DAYS IN MY TEACHER LIFE | End of the School Year Prep & Holiday Weekend

[Music] hello and welcome to a new vlog if you are new here my name is kim i am a third year fifth grade teacher in west michigan and i can't say that for much longer because we are almost done with the school year we have a couple weeks left and then i will be a fourth year second grade teacher still in west michigan um but i don't know if next year i'll actually like do the little ham thing anymore i don't know let me know should i do the hand thing still is it getting weird i'm not really sure um oh look who came to join us there's jack he likes to hang out with me while i do my makeup because i get ready in his room so we call this the cat room but i also have like all my getting ready stuff in here and because he's a very naughty kitty he tends to like knock things over and stuff when we're gone or just like get into things and so he gets to live in here while we're gone so he has this whole room he has like a cat tree and all his stuff or whatever but yes in case you haven't heard me tell that whole spiel before this is the cat room so anyways i am having a good week so far it's actually thursday already i don't think i said that but it is thursday already and this morning i have a meeting with my principal so i have my final evaluation meeting over like everything i've done throughout the year basically just like a overall evaluation and i went into my professional development website thing last night because my best friend melissa called me and we were like talking about it and she was like hey is yours in there and i was like oh i don't know so anyways i looked it up last night and read over a little bit of what he said and it was all really positive so i think that it will be a really good meeting this morning and i really appreciate my principal he does a great job of giving me a lot of praise but also giving me some really good recommendations for what i can do better because i think there's just always like so much room to grow and so i love getting constructive criticism or just like feedback of ideas and resources to look at and stuff like that because i think it's important to be a lifelong learner and like always learn new things so anyways he does such a good job of giving me recommendations and he's even given me like a couple books to read and stuff like that i actually have one of them right over here so i'll show you he gave me this book and actually i bought my own on thrift books so that way i can put the post-it notes in so i have a book from him that i need to give back that has like post notes all in it and i need to transfer the post notes over to this one but it's just like a bunch of teaching tips and there's some fun little tips in there and he told me he's like i have a ton of copies of this book and i just like have everybody read it because it's just good advice for everyone and it's just ideas like boost engagement and stuff like that and i am kind of a teacher nerd i love love love reading teacher books and listening to like t-shirt audiobooks and all that stuff i wish that more of them were on either libby which i used to check books out from library audiobooks or audible i do pay for an audible membership as well and my last i think three audible books were all teaching pedagogy type books i just like love learning and i think it's so interesting and so i just right now no i just was it this morning or yesterday i think it was yesterday morning i finished rise risk fall i believe it was called and i really enjoyed that one so i'll insert a picture of that right here but i really really really liked that book and i had seen it on i think jacqueline woodson shelf at the michigan reading conference she was one of the speakers and she had it on her shelf i'm pretty sure i'm almost positive it was her that i saw and i told myself i made a mental note i'm like if jacqueline woodson's reading it then i also need to read it and so i did while i listened to the audiobook and it was so good i really liked that one and then the one that i listened to right before that was about differentiation and that was really good too so if you have any good recommendations especially of audiobooks that you've listened to recently i would love to know in a comment below but yes anyways i kind of got on a tangent but i am meeting with my principal this morning and then i also need to finish grading that end-of-year test that i told you about in my last vlog which i'm not super excited about i was grading them for a little while last night luckily a lot of the kids i was trying to grade it as they went so like they were taking it and i was like marking it as they were going which was kind of nice for the kids too because if i like looked over at their page and they had a wrong answer i was like hey i'm gonna let you check this page before i grade it and so they kind of got an idea like oh i need to go back and check my work um so it kind of worked out nicely but anyways yes i need to finish grading those i have maybe like a third of them graded right now so i still need to do the rest i'm planning on doing that during my planning today so hopefully i can finish all of those that would be really nice to just get out of the way because those are due tomorrow so anyways i will say too i had a couple kids who just did not finish it it was really really long and it was really really hard and unfortunately at this point like i gave them as much time as i could like i really tried to give them you know a lot of time but i said yesterday at this point like this has to be our last day because i have to grade it so i'm sorry so anyways i had to take some of them that weren't finished which stinks i literally hate when that happens i feel like that happens in older grades a lot more than i ever thought it would