Silence for Sandy Hook

Weekend Work and a Plus 10 Freebie

My last couple of posts have been about finding balance between work and home.  This weekend so far has been pretty successful day in that respect!  Friday evening my daughter and I went to a trunk show for a friend's online boutique.  Although I'm a little too old (and large!) for most of her things, I got a big chunk of my Christmas shopping done for my girls.  Saturday morning I was at Walmart before 9 o'clock.  (What a great time to go- it was so peaceful!) After a quick trip to Target with my daughter, I pulled out some of my Christmas boxes so I could get started decorating.
Then I worked on some school stuff.  I laminated (I LOVE my Scotch laminator!!!!) and cut out these fabulous gingerbread activities from Made for 1st Grade.

TPT

In math this month we are working on composing and decomposing numbers to 100 and doing a lot of work with hundreds charts. This is a great book  for hundreds chart activities:
                                  :
  Our fact fluency emphasis is adding/subtracting 10 so I made these little game boards to practice the +10 facts.  I modeled them after some Plus One games I found on Oceans of First Grade Fun.

Download games from Google Docs

Now it's time for holiday decorating!  First up, arrange the Santas on the mantel.  Next to the Christmas tree, these are my favorite holiday decorations!

Balance

I'm back after taking a break from blogging for a awhile.  I started blogging in the summer because I was spending so much time reading other teachers' blogs and working on school projects that I thought "Why not?"  And I really enjoyed it- I love sharing with others and writing has always helped me clarify my thoughts so blogging was really helping me become a better teacher.  But...I was becoming obsessed!  Right before Halloween I looked around my house and realized that I still had spring/summer type decorations up, there were trails of laminating film everywhere, and I hadn't touched a sewing machine, crochet hook or needle in months.  Stacks of professional books were everywhere.  It was time to step back and focus on home and family for awhile.  So my teaching/planning time has just involved making sure I am meeting the needs of my students- we really didn't need another "craftivity" involving turkeys!  Sure, I kept up with my favorite blogs and I made a few new teaching tools, but for the most part I just "taught."  And guess what?  The kids are fine and they are still learning!

In the meantime, I tried to spend some time doing the other things I enjoy.  I actually created some of the projects I've pinned on Pinterest, cleaned my craft room and made a dent in the rest of the house cleaning.  Now that I've had a little "me" time, I feel refreshed and ready to try out some new teaching ideas.  In fact, I've spent part of the morning cutting out some holiday centers for December.  But my new goal is to have balance- I'm trying to not let any one thing whether it is school, Pinterest, whatever take over my life.  Now I am off to Walmart to buy laminating sheets! (And for balance, maybe the ingredients for the latest recipe I pinned!)

Not quite finished, but I love it so far!