"Breakfast"

I wanted to think of a fancy title for this breakfast series. Here are a few I came up with:

"Let's Find Jordon Something FILLING to Eat So She Doesn't Have to Eat McDonalds Everyday"

"Let's Find Something Really Great for Jordon to Eat For Breakfast That is QUICK and EASY"

I stopped after that and realized titling things is not in my job description. I decided to make this one easy by naming it, "Breakfast".

It all started with this image that popped into my life via Pinterest. Naturally I was drawn to it because:
a. It's food
b. It's multiple photos of food

Need I say more?

Keep Your Diet Real posted 20 quick ideas for breakfast. GENIUS! Wahoo! YIPPIE! Just what I was looking for. This week, I have been making a conscious effort to make delicious breakfast before life gets too crazy.

To begin, I closed my eyes and pointed at a random photo. When my finger landed on no where near the photo I decided to pick number five first. Now my friends, meet contestant number fiiiiiiiiiiiive: (cue applause)

Keep Your Diet Real photo

Peanut Butter Yogurt Dip

Ingredients

• 4 oz honey flavored Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1.5 Tablespoon honey
• 2 tablespoons of peanut butter
• 2 oz Reduced fat cream cheese, softened

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.
2. Chill in the refrigerator for 15+ minutes or serve immediately. Store in the refrigerator.
3. Serving suggestion: 2 tablespoons of dip with ½ cup fresh fruit or sliced apples.

Oh LAWDY! This dip was amazing. Literally, as I continued with each bite of my apple I thought I was going to end up licking my ziplock container. Don't worry, I'm not an animal! I resisted temptation. 

The best part was, it filled me up! My stomach wasn't tossing and turning at 9:00 AM. I actually made it until lunch (very important for teachers!!)

For Tuesday, I decided to jump on the smoothie bandwagon. If you can't tell, I kind of enjoy jumping on bandwagons. 

To be honest, I wanted to jump on this bandwagon a few months ago. Sadly, it didn't work out that way. One morning while searching my kitchen for something yummy to eat I decided, "ah-ha! I'll make a smoothie!" I gathered some ingredients and started to look for my blender. Then I realized I didn't have a blender. 

Needless to say, it's extremely difficult to blend things without a blender. A few months later, I invested in a blender so I could really jump on this bandwagon.

I borrowed a delicious smoothie recipe from Yum Sugar and started blending.

The Basic Classic Smoothie
From Michael Sweeney

Ingredients

6 frozen strawberries*
3/4 cup plain, low-fat yogurt (feel free to substitute a flavored yogurt for plain: strawberry and blueberry work well)
1 banana
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon of honey
protein powder or flax, optional

Directions

1. Place the frozen strawberries in the blender. Let sit for 10-15 minutes, so they have time to thaw.
2. Add the remaining ingredients and blend. Check consistency: if too watery, add more yogurt. If too thick, add more orange juice.
3. Pour into a glass and enjoy!

Makes 1 smoothie.

I grabbed my smoothie from the fridge this morning and had several smoothie fouls. It leaked on my desk, purse, and inside my car. It was probably on my face all day, too.

I think for the time being I'm hopping off this smoothie band wagon.

Filling Up Buckets

I have no idea what made me read "How Full is Your Bucket". I wish I had a grand story that I was inspired to pick up the book and participate in a discussion of bucket goodness.....but I don't. Honestly, I was probably walking around B&N and decided that this book looked like fun. Little did I know, the bucket phenomenon was bigger than I imagined! All over, classrooms are applying this philosophy to their everyday curriculum. So, I jumped right onto that bandwagon! You can call me a follower. 

Click to buy the book here.

Funny story: I had my copy of "How Full Is Your Bucket" with me at school last year because my students were asking about it. Little did I know, I had forgotten to remove my bookmark that I had used a year or two before. My bookmark happened to be a birthday card from a few friends I met while studying abroad. The card read, "I see London... I see France..." and when opened the inside said, "I miss seeing your underpants!" 

One afternoon, a student brought me the card (after reading it) and said..."ummmmm, is this yours?" 

Oopsie daisy. Note to self: remove all bookmarks OR don't use birthday cards as bookmarks!

Back on track...

The "bucket" principle is very easy to understand. Everyone has a bucket over their head that can be filled with positive experiences and interactions with others. Or buckets can be dipped from when negative words or actions are used. As you can imagine, we strive to have a full HAPPY bucket!

Last year, I decided to implement this philosophy into my classroom. I started by reading the kid's version of "How Full is Your Bucket". I loved the conversations I had with my kids afterwards. They were very receptive of the idea of an imaginary bucket over our heads. This lead to awesome convos about how to treat one another respectfully. 

