assistant for 3 years in high school! we're super close!), my sophomore english teacher (AWESOME lady!) and one other teacher. Can you say FUN?! and she kicked our butts, too! I am so excited to get to join them every week! (although tomorrow i'm going to be so sore from my physical therapy, running and yoga today!)

Do you take any gym classes with friends or teachers from high school?
 I LOVE living in my hometown and teaching in the same district, it's brought me even closer to the amazing women I looked up to as a high schooler!

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Fancy Friday

This week was F week, which means we had "Fancy Friday". I am super nervous considering this fell on friday the 13th. I was pleasantly surprised that the unlucky date did not throw off this mojo, and we had a GREAT day! Here are some pics of my cutie pies :) We were "oh so fancy!" a la Fancy Nancy accessories :)

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What do you do?

I had this great post planned out for today. All about a super cute MLK project we are doing at school tomorrow. It was going to be awesome. Then, I met with our school counselor to talk about a child in my class. The things I learned about this child and the situation he lives in every day completely break my heart, as if it wasn't breaking for him already. Needless to say, now I am not in the mood to write about our project. Sorry friends :( It'll have to be a project for another day.

This little guy in my class is amazing. truly wonderful. sweet, loving, super shy. I had no idea what a nightmare life was like for him when he left school. They have been shuffling homes for awhile now, but I thought that was the only problem. I wanted to call DHS just for that. But I knew that with the system the way it is, neglect through homelessness is just not going to make a blip in the radar. I had no idea. I don't want to get into it, but Oh wow, this poor guy...

 Reports have been made to DHS for him and his siblings, and many reports have been made to the school. But, unfortunately, when a first hand account comes to the school and then we call DHS, it becomes 2nd hand information. How is that fair?? The people do not want to make a report on their own, for whatever reason, but the fact that they came to us alone makes it a very valid concern in my opinion. but not enough to launch an investigation.

I can only pray that someone comes forward to advocate for the kids if our cry is not being heard. My heart is breaking. I will continue to show the little guy how much I love and care about him every day. I guess that's all I can do right now.

Please pray for him, too.

What would you do?

UPDATE: My little munchkin moved today :( I am really praying that this is a good situation he is moving into and that the new school will be able to pick up where we left off! 

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Versatile Blogger Award

a BIG thank you to Wild about K Kids and Lisa at Connecting the Dots for honoring me with the versatile blogger award!! I loved seeing all of the blogs that they recommended, many of which I am now following! How great!! and, they both share some awesome freebies of their own, too! Make sure to go check them out!!

Here are the rules to this award. 

1. Thank the people who gave you this award and link back to them. 

2. tell 7 things about yourself (I copied these from my original award post, sorry that I'm not feeling that creative today!)

1. I am blessed to have many best friends in my life, all of which mean more than words can explain! however, there is one extra special lady who has been in my life since the day she was born. yep, that's right! Her mom and my mom are best friends. We are so much alike it can be funny. because she is teeny tiny 4'11.5" tall and I am definitely not ;) We can go months without seeing each other and come back with the same exact hair cut, color and (at one time, leopard) pants! no joke! Love you Ms. Baseball :)2. I live in my childhood home. My mom and dad moved to washington last winter and my husband and I began renting it from them. Way bigger than we could afford right now, and we get a reduced rent! Sweet! :) (my landlords are pretty cool, too...)3. I was a swimmer and a cheerleader for most of my childhood. I was much better at swimming, but cheerleading was my passion. in high school I had to choose between the sport I could potentially go far in or the sport I loved. I chose cheer :) AND we won state my senior year, which shows dedication can pay off!4. My mom subs in my classroom. Even now that she lives in another state, she is keeping her sub number current so she can sub for my kinders. SO COOL! Last year some of the kids thought all "moms" in the school were teacher's moms. So cute :)5. I <3 Sex and The City. Even the 2nd movie. I quote it constantly :) My senior year of high school I bought all of the dvd's on ebay (this was pre- boxset) One season has japanese subtitles....fail. But, we still watched them constantly in college!6. I love traveling and my favorite place is Mexico. My husband does not like to travel much and is not going to get a passport...probably because he knows I'll beg him to vacay with me :) But...he doesn't mind me traveling with the girls! woohoo!7. I had 9 bridesmaids in my wedding. 5 of which were sorority sisters. I am blessed :) A group of us travel with our families every new years. We stay to the west coast, but have a lot of fun!! The first official group new years was when I "met" my hubby. (we had known each other for 4 years, but we'd both been in relationships. It was our first single new years together!)
Had enough of me? Go check out these awesome bloggers!! I blog-stalk each of them regularly :)Diary of a Pitcher's "Wife"Sneaker TeacherTales of a TeacheristaHerding Kats in KindergartenThe Teacher WifeWhat the Teacher WantsAdventures from Room 129All The WeighEberhart's ExplorersLittle Warriors
Happy blogging! and thanks again for thinking of me!!

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Roses and Awards!

My Ducks won the Rose Bowl!! Woohoo!!! We are SUPER happy in the Bee household today!! I can already tell 2012 is going to be great! And did you see those helmets?? 

Sick!! I <3 my ducks! I mean seriously! They were awesome!

Anyways, onto the reason for this post! Kelly B over at Busy in K has awarded me with the 

award. Thank you, Kelly!!! That is so sweet! I am truly honored that you thought of me for this award. If you haven't heard of Kelly B, you HAVE you check out her blog! She is awesome! I was amazed that such an great blogger like Kelly even knew of my little blog! Seriously though, check her out and make sure to follow her so that you can get all of her perfect kinder freebies! 

Now here's how the award works. 

The Liebster Award goal's is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1. copy and paste the award on your blog
2. thank the giver and link back to them
3. reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
4. hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers

Here are my top 5! 


Pray Teach Love- Kelly Beason (Different Kelly than Kelly B!) I nominated Kelly for a different award in the past, but she seriously is so awesome that she deserves another! Check her blog out for lots of freebies, inspirational tidbits AND she's a college football fan, so really, how can you not like her? :)
File Folder Farm- Nia creates AWESOME file folder games that I use in my classroom regularly! They are super cute and interactive, the kids just love them! and the best part is, they are really easy to make! Did I mention that she does this out of the goodness of her heart? That's right! I mean FREE! Now hurry, run and check her out before she catches wind that she could make a bunch of money off these babies! haha.
What Happens in Kindergarten...Last's a lifetime- Mrs. Giese write a super sweet and fun kinder blog! I have been stalking her blog since she started last spring! She always shares her ideas and does really fun things in her room! Check her out!
Kinder Journey- Margaret is a new blogger (last summer) but you wouldn't know it by how awesome she is!! She started off with a bang by sharing all of her amazing ideas, lessons and adaptations to things she has used in her classroom. Margaret is a first year kinder teacher this year, and she is fabulous!! I would love to be in her class!
Kinder Zoo- I love this blog! her graphics are ADORABLE and her ideas are (you guessed it!) Awesome! You'll definitely want to check out the Kinder Zoo so you can start doing her activities in your classroom, too!

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