Fretful Friday. My Five for Friday is full of worry and fret this week.

This week has been a roller coaster ride of emotion. I left my Kinders for two days to attend Grandma Katherine's funeral. I don't care how good my sub is, my class is a mess when I get back. And I should know to prepare emotionally. I am way too much of a control freak to put my personal books in the classroom library, but the sub let them "read" my books. They are bent, ripped and torn. Some brand new that I haven't read myself yet. I am crushed. Nice Ms. Horn went home early and cranky Ms. Horn was there all afternoon. Not to mention, I actually teared up. Yikes. So the excitement of being back with my beloved class was overshadowed by happenings in my absence, that in all honesty, were not (entirely) the students fault. I am so discouraged tonight I am avoiding my Five for Friday, which I usually cannot wait to address. Mmmmph. I am completely discouraged. And I'm wallowing in my misery. So I am going to do a Five for things I am fretting/sad/concerned about. Maybe some of my friends will say a prayer.

Fret Number one. The alien has landed.

Punky getting a breathing treatment

comfort food: mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy

rainbow sherbet

We went to the Doctor on Tuesday and they didn't hear anything suspicious in her lungs, no prescription. By today the cough is horrible. We used the rescue inhaler twice today and came home to a breathing treatment.  Before we got home I said "What do you want for supper since it's Mom and Punky night?" And she said, "I don't know, something soft? Maybe applesauce?" Heartbreak. I said... "How about mashed potatoes? Those are soft." Therefore we had mashed potatoes for supper. And rainbow sherbet for dessert. Tonight I put the Punkin to bed with a strong cough suppressant.

Fret number two. Little Miss Punky. They didn't find anything wrong with her lungs, but I remembered to mention all her pain in her knees. My little girl might have rheumatoid arthritis. They X-Rayed her knees and prescribed Naproxin. So my baby might have rheumatoid arthritis. 

Fret number three. Not a fret. Just a little sadness. I can't be really, really sad about Grandma Katherine, because she lived such a beautiful, full life and survived to be 100.  I am just a little bit sad. More sad to have the fact of our immortality driven home, that our bodies grow frail even when I our minds stay strong. Somber to wonder what the end of my own life will look like and if I will have made a tribute to society, to my children, to the world? I don't have a photo. Due to late meetings and Dr. appointments, and inclement weather, we missed the viewing/visitation, but I was told that she didn't look like the vibrant woman we know and love, so I am not even terrible sad that we don't have that photo. 

Fret number four. The ominous responsibility that lays on my shoulders to teach these children, to teach them to read, to prepare them for first grade, making sure they know their numbers and how to add and subtract fluently within five. 

Fret number five. All of the above. Not really. But the fret or worry that I won't be able to let my fears go and give them to God and be the best person I can be today. Because fear is crippling. And I don't want to be grumpy Ms. Horn, I want to go to school each day excited and full of anticipation for the great and wonderful adventure that is Kindergarten. 

Some weeks we have Fantastic Friday. Some weeks we have Flexible Friday. Some weeks it is Fabulous. Today was just Freaky Friday. Okay, I was just hanging on waiting to reach my destination. Now it's the weekend and almost Saturday (and now it is officially Saturday) and I have SO MUCH TO DO. I guess I'll just tackle one piece at a time. I finished my Five for Friday and I am determined to have a more positive post next week. Good thoughts and prayers will not be discouraged. 

Hop over to Doodle Bugs for more random Fives. Most of them will be much more upbeat than mine tonight. Because who wants to read about all this worry and fret? I promise, I'll find something more positive to post next Friday. 

My gratitude thing tonight is that next Friday is our Last Friday. Strange right? I mean, I thought it was strange when I heard of this thing that my district does. As of April 26 we will not have school on Fridays for the rest of the year. It might be a mixed blessing, I have so much to do, it might not be a "real" day off, but a day to work full-stream ahead without my students being there. I am grateful for the Fridays off that are coming up soon. Thanks for reading and caring. I am posting a gratitude list this week sometime. Either a stand alone or a Five for Friday gratitude list for the next week, but I will do it! 