because some of the material is just so difficult and if the kids aren't ready for it and feeling confident about it and we have to test them on it anyways like i don't know it just stinks so anyways hello what are you doing um can you lay down please thank you so much so anyways oh wait i forgot mascara i grabbed the mascara i did not put on the mascara so anyways yes that is going on today and then after school today i'm going to hang out with my best friend melissa who is made for second grade here on youtube and instagram and all the places and i love melissa she's great she's always fun to hang out with and yeah we're gonna get together after school and i'll probably just pick her up at her school and then i like to be the designated driver i just i get horribly carsick so i'm always the one who drives like everyone everywhere um because i don't get carsick if i drive for whatever reason so yes but anyway so i like i'm always the driver in my friend group and even like with chris and i my husband like i always like to be the driver so yeah we're actually going on a trip we just booked it we are going to cape cod this summer i'm so excited we're going like at the end of june and beginning of july i think like that last week of june first week of july and i am so excited we're going with a couple of our friends and i probably will be doing the driving i think we decided we're going through pennsylvania last time we went we went through canada but it sounds like this year i don't think we're able to do that because of some of the travel restrictions and because we don't have passports we only have enhanced licenses michigan is right by canada in case you did not know and so we can drive through canada to get to a bunch of places and take some time off of the journey but yeah i think it'll be a little bit longer of a car ride i accidentally just got mascara up here oops um it'll be a little bit longer of a car ride than last time but i think we probably will stop like halfway last time i think we stopped in like new york somewhere and stayed the night actually yeah that was a weird experience so we went to cape cod for honeymoon sorry i'm like very chatty this morning i hope you don't mind but anyways we went to cape cod for our honeymoon and we didn't realize that when we were driving to our honeymoon it was canada day and we were driving through canada and we wanted to see niagara falls and it was intense so anyways that was really funny because we were like what is going on like why is it so busy and then come to find out it was canada day so that makes a lot of sense but anyways that was super fun i love to see niagara falls i'm kind of bummed that we won't get to see it again this time but that's okay so it'll be a super fun trip we're actually going with one of my best friends and i'm super excited so that'll be really fun and then she's bringing her husband as well who my husband has become friends with like through us so it'll be fun because we will kind of have like a friend going and i just spoke to the hotel the other day i think i said that already and i'm gonna start kind of like planning out the trip and what we're gonna do each day i think we'll probably go to nantucket and martha's vineyard and stuff on the ferry at least like one day and then there's like tons of stuff to do over there so i'm really excited i really would love to go to boston but i don't know if we will end up going to boston i'm not sure my husband is like not really a city person so it could go either way but yes so i'm super excited for that trip so that's coming up and that's just like something to look forward to and then i wanted to ask you guys what are you doing this summer are you gonna teach summer school are you gonna tutor do you have like another summer job are you gonna relax like what's going on this summer so i was asked to teach summer school and i did consider it my best friend melissa's teaching summer school and i was asked first to teach sixth grade like fifth going into sixth grade math and i said absolutely not that sounds horrible thank you so much for considering me but no and then um after that i was asked to teach first grade which sounds a lot more desirable i love first grade that's what i did my student teaching in but i also decided to say no because we just have like a couple trips planned this summer and also i just didn't really want to i just didn't really want to i wanted some more flexibility in my schedule and so i decided i still am going to be doing like youtube and stuff and then also i want to get a ton of stuff on teachers pay teachers this summer that's one of my goals i really want to get better about like i make stuff all the time i want to get better though about actually putting it on teachers be teachers it's just like a couple extra steps to get it on there and you know sometimes during the school year i'm just like so busy and like don't have the time or energy to get it onto there so anyways i want to take a bunch of stuff that i've already created and get that on teachers be teachers this summer and then also i want to create a bunch of new stuff because i'm finally moving to a grade that i really want to stay in and so i'm thinking i can create a bunch of lower elementary resources and then put them on my teachers pay teachers sell them but also like use them in my own classroom so i'm really excited for that so that's what i'm planning on doing this summer and i actually even splurged and i ordered a new computer so that i can have some more like storage space because my laptop does not have a ton of storage and it like fills up all the time and it's super annoying so that was my regret because i just got this laptop last year i think like during quarantine and i got like the cheapest option thinking like it's still expensive so i'll get the