She really said that?! Yep!

I have been seeing this Linky party every week and wishing I had one of those gut-busters to add. Now I do! I was working with students to produce rhyming words, assessing their ability for their report card.  I asked a student "What rhymes with fan?" She said (enthusiastically) "tastic!" Oh yeah. I couldn't help it, I laughed.  Busted a gut.  I said, "no, that is not a rhyme, but that was a good one!"

Hop over and laugh and link... right here.

"Let's Get Acquainted." A Linky.

I am joining a "Let's Get Acquainted" Linky.  This week's task: Use our initials to tell some things about ourselves. Tell something we like or like to do that starts with our initials. Oh my.  My initials: CLH. C.... I will go with coffee. I have become a coffee snob. I blame my allergies. "Regular" or "plain" coffee tastes... funny, sort of metallic and leaves a bit of a bad after taste. I like vanilla coffee. Made with purified water. Water out of the tap makes it oily and taste funny and I just can't finish it. So here I am, a coffee snob. The best? I think it is Folgers French Vanilla Biscotti. I also really like Millstone's french vanilla and 8 o'clock coffee's french vanilla. It's okay if you add a little bit of another flavor to the vanilla, like Millstone's Vanilla Nut Cream, but I don't really like the "plain ole" Hazelnut Cream kind.  I have always been partial to vanilla. Another "C" love (there are plenty by the way) is candles. You will never go wrong with a vanilla scented candle. Add all sorts of other flavors vanilla citrus, or Homemade sugar cookie (which is a souped up vanilla with cinnamon and nutmeg and maybe hazelnut) and whatever else, if it has even a hint of vanilla in it, I love it. At Christmas we go to stores and smell all the candles and I always say... "that one is good, but THIS ONE is better...." and it is inevitably a form of vanilla. If you wanna know another "C" love, it is coke. Not to be mistaken for Pepsi or Diet Coke, or any sort of different soda. Fountain drinks reign supreme and McDonald's serves a pretty tasty Coca-Cola and Sonic serves a sublime Coca-Cola.

L... is for.... laughter. Even though dysfunction runs amuck at our house, it is still filled with laughter. Hopefully not too often at someone's expense. We seem to have a pretty good time. And there are those moments when we just can't stop! I love juvenile humor. Maybe that is why I teach Kindergarten. Junie B. made me laugh yesterday. In fact, I haven't really stopped yet. Part of the reason is because it is tied to the joking around we did this past weekend. My friend Jim was here and we were all goofing around on the way home from Walmart and I just felt the need to sing the Oscar Mayer Wiener song. I can't remember now what started it. Wishing maybe. There may have been some "wishing" going on by a certain little Punky.  Last night right there smack in the middle of the last chapter of the Junie B. Jones book we were finishing up, there was this knock-knock joke.
"Knock-knock."
"Who's there"
"Irish"
"Irish who?"
"Irish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener."
I will get plenty of mileage out of this the week before St. Patty's day.

H... is for Hmmmm. Is there a way to figure out an H word that describes my love for food and eating? I haven't figured it out yet. Let me think about this one some more. Oh-oh-oh! Why didn't I think of this sooner! Hot Dogs! I love hot dogs. I love hot dogs on the grill, I love hot dogs on a stick or in a bun, I love hot dogs especially when they are disguised at Pronto Pups! Do NOT explain to me what is in them. I have a pretty good idea. I have gone to buying the "all beef" hot dogs and I comfort myself with this knowledge. So DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE enlighten me about WHAT parts of the beef go into the hot dog. Got it? Hot dogs are good cut up in macaroni and cheese. Or fried in butter in a sauce with egg noodles. That is an elaborate meal that we call "stuff" at our house. What could be better? Hungry now? I am thinking about how my daughter asked for hot dogs for supper today and I said, "how about tomorrow?" So it looks to me like tomorrow night will be hot dog night. I used to boil them. That's what my Mom did. But if you bake them in a pan, they hold in the flavor much more like they taste from some cheap hot dog stand at the races or a carnival or the convenience store. Yikes. It appears I've revealed deep, dark secrets about myself that might cause you to run the other way. (Did you get the reference? Hot Dogs? Oscar Mayer? hee hee).

Hop over and read and link up. Comment on the two before you.

Two great giveaways! Woo Hoo!

Two great give-aways going on! Smiles from Second Grade has a 100 follower give away that ends soon. Yikes! But I didn't blog hop that much this morning and I just saw it now on Ms. Richard's Musings. In fact that is where I saw both of these give aways! The other one is a 300 follower give away! Wow! Here is the link to sign up: Collaboration Cuties. I am wishing myself luck, but luck to all of you too! :)

I'm an OK Blogger!