Random Moments

The life of a blogger.... I now take pictures of EVERYTHING. I take pictures of what I made for dinner, a plant, my pets, my kids (I took those already), new activities for school... everything. Who else has changed the number of pictures they take, or what they take pictures of? Most of my pictures this week are random and not-so-school-related, so watch for them in my Five for Friday, or some other upcoming random post.

Today I trusted my Kinders to a sub and we made the trek to Kansas to say goodbye to Grandma Katherine. Who else hates to let go of control long enough to let someone else teach their class? I hate it. But it seemed important to me to go back and pay tribute to a woman who was the matriarch of several families throughout the years and lived to be 100 years old. She was an amazing woman and it was good to be with family and celebrate her life.

I made a letter s-word write the room paper to add to centers this week. I also spiffied up the centers. I put "cool" pencils in the write the room center and put the pencil top erasers on them and finger grips.  In the writing center I added new markers, new crayons, and stickers, new stationary and different colored writing papers, as week as new envelopes and some papers for making lists, and lined paper for writing. I even brought up a table just for the writing center. Due to how small our room is, we've been getting the supplies out of the center and going to a table (desk area) to do writing centers. I wanted all that organization to stay in one place though. After commenting about photos... I didn't take a picture of this! Ugh. Maybe I'll add it later. We are still in Kansas, heading home tomorrow, after meeting up with the cousins in the morning for a cup of coffee. I took a picture of the "write the room" paper I made, which was tedious and time consuming considering I thought it would easy and quick. These were part of the reason I spent the afternoon at school on Sunday and my very own dear children walked up to the school in the afternoon because I told them we'd go find the vendor that was selling funnel cakes. I mean, who doesn't like a funnel cake? The truth be told, I don't like them as much as I thought I did. After about 5 bites, I was overwhelmed with their sugary sweetness and I forced myself to eat about half of it. Maybe I'll split one with one of my other kiddos next time. Look.... don't you just want one now?

funnel cake anyone?

Here we are doing a wiggle song. Why do I love this picture? Because you can see by the blurry bodies that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing: moving! We are wiggling to one of our favorite songs by Harry Kindergarten: If You're A Kid. They love the "and stop!" They dramatically put themselves in different positions right before the "and stop" so they can be stopped in cool poses (like in the photo).

The ice here in central/south-central Kansas is beautiful and I didn't take pictures of that either. The heavier ice is really, really pretty but it is wreaking havoc and devastation. The trees with the ornamental blossoms are suffering. The ice must really cling and get heavy because those are the branches I have seen lying on the ground the most. I hope that the budding trees will be protected inside the covering of ice, and won't die. 

Let's Get Aquainted... on a desert island?

Three things I would take with me if I were stranded on a desert island? Hmmm.... There is a certain piece of literature that is helpful to my daily living that I'd like to have. And I am not going to expound on this because it is not "Christian" for me to name a book other than the bible, so I'll leave it nameless.

Secondly, hmmm. There are about a million things I would like. My kids. My dog. My KITTY! My phone. My computer. Aaaaaaaa. What to choose. I would kind of like my Kindle. But if I were truly stranded then there would not be a way to charge it. So angry birds would not save me with it's mind-numbing obsessiveness. Shucks. So.... now what? I wouldn't want textbooks, or teachers, or even students. If I could choose one other human bean, I would choose... I still can't decide! Either Sara my right now BFF or Beanhead, my life-long BFF. They each know me way too well. The kind of friend that you keep forever because they know too much! Exactly the case here. So that is the closest I can get, one of my two best friends. I could live a long, happy life deserted with either of these besties.

Third, I would want.... don't laugh too hard, bottled water. I am such a water snob. I know water is best for me but I really don't like it. I don't like the taste of it. I sort of detest it. But water. I need it to live. And I would not drink whatever I found in a stream or pond or whatever or boiled the salt out of. So... I need bottled water. I sort of like good bottled water: Dasani, Evian, Deja Blue.