After reading the book, we had to start filling up our buckets! I downloaded a few different "drops" from the internet and had a mini lesson with my kiddos.

One of MANY ways to fill a bucket!

To introduce the lesson, I filled out a drop to our custodian. I thanked him for treating our school with respect and helping me when we had "the soil incident". (curious? We dropped soil all over the floor with WORMS! I don't touch worms.. so needless to say, I freaked out)

Afterwards, my kids were practically professional bucket fillers. Before I knew it, we were sending drops to other teachers and students around the school. It was truly incredible! 

What The Teacher Wants has free printables about bucket fillers here.

In my classroom, I created a bulletin board for our drops. It was by far the most meaningful bulletin board that I created for the year.

Thanks to a combination of Pinterest and Google, I have found several ideas for bulletin boards and buckets. Enjoy a few photos!

Clutter Free Classroom

Clutter Free Classroom

Clutter Free Classroom

This year, my bulletin board space is limited due to other things that need to be hanging. As usual, I was stumped on how to have buckets in my room. Then, Pinterest SAVED THE DAY! 

(at the current time Pinterest is not working... once it reboots, I will be able to show the original picture that I mimicked in my own classroom! Don't worry, I'll give credit ASAP!)

A bucket for everyone!

When school begins, students will be able to personalize and decorate their cup, err.. I mean bucket. 

Since I have yawned roughly 15 times in the past twenty minutes, I think that means it is time for me to go bed. Yep! There's #16. 

Simply the Best

Ahh, Sunday night... we meet again. Growing up, if I recall correctly, we had signature foods every Sunday night. They were nothing extreme or massive.. just a few Sunday night traditions. For example, my dad would often whip up some chicken noodles or you might even find rotel dip simmering on the stove.

In college, my good pal Mallori and I started a new tradition. Since we were neighbors for a few years, we tried to get together on Sunday nights and have dinner. Most of the time our dinner consisted of the classic tomato soup and grilled cheese. It was a delightful treat to share with a friend!

This evening, I decided to make THE BEST grilled cheese sandwich, ever. 

Keep Your Diet Real

In order to make the BEST grilled cheese, I needed to take a trip to the store. I wrote my grocery list and headed on my merry way. Guess where my grocery list was when I got to the store? If you guessed, "your pocket!" You are wrong. It was right on the kitchen table where I left it.

Useless

Lucky for me, I have a photographic memory. 

I'm sorry, that was a lie. I did my best to remember what was on the list after saying, "awww mann!" (like my nephew, Beckett) quite loudly in the store. Surprisingly, I did quite well. 

After I had gotten over the whole "grocery list" ordeal, I gathered my recipes for the best sammich ever, and started cookin'!

Dangerously Cheesy

I tell you what, Keep Your Diet Real wasn't lying. This grilled cheese beat my regular grilled cheese's boo-tay.

Now, has anyone seen my scissors?

Get Your Sparkle On!

Glitter. glitter, and MORE GLITTER. This post is all about glitter and creating a little sparkle for the first day of school!

First, let's enjoy a few fun glittery thingy-ma-bobs:

Target commercial: LOVE

TOMS: cute and for a good cause

LET'S GO TO THE MALL! TODAY! Oh Robin Sparkles!

The sparliest of all that sparkle, Edward Cullen.

You said it, poster!

We are Not Martha has an excellent (and hilarious) how-to on creating your very own glitter shoes. After my wacky day... I decided this craft was the perfect one to change my mood around. 

We Are Not Martha Photo

We Are Not Martha photo

What do you know? I was right. My mood is mucho bettero. (I'm even making up new words, that's how you know I'm really happy!) Not only did I chat on the phone with two friends, but I also got caught up with my favorite sleazy cast from the shore. Talk about a great Thursday night!

Sparkle Sparkle! 

Using My Brain

During one of my courses last year (Authentic Assessment) a professor told us that one part of being a great teacher is being a smart teacher.  She explained that being smart teacher is when you're aware of what is going on outside of the classroom in the real world. Not to get too political or anything, but we all know that others are making a lot of decisions for us that we have no control over. Anywho...

She introduced us to the book, "Smart Answers to Tough Questions". After reading a few chapters, I was hooked. It's an excellent go-to text for those questions you can't exactly "wing".

Buy the book on Amazon here. 

So, this post was prompted by the new law that has been brought to the great state of Missouri. I'm sure there are several opinions surrounding this "Facebook Law". Basically, because of this new law teachers are not allowed to contact students using any type of social network that is not school/district affiliated. I read the article on Huffington Post earlier and you should too!