Check this out! I can connect with other bloggers near to me by declaring the state I teach in/blog from! Yay! This is an awesome idea and resource. I can find other OK bloggers, as well as TX and KS! Woohoo! Since I'm in the panhandle, I am close to TX, KS, NM, CO. Yep! Of course, I teach to OK standards and plan to be a Kansas resident again this summer. I am an Oklahoma blogger! Hope over here: Fifth in the Middle, Blog by State.

Hooray for Friday and Linky Parties! It's Five for Friday time!

Five for Friday! Hooray! I love Five for Friday. And I am so grateful that I can post this week because my computer was at the doctor all week. Wow. I thought food was the love of my life, but it might be my computer. I survived, but barely. Ha ha. I'm sure that sounds funny, but it was rough! Yikes! My usual Saturday morning routine includes browsing the blogs I follow, so last weekend I had to go up to my classroom to browse. I have SO MUCH to do today to prepare for report cards and parent-teacher conferences, so my blog browsing will have to be short! Who else makes sure their room is sunnier and brighter and more inviting than usual for conference time? (As you know if you are reading this, it's not Friday anymore, I got my Five posted on Saturday...)

I'm so grateful that Doodlebugs hosts Five for Friday every week. Hop over, link up, read them, comment. Enjoy!

Here's my five:

1. Love from students. Today when students were packing up, one of my Spanish speaking students gave me a little paper triangle pouch, it looks a lot like a May Day basket. In the paper there were: 2 marbles, a Hershey's kiss, a tootsie pop, a little mechanical pencil and a calculator. I felt completely loved. :)

I have to confess... I was jealous of everything my blog buddies got for Valentine's Day. I didn't get much. Boo-hoo, poor me. But now, I feel fabulous, you all got nothin' on me! 

2. We are bucket fillers! I got the bulletin board up and I plan to make some heart and star die cuts this weekend. I think we will each think of one way we could fill someone's bucket and write it on our die cut and I will post them as well. During the last nine weeks I will put hearts or stars up with the childs' name on them when I "catch" them filling a bucket. I am tickled at how well the bulletin board turned out and how my kiddos are catching on to being bucket fillers.

3. Lunch with the teacher. Today was "eat with the teacher" day. Students who earned a reward ticket could have chosen an "eat with the teacher" ticket. One of my students who chose this doesn't speak English or Spanish. So I was not sure how I would converse with him. It was hard.  But I did find out that he plays soccer.  He was so excited to tell me. I loved talking to him about something non-school related. He also told me who his best friend is at school! I was thinking about taking that reward ticket out because I need my "sanity time" at lunch. But this lunch might have changed my mind again. I love learning about students!

4. Thursday we experienced uncharacteristically warm weather. I decided we should take advantage and go outside to read Junie B. Jones. But we were not in the shade and there was no breeze. In other words, it felt hot! So I checked the temperature on my phone.... 84 degrees at 12:00, noon, on a March day! Wow! The prediction was 74 and I thought that was warm! I tend to think that when kids can't concentrate or learn, I should "go with it." They were as restless as the day is long. So we tried to include the warm weather in our learning time.

It was 84 at noon and still 84 at 4. I checked again at 6. Yep, 84!

Heading back inside after a WARM read-aloud

Aren't they adorable? 

5. Assessments and report cards.Ugh. I've already read about how others are feeling about that.  It's time to be done with assessments, but I'm still assessing like crazy. It will consume a large portion of my week. I am going to say "that's okay" and try to be flexible. I can't wait to see how much my kiddos have grown and changed.  I am not looking forward to assessing. My room, however, is looking great. I am almost ready for conference time! Woo hoo! Here are our George Washington's that we finally got finished!

Please don't notice that when the teacher prepared the hats oh-so-quickly she made them upside down! Yikes! I got the craft off Pinterest of course. I'm trying to get better at giving credit where credit is due, so here's the pin: George Washington on Pinterest.

Five for Friday!

Five for Friday... late on Saturday. I love blogging. I like how many more memories I capture through photos because of my Five. I thought about Five for Friday since Wednesday when I made plans to send my computer to Kansas to get worked on by my good friend. I even tried to work on a draft on Thursday night, but I was exhausted because I wanted to get lesson plans done. And I got them nearly done. I've been at the school under the guise of "planning" so I could write a "Currently" blog and browse other blogs.

1. Seuss Week. This was a huge adventure for me. I spent ALL weekend last weekend matching standards and working on plans. It was exhausting and exhilarating all at the same time. I feel empowered now baby. This Seuss thing is huge and probably at least one blog unto itself.  But today I am focused on my Five, and it is definitely part of my week. We had a theme... Monday was supposed to be pajama day, but we didn't have school, Tuesday was Wacky Tacky Day (I didn't participate for oh-so-many reasons, but one was that I didn't know exactly what that meant), Wednesday was Seuss Hair Day and I just didn't do it because I didn't have any great ideas, Thursday was dress like your favorite character day and what do you know... I did that one! Friday was supposed to be hat day. Friday was sort of everything day for us though. Since we missed out on pajama day, a favorite of everyone, we said that students could wear their pajamas AND their hats on Friday! Friday was also "pickle/popcorn day" at our school, when you can buy a pickle or popcorn for $1.  We decided to culminate our week with some Seuss movies, popcorn (or pickle), and our pajamas. And yes, it was still hat day. *whew* I am tired just typing all of that, imagine living it!