Recap: number one, I would want my "book;" number two, I would take one of my BFFs; and three, I would take bottled water (really?!).

Hop over and link up.

What? Friday? Already? or Finally? Five for Friday

Whoot! Five for Friday! I look forward to this all week! Some of the best parts of my week I already posted about here! So check it out.

1. The dry spell. I know every teacher feels it. I knew it would be devastating for me because I take everything SO PERSONAL. It's been quite a dry spell. I've been banging my head against the wall about behavior management/character development since Christmas break. After awhile, it kills the joy. We've been working on becoming bucket fillers. My kiddos know that one way to fill my bucket is to give me a hug. Somehow they have started doing this during bathroom breaks (...okay.... ????), but it never ceases to make me smile and last week on the Friday that came on Thursday we even did a group hug. It was silly.  It was good. I was sad when I filled out third nine weeks report cards because I thought I'd see more magic than I did. So I fall asleep wondering how I can be a better teacher and how am I going to ensure that my students succeed both academically and socially. It's draining and I see why good teachers quit. Well, in some areas I am still seeing red flags, some social situations still perplex me, but the magic is starting again and I couldn't be happier about it.When the magic happens, that is when I start to make centers out of love, prepare intervention activities and cheerfully give up a few more minutes of "non-teaching time" to prepare to be a better teacher with a cheerful heart. 

2. What a crazy week weather-wise that is! Wednesday there was snow falling most of the day. It was too warm for it to stick, but it was dark, damp, gloomy, and cold. Yesterday it reached 70 and today it was 81 degrees when we went to afternoon recess. CR- AY- ZEE! My adorable little monkeys had a blast on the playground today! I am posting a few pictures. As I was taking pictures of them today, one student says to me "Hey! We can post these pictures on our blog!" Yes ma'am, we can!

Saydi can do pull ups! Impressive! 

"Look at me Ms. Horn!" 

While we "enjoyed" the 80 degree weather it was blowing like we were in Kansas! Hey, that sounds like something a Kansan would say. Okay, you got me there. I am and always will be a Kansas girl. This made me think of our learning time today. I was tired, the kids were tired. They were sleepy-heads even. So AFTER we did umpteen wiggle songs, we had to do some stretches. Who else has their kids do crazy weird stretches or follow the directions, imagination movement sort of stuff? We had to reach up high and grab a little sunshine and sprinkle it on our neighbor. Then we grabbed ahold of a big gust of wind and "whooshed" it all the way to Kansas! I just thought of this when we were outside and I thought of how crazy it would look to the outside world. But the kids tolerate me at the least and most of them love my goofy antics. Finally, if it wakes them up without hyping them up like speed demons, my goal is accomplished. I thought for a minute today that the wind really might WHOOSH us into Kansas as it came whipping up from Texas! 

3. Today my students were in a second grade class for a little bit and discussed Penguins. We are into penguins in our room. It was probably almost a month ago that we read the book If I Could Go to Antarctica. My class LOVED this story and will write about Antarctica to this day if I get them the chance. Anyway... someone suggested to the second grade teacher (one of my Kinders of course) that penguins live in South America. She said they didn't and looked to me for support. I said we should research it because I thought that we had just found out that they can and do live in South America, but I wanted the facts to back it up. Look it up. My Kinders knew the score, they remembered accurately. Yeehaw! Which brings me to today's writing assignment.

4. Somehow, somewhere, I have misplaced a book for my lessons. Sometimes I borrow my teaching partner's book, and sometimes I make a copy of the story. I have the textbook, really, I just don't know where. Somehow my copy for today is missing print. It looked as if it was missing print at the top and bottom of the page. I found this out AS I WAS READING! Yikes! So.... I improvised. The end of the story is missing. So we made out our own. It is a story about a girl who can fly in her dreams. My students stories mostly ended with flying to some place special. Oh... I have to share this... sorry.... ADHD is in full swing here.... one of my students who does not speak English and is not native to the United States, is enamored with Idaho. I have no idea why or where he got his infatuation. But today his story ended with the girl flying to Idaho. It was precious. Some students' stories ended with the girl flying to Mexico, or the park, or the movies.... 