Here's a blurb to draw you in...

Missouri 'Facebook Law' Limits Teacher-Student Interactions Online, Draws Criticism And Praise

If you're a parent, you've probably experienced a certain degree of fear at some point or another about your kids using the Internet. Maybe you peer over their shoulders while they check their Facebook pages, or try to catch glimpses of IM conversations they have with their friends. But do you worry about how they communicate online with their teachers? A new Missouri state law makes the case that you should.

The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, signed into law on July 14, is 35 pages long, but it is two sentences that are causing quite a stir and earning it the nickname the "Facebook Law."

No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a work-related internet site unless such site is available to school administrators and the child's legal custodian, physical custodian, or legal guardian.

No teacher shall establish, maintain, or use a nonwork-related internet site which allows exclusive access with a current or former student.

Continue reading here.

I'm sure there are many varying opinions on this and I would love to hear them!

To end, here's a video of Matt Damon sticking up for teachers. Thanks Matt! We appreciate it.

Oh! The Places We Will Go

The Teacher Wife Blog

True story: I was browsing the isles of Wal-Mart one afternoon when I saw a student reaching for milk on the top shelf. Not only was he reaching for milk, he was grunting and shouting, "ohhh C'MON!" I calmly walked up to him and asked, "Can I help you?" He looked at me and said, "HEEYYY! You're Ms. Furnell." I confirmed his statement and grabbed the milk. One of the perks of being taller. He said thank you and went on his merry way.

The next day, he showed up in my classroom with an apple and a big smile. He handed me the apple and said, "This is for helping me yesterday." 

It was a delicious apple!

After day two in my classroom, I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. After help from two incredible people... we had turned my mess into a bigger one, but we also got a lot completed. 

There's something I love about decorating my door. I'm not sure why I enjoy it so much, I just do. Maybe it's that "first year teacher itch" I've got... or maybe I'm slightly crazy. Strangely, I found the task of door decorating relaxing and a great way to get my mind off of things.

Today, we completed my door for the beginning of the year. 

But first, let's go through my history of 2nd grade doors. Drumroll pleeease...

Because of my affinity for Dr. Seuss, he was a constant theme for the year.

Then, Red Ribbon Week rolled around... so of course, I had to participate in the door decorating contest. 

As winter approached, I wanted to spice things up and bring the weather in a classroom a bit. So next we had...

Then, we LITERALLY had a blizzard. I'm not kidding. I'm sorry midwest folk. I never knew this door would be an omen for something horrible to come. Don't believe me? Remember being snowed in for 10 days?

Obviously, I had to get rid of this door A.S.A.P. I figured if my door had magical powers and could predict the weather... I should bring spring into the building.

Did it work? Of course not. I'm pretty sure it snowed at least 10 times more after this. Oh well! Can't say I didn't try.

Fast forward to the future. As in, right now! 

I just love Dr. Seuss and his whimsical way about life and those involved. I wanted to bring the doctor into my classroom this year as well. In 5th grade, the students travel to different rooms for math and social studies.  Big changes for the little-big ones! So then, the light bulb clicked on... 

Oh! The places we'll go this year... :)

After a great amount of help from Sharon and Susan, my door was completed. Both of them also fell in love with my Cricut and were pros at using it by 3:00.

It was a great day of productivity! I can't wait for day three.

Oh! HAPPY HAPPY DAY!

Cue Lauren Hill singing on Sister Act because that's how I feel today! Just when I thought my brain was going to explode all over my classroom my floor, my dad came to the rescue.  Not only did he bring a truck load of stuff from Sedalia to the Lake, he also brought my Grandma and took us out to dinner! To top off a wonderful visit, he gave me my graduation present.. a KitchenAid Mixer!

No shame after leaving Le Gourmet Chef

Prior to our visit to the oh-so-wonderful outlet mall, we were all in my classroom. After the three of us (grandma, dad, and myself) were chatting with my principal for a few minutes. My principal told me that I had been there for entirely too long on day one and told me I should leave ASAP. He also told me I wasn't aloud to come in at 6:00 AM. I'm a morning person! I can't help it. Perhaps I'm a morning person with a dash of crazy too...

Anyway! My dad chimed in, "Yes! We are going to get something to eat. Plus, Jordon keeps talking about some mixer... she even sends me pictures of them all the time." (Busted)

My eyes lit up!

Needless to say, I'm a lucky girl with a great daddy-o who takes good care of me.

Ahhh, the simple things.

For tonight, I shall just admire the beauty in my kitchen.

Auf Wiedersehen!