I've Been Tagged!

Although I have never heard about blog tagging, I figured I would participate. Here it goes...

THE RULES

Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.
Post THE RULES on your blog.
Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.
Tag 7 people and link them.
Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.

My 7 Weird or Random Facts:

1. I require absolutely enormous amounts of sleep. I have to have at least 8 hours of sleep each night and I can take a nap at any time during the day without any problem.

2. I have always wanted to be in a famous singing group. I don't like to sing solo but I absolutely love singing with other people. I used to sing on the praise team at church in Jackson. If you are a BG or Cookeville friend, you might not have known that.

3. I admit it, I am a big Nascar fan. After many years of making fun of Bryan for being one, I have finally converted into one as well. I am even participating in Fantasy Nascar this year. (So far I am ahead of Bryan in points.)

4. I am a Post-it Note Queen. I use post-it notes for everything.

5. I have a phobia of writing in books. I guess that is why I use post-it notes so often. :)

6. I have an obsession with buying children's books. I am always looking for the best deals. I have over 800 books in my classroom library.

7. My favorite desert in the whole wide world is Mariah's bread pudding. I don't know how I lived without it for so long. Yum! Yum!

Since everyone that I know that blogs has either been tagged or tagged me, my blog tagging adventure is stopping here. I hope you enjoy the weird and random facts about me.

Teacher of the Year!!!

I cannot believe I have won Teacher of the Year for my school this year! I think that being voted Teacher of the Year is one of the greatest honors and achievements a teacher could possibly be awarded. I feel as if I do not deserve this award, because it is not very often a 4th year teacher wins Teacher of the Year. I also feel there are so many other deserving teachers at my school. This year, to me, has felt like a balancing act between teaching and graduate school. I dedicate the majority of my time to both jobs but I always feel I need to work harder at both. I am thrilled to have the privelege of saying I am Teacher of the Year and I am already looking for ways that I can be even better. Teaching is a growing process and I believe you only get better with time and more education. Being Teacher of the Year has always been a goal that I have had since I became a teacher. I told Bryan earlier today that since I have become the Teacher of the Year, I can now retire at any time and feel I have accomplished my #1 goal as a teacher. :)

Yay! Snow Day!

We finally had a real snow day! I received a call at about 5:15 this morning from our school district's one-call system and was pleased to find out that we were out of school. I love my job but snow days are wonderful. I was especially happy to be out today because there was actually snow. While I did not manage to capture a picture of the blanket of snow before most of it melted off of the grass, it was so delightful. I would take glances out the window every time I got up from being lazy on the couch. I have definitely not gotten much done today. For one reason, I think I have acquired an ear infection in my left ear and so I have had a splitting headache all day, and second I just felt like being lazy. The dogs have really enjoyed lounging around with me during my laziness. They did not like the foreign substance on the ground when they had to go do their business though. Sophie would run as fast as she could across the deck, into the yard, do her business, and back into the house. It was hilarious! Bella on the other hand did not want to take one step out the doggie door. I literally had to shove her through it and then she tried to find the spots that had the least amount of snow to walk on. I am sure the girls are thankful that we don't have snow too often but I am very thankful for snow days. Yay, Snow!

Marvelous Week

It has been a marvelous week! I have been extremely busy but teaching has been awesome. I even got nominated for Teacher of the Year which is a great honor. I will not know if I have been chosen until Monday but I will keep you posted. I also had my surprise observation by our principal this week and I could not have asked for a better evaluation. I love my job!!! School has been great too. I am loving my Research in Literacy class and cannot wait to get started on my research project. Taking two classes instead of three is so much easier. I feel like I can still do a good job at my job and my classwork as a student. Since I don't talk much about specifics at school I thought I would share a few photos from this week. My kids are amazing and I hope you can tell how proud I am of them.

We have been studying light and the terms transparent, transluscent, and opaque. Using the Indonesians as an inspiration, we put on shadow puppet shows to demonstrate how our hands are opaque.

I use reading in my classroom daily. Here students are partner reading about the colonization of Rhode Island.

Thursday was the Chinese New Year. We made our own compasses and we learned about some of the Chinese traditions. We made "Fu" signs, which symbolize luck, to place outside our door.

During Math my students went on a virtual shopping spree at toysrus.com. We practiced adding numbers with calculators and then practiced writing checks for the amount each student spent.

This Friday we had the classroom store where students were able to purchase items using their Tillery Bucks. They earn Tillery Bucks for classroom jobs and following our Classroom Constitution.

We love to blog, so we decided we would let our friends and family know that "Blogging is Neat!"

Tree Tragedy

Tuesday night while I was in class, a very powerful wind storm swept through Bowling Green. Apparently 70 mph winds swept through the city resulting in a lot of damage all over county. I actually did not know anything about the storm until I got a call from Bryan warning me not to come home until I called him. I keep my phone on silence during all my classes and to be honest I usually forget to turn it back to the regular ringtone, but for some reason I checked my phone as soon as I left Tate Page Hall. I knew as soon as I heard Bryan's voice on my voicemail there was something wrong. Bryan usually doesn't leave voicemails in the first place. He just hangs up and I see that I have missed a call. Well, I called him immediately and found out that two of our trees were not in the same location as they were that morning. One of the trees in the front yard fell onto our power lines and blocked the drive way. Half of a very big tree in the backyard fell on our detached garage. We were without power until Thursday evening and needless to say it was two very cold nights in our house. Luckily we have a gas hot water heater and a gas fireplace so we moved the mattress into the living room and slept by the fireplace. The insurance company still has not been out to assess the damage so we can't do much about cleaning up the tree on the garage but Bryan is going to be cutting the tree in the front apart tomorrow. We currently cannot open the garage but we think that the tree did not fall far enough into the garage to damage Bryan's motorcycle. Any other night Bryan's Explorer would have been in the garage too but he went to see Cloverfield with our friend, Nathan. We are very thankful for that! Overall it's not too bad and these things are what insurance is for. We are very thankful we were not home and we are even more thankful the trees didn't fall into our house. God was definitely taking care of us during our tree tragedy! Here are a few pictures:

(From the front porch)