I love writing! I love seeing them grow and flourish. I love their imaginations. See? Magic. I'm telling you, the magic is back. I love that we could make up our own ending to the story. I told the students to think of it in their imagination and keep it there until handwriting so we could write about it. 

5. I felt so poor as I started my five. I felt like I really didn't have enough material to write about and what in the world could I blog about. Well, here I am at number 5 and I can't decide if I should write about a random something from my personal life (I have two of them, wait, three!), or something else from school because it was adorable. Okay... school! While were having a lovely time outside today a student comes up to me and tells me some "fact" that totally doesn't make sense and I am scratching my head about this one. And I get set to argue with her and she hits me with it... "April Fool's Ms. Horn!" Ugh! I've been April Fooled! It would be so much funnier if I could remember what silly anecdote she told me. But look at this sweet face? Who would think she'd April Fool's me? 

"April Fool's Ms. Horn!"

Read em and weep people! Okay, no weeping. Just hop on over to Doodle Bugs and read em. And maybe link up. Enjoy. I know I certainly do every week. My Saturday morning ritual is to read everyone's Five for Friday and drink coffee. Happy Friday everyone! I'm off to the movie with the Redhead!

A peak at our week

Okay.... this is not Kindergarten. This is my little rocker. Academy has "spirit week" this week to get ready for the test. My little Punky is ready to "rock the OCCT!"

Later she ditched the pants and really looked
like an 80's rocker, boots and all!  

I am still working on the Easter Egg word game or games. I finished the Easter Egg math game. It's not very sophisticated but I think it will work for us. The players roll the dice with the + or - sign and fill in the place for it between the eggs. The players then crack open an egg. They will put the numbers they find in the egg in the oval shapes. The students have to determine where to put the numbers. If they rolled subtraction (the minus sign), they will need to put the larger number first, so that is why they roll for the + or - sign first.

Working with students can be exhausting. Especially when you don't see them making the sort of progress you hope for. But there is no greater feeling of satisfaction than when the magic starts to happen. Today I was working with a group of students on blending words. I felt the magic.  There was also "joy in the journey" today. It felt like the joy of Kindergarten was back as we worked, laughed and had a great time learning. Ahhhh.... I love Kindergarten! 

I love this little person. I love all the little people in my class. But this guy has kept me hopping all year and in the last two weeks his miracle has started to happen. He has started to call me by my name, and he's starting to show affection to me and remorse over things he shouldn't have done. AND... (drum roll please) He is starting to blend his sounds into words! Whoot! 

Today struck me with the mushy stuff of just how much I love these guys. Ironically this thought struck me when I was "on patrol" in the boys bathroom.  Some of my guys have been wreaking havoc for our custodian and require monitoring. So I go in the boys bathroom and watch. Some days I think about how I know I will cry at the conclusion of my first year of teaching but some days I think that I am not so attached and I will say goodbye, wish students well, and drive happily back to my beloved cottage in Kansas. Today the reality crashed through my pretty little fairy tale. I realized how much I care for these kids and how personal their education is to me and how I desperately want/need them to succeed. They are my Kinders and I am heavily invested in them. I have a feeling I will cry like baby when I have to let thise little ones go for the last time. I only hope I can hold my tears until they walk off happily with their families excitedly anticipating the next year. I am so grateful for everything this year. I know there is SO much TO LEARN STILL. But I have learned so much this year. 

April Currently! A Linky Party

It's time for the April Currently! Wow. April already. Hop over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade and read up.

Listening: I don't have cable now, I just have Netflix. So sometimes my go-to TV shows are not my first choice in mind-numbing television. I watch Once Upon A Time with my daughter, but often I watch Desperate Housewives. 

