E..S...WHY-OH-WHY :-/

Before I jump into it..........

Is anyone watching the 

Harry Potter marathon on ABC Family? 

I am the BIGGEST Harry Potter geek. EVER

Man, I have been glued to the telly (lol, yeah I said telly) on and off since friday afternoon watching ALL of the HP films. 

It is 8:30 EST and they are now on the last film.

What's sad hilarious is I own all of the movies and books already.

*shakes head*

Anyway, while I have been watching....

I was creating ESY progress reports (movie screams).

What's ESY?

Extended School Year (ESY), for those who do not know, is summer school for students with special needs. The program focuses on IEP goals that the team feels are crucial skills the students need to work on year round.

Or so they say....

My rant is for "click happy" teachers/ case managers.

ESY is FIVE WEEKS.

FIVE WEEKS!!!!

So why leave me a IEP with 9 goals- with multiple objectives per goal ...AND MAKE THEM ALL FRICKIN ESY REQUIRED!!!

So basically you are making me retype the IEP and stress on the heck I would try to cover all those goals with the stack of worksheets you printed off super teacher worksheets dot com.

Even further, how come all the students on your load in my class have the same critical goals? And working with them for 2 weeks only so far I see otherwise.

C'mon, you gotta do better people.

Some people get lazy and forget an IEP is a legal document.

Oh, and I am working on the assumption that everyone 

knows what an IEP is that has gotten this far. 

So, what have I been doing for the last 3 hours?

Inputting 7 student goals into word to "proactively" 

prep for progress reports. 

I am not one of those teachers that likes to 

perform under pressure, so I am glad I decided

to sprinkle a little Potter over top of this

busy work.

Now that I am all done I can get back to the magic.

Now if only there was a spell to finish my 

laundry and cook my dinner.

My Very First Five 4 Friday: the Last day of January :-)

I am so excited to be participating in my FIRST "Five for Friday"! Yaaayyyyyy! I am new to the bloggosphere, and running across this link party has given me an opportunity to take a sneak peek into the lives of wonderful teacher bloggers worldwide! I appreciate all the cool and innovative activities you all are doing in your classrooms. I know your kiddos adore you! Okay, let's begin......

Fun With Division: Division is a tuffy with my 3rd grade  kiddos. I teach in what's called a Comprehensive Special Education setting (CSEP), working with students who are performing at a K-2 level(and lower). I am proud to say, we are pretty confident with addition and subtraction these days, and okay with multiplication 1-5.... but division?? Eh. BUT, they love to learn and they work well in groups that are hands on, that allow them to get up out of there seats....AND ACTIVITIES THAT LET THEM USE MY FLIPCHART MARKERS!! SO today we did just that! 

Students were placed in groups of 3 or 4 and did a gallery walk style activity. My learners struggle with reading the most, so grouping was mixed readers and low/nonreaders. Students took turns reading the math problems on chart paper......look at those tracking fingers go! They then discussed what steps they needed to do BEFORE they got a marker from me. Next they took turns showing work and completing the CLOZE sentences at the bottom. It is awesome to watch how well they work together, and the support they give to friends who struggle with reading and/or transcribing. If you look closely, one of my kiddos is famous for his backward "6"....I always know what steps in our activities he completes( May I add,I adore his work ethic!) We fixed the "6" during our class wrap up session....

Archimedes and the Power of Math: My 3rd grade and 4th grade group, along with the other 3rd grade classes at my school went on our 1st field trip of the Spring 2014 semester...and I planned it-yikes! We went to a local theatre and viewed a play on Archimedes. I must say....it was completely awesome. The play included one actor and a few gadgets-THAT'S IT. And surprisingly, he kept a room of 100+ (there were other schools) 3rd-5th graders engaged for 1.5 hours! I learned so much from him, as he dazzled us with math puzzles, math magic and interesting facts about Archimedes contributions to math. Like for instance, who new Archimedes held off an entire army for 3 years using math? And he basically made the word "EUREKA!" famous.

As a wrap up, each student in my class and some of the other classes are creating Mathematician biography file folders...created by me! I will post finished projects when they are turned in next week.

Introducing...........Petal Frames: I am definitely jumping into the teacher blogging/creating realm feet first. With snow days giving me so much free time, I have started creating for my TpT store. Yesterday I finished a set of frames-woohoo! My Petal Frames product is available now! The product includes 9 color frames, 1 black & white frame, and 2 matching digital papers. Please check out my store for this item and upcoming products. Matter fact, I have some Valentines Day products in the works that I will have done (hopefully) by Made-It -Monday!

Facebook Newbie & a cool linky:  I am also on Facebook! Do you remember what it was like to be a new bloggerbook teacher? Well, that is me right now.  I "mustache" you to pop on over and like my page, If You Mustache,I Heart Teaching 

I also started a Special Education Teacher #linkup. Check out my Teaching Spedtacular tab to find out more and link your blog.

Soft Kitty Returns: Any Big Bang Theory fans out there? Well....for a while, the song Sheldon loves, "Soft Kitty", was stuck in my head...more like EMBEDDED. Well *sigh* It's Back. I find myself even humming as I type now. I guess I do not mind though - that show is hilarious. Random facts, gaming, and the fact that I am so convinced that Sheldon is on the spectrum (I am randomly fascinated with learning EVERYTHING Autism Spectrum Disorder, btw) makes it my perfect kick back and relax show. Are you singing Soft Kitty now?

Yay! That is FIVE. *does Looking Good classroom cheer* I hope you enjoyed my contribution. I am going to try and make it one of my weekly linky's! 

Okay, your turn. Head on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching to "get up on" this linky party.I cannot wait to read the five-cap on what you guys did, created or learned this week. Please comment and let me know your thoughts on my week. Link your blog so I can visit you. 

But until then.....