Monday Made It!

Well I am trying to blog daily on the week days so that my posts don't end up being week long ramblings.  To start I decided to link up with 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made It!  Here is the link to her site:

I made this last week while I was working on my white boards but I saved it just for this Monday Made It!

I saw this on Pinterest and took a wooden frame and spray painted it this pretty teal color and then printed the quote onto cardstock and now I have a great little reminder to keep on my desk of why I do what I do!

See you all tomorrow!

Mrs. Ocean

P.S.

I am working on some more cute classroom things for tomorrow!

Sometimes I just need to mind my own business!

Okay, I admit it, I am one of those teachers who loves to hang out in the front office and get all of the latest dirt on what is going on in our school and who is involved in the latest drama.  Last year the drama was GOOD-at first.  Then the situations started to affect the way our team functioned to the point of sabotage and alienation.  Sometimes I wonder if teachers ever truly leave the drama of school behind.  I was so ready for summer and to just step away from the drama.  However I found more!  I am a Libra, and I like balance and fairness.  I don't necessarily want to see people who work hard get special rewards as much as I want to see consequences for those who don't do what they are supposed to and then make life harder for everyone else.  If you are a teacher you know what I am talking about and I bet you have a person in your mind right now!  I am also one of those people who wants to solve other peoples' problems for them.  I have a good friend and co-worker who has unfairly been given the run around by some higher ups at our school and it has been really wearing me down.  You see, I LOVE my job and I LOVE my school.  I literally have my dream job: imagine Jimmy Buffett in the movie HOOT but in khakis and a cardigan!  So it hurts me when anything negative is associated with my school or my co-workers.  On top of that we cannot get a straight answer on what our schedule will even look like next year, people are quiting and people are coming back, we need more teachers and the county says no, so needless to say my need to solve the problems of my little world have been going into overdrive lately and it is affecting me at home.  Whomever said teachers get the whole summer off must never have actually known a teacher!  I cannot go on like this because the reality is I CANNOT FIX EVERTHING and honestly none of it really affects what I will be doing in my classroom with my students next year so I need to fucus on what I can fix, insert serentiy prayer here!  I was reading a post by Middle School Minions, she is great by the way, that really hit me.  It was this quote from Thesselonians 4:11

So that has been my focus this week.  To mind my own business and work with my hands, and boy have I!  I attended Kagan training and really like all the thinks you could do with the students have individual white boards.  I could not afford to buy theirs so I decided to design my own, with a little ocean theme!  Check them out.

The blue side is blank and the green side has a light grid pattern on it so that the kids can use them to do graphs or anything that needs corners or straight lines.  I printed each one on its own piece of cardstock and then put the two pieces together to laminate them.  Having two pieces of card stock made them have more stability.  You could also put them into a plastic sheet protector if you wanted to.  They are available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store, enjoy!  I have also been working on my team tubs, again Kagan inspired but they will also serve as the location for all of the interactive notebook supplies as well.  They are coming along but I still need a few items.

I wil keep you updated as I get more things in them.  I am also designing an ocean themed planner to use next year that I will be making available for Teacher Pay Teachers.  I hope to be finished with that next week.  However I am going to be living a quiet life this weekend on the beach with Mr. Ocean and Little Ocean.  Have a great weekend!

-Mrs. Ocean

Kagan Day 1 and a BAG!

When I first started teaching I went to a two day Kagan training on Cooperative Learning and I loved it!  As a new teacher I felt so impowered with these amazing tools and then I remember the car ride home at the end...I cried.  I was so overwhelmed.  I knew the the Kagan structures would nwork in my classroom but my head was already so overfilled with the things I learned in school and now I just felt like I had more piled on top of my plate.  Fast forward to my training today, which was mostly a light overview of the cooperative learning structures, and I realized that as my teaching style has evolved I have incorporated a lot of those structures into my classes.  This realization was followed by a little internal "Whoot Whoot" and happy dance. Yay me!  If anything this review day has served to remind me how to best use the structures.  I cannot wait until we get into more science specific activities tomorrow.  You know it must be good for so many teachers to give up a weekend over summer vacation.

Okay so now onto fun stuff.  If you haven't noticed I have become a little obsessed with chevrons and as I was scoping out other blogs I saw this bag from thirtyone gifts that I am now in love with.  In addition to that I can get this cute file box to go inside of it to take home my papers to grade.  I really don't need another bag considereing I have a massive slight obsession with Vera Bradley and Coach, and lately my eyes have been wandering towards Michael Kors... So I guess what I want to know is, should this impulsive blogger get the bag and file box and be adorablym matchy every day at school, or not?

A butterfly flapped it's wings...

Well my day started off with a total butterfly effect moment, literally.  Little Ocean and I were walking out the door (which we always lock from the inside) when a butterfly flew into our kitchen and our cat immediately started chasing it.  I had to put down all of things (including my keys) and climb onto the kitchen counter and beat my cat to the butterfly.  I caught the butterfly and released it outside on Little Ocean's command and then she did the most responsible and horrible thing at that moment, she shut the door and locked us out of the house.  After 10 minutes of me trying to break into my own house and call the multiple people who have copies of my house key and Little Ocean getting attacked by mosquitos we got back in.  Benadryl, Claritin, and a lot of hydrocortisone cream later and we were finally out the door laughing about our crazy adventure.  After that I definitely earned my trip to Hobby Lobby with my mom and then Chick-Fil-A.