Loving: I was gone last weekend for Spring Break and then left again on Thursday night. My dog spent the week at his "aunt Sara's" and the pet sitter came and took care of the cat. Both of them are asleep on the couch next to me right now. I have to tell you, I missed them both. They are my babies and they make me happy.

Thinking: about the week ahead. I want to introduce some centers using Easter eggs. And so some jelly bean math.

Wanting: to fast-forward to summer. I can't wait to move home and paint and clean and plant and organize. I have stopped lying to myself about my house. I have just admitted that I love my home and I've stopped fighting that. So I miss my home.

Needing: peace about my future. I don't have a job. Uncertainty is a horrible feeling. And I'd like to say that it's okay when districts don't call or interview me. But I take it extremely personally. I agonize and analyze and try to figure out why.

Advice: advice about blogging or creating or selling. My advice is about blogging: new bloggers: join Linky parties, follow other bloggers, and learn from them. That is what I feel like I've done this year. Joining Linky parties is essential for me to connect with other bloggers.  Following other bloggers has helped me so much. When I follow, I see what my blogging community post and I see their hard work and freebies and their TpT products. 

It is time to go to bed and get ready to start the week. I'm sure the cat will sleep by my face tonight. 

Let's Get Acquainted Linky.... Favorites Survey

I copied and pasted, so hopefully you won't have to! :) Here is this week's Let's Get Acquainted Linky from Flying Into First. 

Here is the theme for this week...............

Favorites Survey

Favorite Place to Shop

Favorite TV Show

Favorite Sweet Treat

Favorite Food

Favorite Restaurant

Be sure to include the linky graphic and link it back to me so others can join in on the fun!!!

Don't forget to visit the 2 people that linked up before you and leave them a comment/follow/or just read their post.  

Okay, those are the instructions. So hop over, read up, link up, enjoy. :) Here is my Favorite's survey. (*okay, that copy/paste idea didn't work out as slick as I thought it would. I still had some formatting issues).

Favorites Survey

Favorite Place to Shop

Is this one hard for anyone else? Okay, they are all hard for me. Favorite place to shop.... hmmm. For professional wear, probably Maurices. I like STAGE, but it's a lil pricey for this first year teacher. I like different places for different things, and I love what I call hippie stores, but my daughter would probably call them head shops, so I have to be careful because although I have some street knowledge, I am also painfully naive at times. We went to Third Planet last night and that was fun. I also like Oriental Trading Company.  I thought that The House of Sight and Sound (a Salina, KS staple for many, many years, an icon if you will) was a fun place, but everybody knew that place was a head shop. Shopping for shoes? Famous Footwear. Simply because I can usually find what I need there. The list goes on. I have a favorite place to shop for cosmetics, and a fave for meats, and a fave for.... you get it. Okay, I really do like Kohl's.  So maybe Maurices, maybe Kohl's. 

Favorite TV Show

I will say Grey's. It's a little worn out and tired and I need a new fave. I think that Parenthood is my new fave but it's over for the season and so I will say Grey's Anatomy.  I wait impatiently each week for the next one to post to Hulu. I watch a lot of Psych and Monk on Netflix as well.

McDreamy is still a looker

Favorite Sweet Treat

Cheesecake. Just about anything made with cream cheese is delicious. Whether is is alfredo or enchiladas or dessert. My daughter makes some of the best cheesecake ever and I usually request it for holidays.

this is from food.com. peanutbutter cup brownie bottom cheesecake. Just add a strong cup of coffee. 

Favorite Food

Mexican food. Enchiladas. I like fajitas also. Okay, I love most Mexican food. I make some pretty good salsa considering I don't actually have any Latina blood in me. I love guacamole too. And queso. And....

this is not enchiladas, but my mouth watered a little when I saw this photo

Favorite Restaurant

I am between favorites. Our favorite has been Pueblo Nuevo, a little restaurant that is along the stretch of road between where we live currently and our Kansas home. But the last few visits have been disappointing. I love Martinelli's in Salina, KS. They have good food, very good steaks. But the truth is that I probably love it because I go there with my friends. 

http://www.martinellisonline.com/