cheapest option but i definitely should have spent a little bit more money and got more storage but that's fine so anyways that was my regret and now i'm kind of paying for it because now i need to get a computer with more storage so i did order one and i don't think it comes over a while it was on back order so anyways it'll come i think sometime next month like at the end of the month or beginning of july even so yeah kind of a lot of time until it comes but that's okay so until then i'll just use my macbook but yes so anyways i feel like i've been talking for so long so hopefully you guys don't mind these chatty vlogs i've been watching a lot of vlogs lately and i realize that i prefer watching the vlogs where people are like just chatty and hanging out and so like i kind of got away from doing that because i always watch back my own footage and i'm like oh i'm so boring like nobody's gonna want to listen to this and so i end up like cutting out a lot of what i say or just like not talking as much and then i realized i like watching chatty vlogs so maybe my people will too like maybe you will enjoy a chatty vlog i don't know if that's true let me know in a comment below but yeah anyways i don't really have anything else to say right now so i'm gonna finish curling my hair and then i need to get dressed get some breakfast oh i forgot to put on lipstick too see when i'm chatty i forget things i love this lipstick this is from kaja i got it at sephora but i haven't seen it since i got it so i don't know if they still like i know they carry this brand but i don't know if they carry this product anymore but i love it it's like the perfect color which i know it's just gonna be covered with a mask but i don't really care the color is number three ride or die okay so anyways okay i'm going to finish curling my hair i will see you when i see you i don't know let me do that do you act as the only resources for this book visit heinz sorry sorry sorry all right so this is the book i was talking about that i just read or just listened to yesterday and super good i listened to it in like two days i think and i really really really liked it so highly recommend [Music] okay so i made it into my classroom it is 7 30 right now and i left these on my desk yesterday because my students were asking about these and i feel like i showed them in a vlog before so i wanted to follow up i got these from five below and i can't remember if i already told you in a video or not so i need to tell you that if you're thinking about getting these as fidgets for your classroom do not do it because are you ready for this they're super loud like imagine trying to teach her this i feel like maybe we did have this conversation before because i like just a little bit remember doing that so anyways i have three of these fidgets now though and i don't really want my students to use them while i'm teaching or really in my classroom at all because they're kind of annoying but one of my students yesterday was like mrs halls you should either let us take them home or you should put them in the prize bin and so i'm gonna stick them in my prize bin and i think i've said in previous videos as well this is the first year i've ever done a prize bin and it's fine i don't know if i'll do one in the future normally i like rewards that are not tangible so for example giving students like extra time to read or first choice of their reading spot around the room or getting to switch seats for the day or be line leader or whatever usually i like those ones better and i still do like those better but this year i just ended up with a bunch of like random tangible rewards and so i made a little prize bucket and there's like candy and all sorts of fun stuff and the kids really get excited about it and so i don't really mind having it it's not like something i feel like i need to have in my classroom so i don't know future years if i will have one or won't have one but for now i think i will probably stick these in the prize bucket so you don't need these if you're thinking about buying them probably don't because they're super annoying but they are really fun in theory the kids really like them but yeah just way too loud and then those little poppers too those can get kind of loud but i don't really mind those because usually i have quiet music playing anyways and so you can't really hear those like those little you know you know the ones little poppers i saw that somebody posted on instagram that they found more little poppers like miniature ones at target in the dollar spot so i actually went yesterday looking for them and they did not have any so i want to get some more and if i see those little ones at target i'll probably buy them but anyways i am going to go ahead and get my computer all logged in and get all set up for my morning because i do have that meeting with my principal in about half an hour so i'll also show you my outfit because i haven't really done that i feel like in a while so let me go ahead and bring you over to my mirror and i will show you my outfit because i'm wearing a really cute shirt today so let's go look okay so this is today's outfit super comfy i have on this shirt from east teacher that says we rise by lifting others and i thought this design was so cute and it's just like a little t-shirt and then i have a cardigan over it because it's like actually kind of cool out this morning which is so nice i love the summer but without air conditioning in the building these cooler days are so necessary so i think it's only supposed to get up to like the 60s today and i'm pumped because it's been so hot in my room and these pants i feel like i wear these all the time these i thrifted i love them i love these like comfy stretchy pants and i love that they're a little bit cropped and then i have on my favorite sandals not