Thanks to Kacey at Doodle Bugs for hosting this link up. Click on the button above to join us and share 5 random things about your week.
This girl is T-I-R-E-D this week. Being a mom has taught me a whole different level of tired but this week I took that to an even different level and added 6am wake ups to work out for an hour. My brother recently got a Fitbit and is UBER competitive. He issued a work week challenge and my husband refuses to let him win. So we decided to wake up an hour earlier and my husband goes running (and gets his first 10,000 steps in) and I walk laps around our basement and get 5,000 steps to start the day off. I feel better once we've done it and then I still have an hour to work before my girls get up. But getting up is hard. I am not a morning person so it has helped that my husband and I have gotten up together and forced the other person out of bed on those rough days. But if we are going to keep this up, we need to go to bed earlier because I am exhausted. Like fell asleep during Scandal last night while I was watching it in real time (ugh, the horror, I know! Commercials suck!) And just for a glimpse at how crazy competitive this has gotten - I have gotten between 12 and 18,000 steps every day this week and I'm in fourth place with NO HOPES of making the top three. At this moment in time my brother is 23,000 steps ahead of me and my husband and my brother in law (who also refuses to let my brother win) are both 37,000 steps ahead of me. These boys are NUTS and my husband has big plans for more steps today. I guess if you are going to be competitive about something this isn't the worse thing. We are all getting up and getting active and pushing each other. So that's healthy, right?
The one area of our homeschool preschool I was hoping to use daily was our calendar. But let's just say it is the middle of October and I just switched it to October. #teacherfail Before we started school in September I was trying frantically to find a calendar option because the one from my classroom was way too big to put up in our house. I found this small tabletop one and it is the perfect size. I don't spend a ton of time on it since K is only 3, but she is often asking what day it is or who has a birthday soon. So we just talk about what the date is and what is coming up, we sing a days of the week song and then talk about the weather. Easy peasy but I can't seem to get to it every day. It shouldn't surprise me because we were often catching up on days on our calendar when I taught 2nd grade. My kiddos LOVED calendar but for some reason it was one of my least favorite things to teach even though we taught and reviewed SO MANY math concepts, so it was the first thing to go when I needed time for something else. And then I recently read that using calendar time is now controversial in classrooms? Do you use calendar time still in your classroom? Am I outdated already after being out of the classroom for 3 years?
We got out this week for a few field trips. We are starting our fall unit this week so I decided on a trip to the apple orchard. Normally, I'm a field trip at the end as a culminating activity type girl but when I saw that Monday was our last predicted nice day of sunny and 70 degree weather, I decided we needed to go for it. Plus, I knew the week day would be far less crazy than the weekends even though I hate for my husband to miss activities like this with us. The girls were so good and we enjoyed a tractor ride and picking 3 different kinds of apples. Then they played on all the hay bales and things that are set up for kids and we had cider and donuts. So much fun.
Our other field trip had nothing to do with what we are learning about at home. It was about getting out and moving. A new trampoline park opened a half hour from us and twice a week they have toddler hour. So we made the trip to try something new and my girls loved it. They were so busy bouncing that I have ZERO pictures that aren't blurry because of them being in constant motion.
This week was the first week of Religious Ed where we could actually start working with the kids. But first, we had to set up rules and procedures and guide them through everything. I forget how long everything takes at the beginning of the year. And we only have them for an hour and a half each week. We had a lot to jam into this week. We do most weeks, but I felt like it was really important to go over rules and expectations and show them what we want to do when they first come into the classroom. We gave them their STAR tags (reward/brag tags that we changed the name of and I'm forever switching the two) and their first tags and they practiced opening and closing their necklaces. Do you know how hard ball and chain necklaces are for 1st graders? They each got a tag with their name on it and then one for the lesson we taught. They will also be earning tags for behavior and prayers memorized but we figured this way everyone goes home with a tag each week and hopefully it serves as a reminder for what we learned in class that week. Hopefully the enthusiasm continues throughout the year with this new (to us) technique.
Have you had a chance to participate in
The Primary Punchbowl's Fall Blog Hop? Did you enter to win TpT gift certificates at EVERY stop along the way? Did you grab your freebies? What about those items that are half off? Did you put those in your cart? If not, do it now. It ends on Sunday and winners will be announced on Monday.
Also, don't forget to stop by our new collaborative blog,
The Primary Punchbowl, to be entered to win Kendra Scott earrings (unless you are like me and don't have pierced ears - little fun fact I bet you didn't know) and a teacher basket filled with teacher favorites.
Have a great Friday and a relaxing weekend friends!