While Little Ocean was napping I was able to get some more design work done and just uploaded some really cute binder covers to my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  They are editable and nautical and chevron cuteness!  Here are some pictures of the ones that I personalized for myself.

The yellow one is a mini binder that I made to use as a journal/list book.  I still need to tweak it a bit before I put it up for sale though, so maybe next week...

Thanks For Reading!

Mrs. Ocean

Happily a glutton for punishment!

I am in a unique position as a teacher.  I am currently teaching a course that no other teacher in my county is teaching.  In my county, we have county created curriculum maps complete with units, concepts, and essential questions that we must directly link our lesson plans to as well as post in our classrooms.  There has never been a whole lot of freedom in this area, which I get.  I teach in a very transient area so they want students to be able to attend any school in the county and be able to pick up fairly close to where they left off academically at their old schools.  Marine Science is a High School level science class.  However we are a marine schience and engineering academy so I teach Marine Science in Middle School over the course of three years, each one building on the other.  Last year I simply took the county curriculum map for the High School course and split it between two years.  This year I will be teaching a third year that I have to completely create myself.  But that isn't enough work for me, oh no!  I chose a new textbook that I love, it follows the 5E's and has so many resources, it is AWESOME!  But it has it's own format that does not really mesh with the High School curriculum...so what do I do?  I decide to rewrite all three years!!! Why I do these things to myself I do not know!

This week I have been able to design (cause they have to be cute) and write half of my curriculum maps.  I have also been stalking Teachers Pay Teachers downloading as much as I can about Interactive Scientific Notebooks (that is right I am not only teaching/writing 3 brand new courses of curriculum BUT I am also trying to implement a completely new teaching aid, luckily my book has a notebook correllation) and planners that I can download and use next year as I did not win the Erin Condren planner.  After looking at all the amazing things that other teachers have created I decided that "I can do that!"  SO I started a Teachers Pay Teachers store and uploaded my first item this morning.  Check out my lesson plan binder cover, it is FREE:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mrs-Ocean

I am working on some other items that I will put up in the next couple of days.

See Ya!
Mrs. Ocean

Erin Condren Teacher Planner

I just found out the Tori's Teacher Tips is giving away $50 towards Erin Condren products, which I am in love with.  I first sashes teacher planner on Pinterest and have been going back and fourth about whether I want to spend $59 on one or not. I really do but I just keep thinking how much I could get for my classroom with that money...  Well we will see how I do, wish me luck!  I have added Tori's button to my page so be sure to check her out!

Like a fish, I am HOOKED!

I am so glad I started this blog in the summer.  I have been working on the look of my blog all day.  I am pretty tech savy as far as what I use in my classroom and home but start talking about web design, and coding and I am completely lost.  But not anymore, well not completely anymore!  Just for some background I do not use any sort of photo editing programs and I make most of my classroom materials on Word.  I just discovered Publisher this last school year and couldn't even use that correctly...  Today I downloaded GIMP, which is really cool, made my own blog header thanks to an awesome tutorial from Mommy Moment, downloaded a free background for my blog from LeeLou Blogs and created my own button, thanks again to Mommy Moment.  There is no way that that I could possibly get this all done during the school year!

I also joined the Middle Grades Bloglovin Bloghop.  This is my first attempt at reaching out into the world of other bloggers and claiming to be one myself.

I even did some actual school work today...well sort of!  I downloaded some useful tools from Teachers Pay Teachers from The Clutter Free Classroom, The Science Penguin, and Tracee Orman.  So a big thank you to them for being way more creative and computer savy than I am, so far.  I also orderd a book on how to use interactive science notebooks in my classroom.  It should be here Tuesday!  After everything that I was able to learn today just from other teacher divas out there, I think there may be hope for me.  I have even added other people's buttons on my blog so that I can spread the love.

Now that I have a button, please grab it!

Bloglovin

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Classic Stall Tactics

So Little Ocean is napping which means that is really my only "me" time during the entire day and what I should be doing is reading my new textbook and figuring out what information needs to go in each year of my 3 year curriculum and what am I doing?  Watching Alien on TV and writing this post.

Random fact about me:  I love watching scary movies in the middle of the day alone!  The more inappropriate for Little Ocean the better.  It feels so indulgent!

So here is my to do list for next year:  

~Outline all three year of curriculum

~Read about implementing Interactive Science Notebooks.  Do I want to use them all three years or just 6th grade?

~Plan classroom set-up, rules, and procedures

~Plan how to teach procedures ( I have not been very effective in this area in the past)

~My supply list and student supply list

~Mrs. Ocean's Classroom Blog (hello!)

~Kagan training and incorporation

~What do I want to do the first days of school?  New psychology book?

~Create absent bin and everyday papers bin

~ Email: staff about jars and milk crates (beg for stuff), coral restoration foundation about collaboration and dive magazine with their article, and plant-a-fish for possible collaboration

~Match resources to units including Vernier manuals

~Research virtual field trips

~Edit power points from last year, or change to SMART Notebook for better outlines

~Create beginning of school power points or iMovie to introduce myself to the students, rules, and procedures

~ Do I want to use Edmodo this year or is that too much change in one year?

~What resources are available on the Wyland website?

~Explore the Teach Aquaculture site

So I guess I really don't have too much to do!  OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!