really my favorite necessarily but i've been wearing them like all the time they go with everything these sandals are from old navy and they're just like that waterproof rubber material and then cardigan is from nordstrom rack so that's the outfit for today and then of course i have all my rings on as per usual and my rings except for you know my wedding ring and engagement ring the rest are all from purovita so that's the outfit for today and now i'm gonna go ahead and go set up everything around the room so let's go this is my at school book right now this is called santiago's road home i showed this in a vlog fairly recently when i checked it out at the library but i'm about probably i don't know almost halfway through it and it's really really good so far i actually think i'm gonna bring it home this weekend and just finish reading it because i really want to know what happens and it's been so good so far so yes definitely recommend reading this one and then i was just thinking i'll walk you over here as well and show you the books i have on display over here so in my classroom library i like to display books at the top of this bookshelf and a lot of times i do picture books but i just was thinking the other day like why don't i put up some chapter books so these are the ones that i put on display these ones were recommended by some of my students and then also by me if you haven't read ghost boys that's a really really incredible book by jewel parker rhodes that talks about police brutality in a way that is digestible for students and so i highly recommend that one red white and whole that's one that just came out this year super good sal and gabby break the universe i actually have not read but one of my students really loved it and so a couple of my other students have read it as well and then the wild robot is a classic for me i love that one i did that as a read aloud my first year of teaching fourth grade and the kids loved it and i love it and i think my best friend melissa is doing that as a reload with her second graders as well and i think they like it too and then last one is scary stories for young foxes i have not read this one yet but a bunch of my students have and they really really liked this one so this one was also a newbery honor book which is pretty cool [Music] okay so i just got to my classroom and i wanted to show you yesterday when i was with my best friend melissa we went to a few different thrift stores and i got some more books i'm collecting all of the books right now like so many books and it was nice going with melissa because she teaches second grade so she could help me look out for different books and then she already has like so so many books so a lot of them she already had in her classroom library so she could be like hey you should get this one you should get this one so i got a bunch of books let me take them out really quick okay so i picked up a bunch of books they were all 50 cents each so here are all of those and i will flip you around right now and like go through them really quick so you can just see the covers but that way i can just like page through them really fast versus like saying the titles for every single one so let me like flip this around somehow [Music] okay so now i need to take a minute and make my spelling test that i have that ready for my students today i've been making them on google forms and then students have to choose from four options and i make all of the options very similar so that way they really have to think about how it's being spelled and they can use like a piece of paper or whiteboard or something to write them down if they want to so that way they can like do their own spelling and then check it but yeah it's been working really well this year it's been way less time consuming than like before when i would have to read every single word and every single sentence and then repeat it and all that stuff it's just a lot faster and it's nice because i can set it as a quiz in google forms and then it's really really fast to grade so that is easy and i like it also speaking of google i received an email last night at like nine something that i passed my google certification level one educator exam so i'm really excited about that i talked about that in my last vlog how i took that last week saturday i believe and i passed it so yay that's a good feeling because i really did not want to have to take it twice so i'm excited about that but anyways i need to do that spelling test so i probably will see you guys either at recess or after school so see you when i see you okay so now it is saturday morning and i'm sitting outside of the library i'm just about to go in and swap out some books i have some to return and then some to pick up that i have on hold i'm really excited because i put a ton of books on hold the other day so i don't know exactly which ones are ready but i know i have like quite a few to pick up so i'm excited so i'm gonna share with you what i get okay so just got back to my car super excited for this book bridge of souls it's the third book in the series it's the city of ghost series and it's really really good so love this one definitely recommend checking these out my students really liked city of ghosts as well i bought like five copies i think and a bunch of my kids have read it so i had to pick up that one this book i've read before it's the daily five but i just decided i wanted to read through it again because i don't actually own my own copy i think i've actually read this like twice at this point so this will be my third time reading it just kind of getting an idea for stations and centers and all that stuff so i got that one this one it's gonna be a little hard to see because it has like the mel cat sticker thing on it but anyways um if you live in michigan mel is an awesome resource by the way it's melcat.com or something like that you can just google melcat and basically it's the michigan library where you can like request from all different libraries around the state and then they will send it to your library so you can pick it up at your library but anyways so it's hard to see the cover on this one but also you're not really allowed to take the little thing off so i'll just read the side of it too how about it's a teacher's guide to getting started with beginning writers so i really want to focus in on writing this upcoming year and so i'm really excited to read this book it looks like a really good resource and it is by ray in cleveland it says so there's a little picture on the back and then i also picked up time for literacy centers again this was another melcat one so side looks like that you can't really see the front but that's okay this is what the back looks like and then last two are male books as well actually but only one of them has the big ol sticker thing so this one is called what every second grade teacher needs to know because i'm gonna be teaching second grade i'm so excited so it just goes through and gives like a bunch of ideas so i'm excited to read through that one this one looks like a really really quick read as well and then the last that i picked up is writing club number two a year of writing workshops so again just a good writing resource if you have any other resources for writing that you really have enjoyed whether it's like a video you've watched or a book you read or something like that i would love to know because i'm just like so excited to teach writing in lower grades and get some ideas for like what that looks like so also another thought if you are currently a second grade teacher and you are willing to share i would love to see some good examples of second grade writing so like what does high quality second grade writing look like please please please if you are willing to share it with me i would love to see it whether it's sending it to me in like an email or on instagram or whatever like i would seriously love to see and you can like block out the kids name or whatever but i would love to see the writing itself i just think that would be really really helpful so if you're willing to share i would love to see i will pop up my email on the screen right now so if you're willing to send it over please do okay so now i'm gonna repile my books over here and then i think i'm going to go to one of my favorite thrift stores which is right around the corner so i'm gonna go over there and then see what i can find sometimes they have some really good books so gotta move my seat up though first okay so now it is monday it's actually memorial day today and i am here in my classroom because yesterday we had a ton of fun we were outside all day we did a cookout we went swimming it was great and then we decided today to just kind of keep it low-key chris was gonna stay around the house and i decided to come here because why not i'm just doing like fun stuff in my classroom today though so i am going to switch out a bulletin board so my 40 book challenge wall has been taken down and put into little baggies and now i am going to put up some science vocabulary so i got these off of teachers pay teachers i will link them below and i don't want to just have like a blank bulletin board because it looks kind of sad so i wanted to put something up and i had already bought these but i hadn't printed them yet so now they're printed i'm going to laminate them and cut them out today and then put those up so i thought it'd be fun to share that with you and then also i wanted to share that i got a ton of books when i went thrifting and i can't remember if i've shown any of these to you already i feel like maybe i have because it's all just kind of a blur but yes some books i've been picking up these rainbow magic fairy books when i see them so these ones are kind of fun some junie b jones i already have a ton of junie b jones but i've been picking up some more and then i've also been picking up these hopscotch hill school books when i see them but i don't actually see these ones very often but i'm always excited when i do so a bunch of random books and then i'm sure that my students will help me label these this week and get them put off into where they need to go so they've just been so great so helpful and i appreciate them so much and then also you can probably kind of tell in the background i got a couple of little rolling carts because i saw them at goodwill for six dollars each and i could not resist there were actually like five of them i think there and i got two because i just could not justify buying more than two even for those two i'm not exactly sure what i'm gonna use them for but i thought possibly like center work to have it all like nice and organized for next year or i'm not really sure what else we'll see what happens but i love organization and i actually have really similar ones already and so i couldn't help myself so i'll do a little close-up on those in a moment but yes time to go laminate and cut and then we will put up that bulletin board together and then i think that probably will be all for this video because i've edited all the vlog up until this point and it's already like kind of longish but we'll just do like an extra long vlog today because why not so let's go cut this out and laminate here we go okay so i just turned on my laminator so that can heat up i have the scotch pro laminator i got it off amazon and i love it and then also i use these little laminating pads and these ones are the best inexpensive ones that i found so i will link these below this is a new pack but i always have like a few packs of these at a time and i get the packs that have 200 of them because it's just like most cost effective to do it that way and i use these all the time for just like things that i know i'm going to reuse so yes new pack right here and then i have an open pack already that i just took some out of so i'm going to work on laminating all of those things oh also i'm wearing this super cute sweatshirt from east nash teacher which i feel like i wore something oh i'm tripping i feel like i wore something from her earlier in this vlog too i'm pretty sure i did but it's super soft the color is adorable so i love it and it says ask me what i'm reading so i will tell you that last night i actually finished santiago's road home which i showed earlier in this vlog and it was so good i was like crying i was laughing i was happy i was sad and i love books like that where you're just like on a roller coaster with the narrator so incredible book realistic fiction of some really serious topics so definitely most appropriate for probably fifth grade and up and even fifth grade i'd say it would have to be like the right fifth grader because it was very sad and definitely could be traumatic for some students so some trigger warnings on there but i will link that book below you need to check it out it was so good and then i think next i'm going to start the third book in the greystone series i can't remember is that what it's called greystone i don't know but i'll like pop it up right here but it is the margaret peterson haddock series and i've read the first two now i want to read the third one i'm super excited for that i really really enjoyed the first two books and then also i have the third book in the city of ghosts series to read two and that one is victoria schwab so i'll pop that one up i feel like i might have shown that earlier in this vlog possibly but yeah i want to read that one as well so i'll probably read both of those like throughout the next couple weeks but yes that is what i'm reading so i know you didn't really ask but i'm gonna pretend that you did okay let's laminate here we go [Music] okay so it is time to do the bulletin board this bulletin board is like absolutely massive so i'm sure that this will not take up all the space but it's fine i just put together this little banner i have banners for reading and math already up over there in the room and then i have a goal banner and i'm going to make science and social city so i just made the science one and then i have the letters for social studies but i haven't like cut them out or anything and then i just use twine to make it like a cute little burlap banner it's not really burlap though because it's just printed on my computer so isn't that fun so i think i'm gonna put this around the top and then i cut out my little pieces of my vocabulary wall so that's what i'm planning on doing like i said i don't think it's gonna fill up the whole bulletin board but it's better than nothing so let's do this i never measure anything [Music] okay so this is what that word wall looks like and then you can tell i have like a ton of space still on either side so what i'm thinking i might do is take pictures of my kids working on their final project for science which is going to be like a biome box if you google it you can see like a ton of examples but i'm thinking maybe i'll take some pictures of them and like put it on either side over here and over here maybe i don't know otherwise they also have powerpoints that i could print out or like google slideshows that i could print out like slides from and maybe put over there on either side but yeah it looks a little bit sad as is like if i back way up you can tell i literally put it up in like a minute but it's fine it's like so teeny tiny so see how huge this bulletin board is also it's off center but like you know what you win some you lose some so it's better than nothing we'll take it so over here on the stage i have a ton of different materials for my students for their biome boxes so we start those tomorrow i'm really excited to see what they come up with and here are some of the things that i picked up almost everything was from the dollar store and some things were just like donated as well so there's lots of fun stuff i'm like just so excited to see their creativity and see what they come up with okay so i think that is all for this video because i'm sure it is very long at this point so if you made it all the way until the end thank you for sticking with me i hope that you liked this vlog i know it was a longer vlog than normal and a chattier vlog but yeah just you know kind of trying to play around with it so if you enjoyed this vlog please make sure to give it a thumbs up also leave me a comment below and let me know do you prefer the chattier vlogs or do you prefer when i have like quicker clips if that makes sense and i'm not just like rambling on forever i don't know i feel like i kind of go back and forth because like i said at the beginning of the vlog i like watching chatty vlogs but also i feel like it's weird like watching myself be chatty and sometimes i'm like oh my gosh i'm so boring what am i saying so anyways let me know in a comment below also please make sure to turn on the post notification spell so that you are notified every time i post a new video because my posting schedule has been a little wonky lately i've still been posting at least like once a week but sometimes i post like random days like today so make sure to turn that on so then you are notified you know when the new videos go up and we can hang out together so thank you so much for watching this vlog i will see you in the next one bye [Music] you

Channel: Elementary In The Mitten

Views: 10,647

Rating: 4.9744682 out of 5

Keywords: Elementary in the Mitten, teacher vlogger, teacher vlog, 4th grade teacher, new teacher, teacher weekly vlog

Id: jhaDzYL1P7I

Length: 32min 39sec (1959 seconds)

Published: Mon May 31 2021