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Thing 1 and Thing 2

My teaching partner and I dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Those crazy things came in and messed up my room when the students were in Music.  Here is a little bit of the fun they had at my students' expense!

2. Computer lab. We have computer lab on Mondays and Wednesdays at 8:30. Half my class misses this because they are at ELL class. This week our wonderful computer lab teacher, Mrs. Pierce, put on some Cat in the Hat activities for my students.  Computer lab happened to fall on Seuss Hair Day and one of my students participated. Sadness that only one student participate, but how awesome did she look?!?  

Seuss hair makes it difficult to wear headphones in computer lab!! 

3. More computer lab awesomeness! Okay, actually, it is Mrs. Pierce awesomeness. She said I could put her picture on here, just so you know... but now I can't find it. That means it's still on my phone and I don't have my laptop, so... no photo. My desktop in my room won't let me download the photos I've been emailing. So I am outta luck. Mrs. Pierce is working on the school websites and we could put a page on there if we wanted to. Well, I am too busy trying to keep with Kinders, my CLAN at home (see my Currently post here), and this very blog to add that in, so she made a link to my blog instead. Check it out under Academy C Elementary, which is under the Academy section of "our schools." When you visit the Guymon Public School District website, you go to "Our Schools" and then to Academy, and Academy C is listed under that. One the Academy C page, look to the left and there it is, Ms. Horn's Kindergarten Classroom. Thanks Mrs. Pierce, I am so impressed.

4. Friday is eat lunch with the teacher day. If you earned a classroom reward ticket and chose the one that says "Hungry? Eat Lunch with the Teacher" then you get to eat with me on Friday.  One student has been waiting and waiting and waiting. We finally got it done on pajama/hat day! How awesome is it that this is so exciting to my little friends?

5. I got a really cute picture of my Punky at the theater today and another one of her sitting on my sensory table playing with her Kindle while I messed around worked hard at the school doing "teachery stuff." It is Mom and Punky weekend and we had fun seeing "Escape from Planet Earth" and she likes her new Kindle cover. We are headed home now to do whatever we want to until we have to journey to pick up the Redhead (whose hair hasn't actually been red for awhile now, but she'll always be MY redhead) tomorrow. I'm not gonna set foot in this room again until Monday! (Maybe if I say it over and over again, I really won't).

Happy Weekend everyone! I love Five for Friday, whether I do it on Friday, Saturday, or whenever. Hop over to Doodlebugs and read 'em, link up, laugh, comment. You could follow Farley's idea and comment on 2 before and 1 after, but that's an idea/suggestion, not a "rule." The only rule as far as I can tell is to blog Five Random Things from your week or from your day! 

March Currently Linky

Can you believe it? It's a brand new month, and time to link up with Oh' Boy 4th Grade for the March Currently. Hop over to Farley's blog, read some links of Currently, add your own, give credit where it's due, and leave meaningful comments. Join the party! :) 

*sigh* Where to begin? My computer is in Kansas to get de-bugged. I had to blog browse this morning on my daughter's Kindle-fire. Before I boo-hoo too much, I have to say how grateful I am that I spent the "extra" $$ on the Kindle-fire instead of the other tablet I had originally ordered.  Love her little device. But it's no computer and I have a serious Saturday morning habit! So here we sit, in my classroom, so I can blog. Kinda dirty of me, huh? I am here under the guise of "planning" but the truth is, I got all my planning except for a little of my science/social studies, which will take about 15 minutes to finish up. I bribed the kiddo with a new color book, crayons and a long overdue cover for her Kindle. But here is another glitch, I can't figure out how to do the cool little Currently jpeg with my currently's in the box. What I normally do is not working on this computer. So I had to put in the blank one and it'll have to be good enough this month. Shucks. Flexibility, right? That's what I'm always preaching to my Kinders.  The school my daughter attended and that I worked in one year while working toward my Elementary Ed degree had Flexibility as one of their Character Development goals (8 Keys of Excellence... great program, by the way). In our class, we put our hands on our hips and flex our knees and "practice flexibility." Then I lift up my hands in an "I don't know" or a "Whatever" position, and say, "when plans change" and kids echo, then I do a squiggly up and down movement like on a roller coaster or going down a river and say, "we go with the flow..." and they echo. So this me, flexing, and practicing flexibility.

Listening... to Rock-n-roll on Pandora. Sometimes after school I wonder what the other teachers think, but oh well, I listen to ROCK. Not this mamby-pamby stuff they play on the radio these days. KISS, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi,  AC/DC. Let's don't even talk about the condition of my soul, this is what I need to survive this "job" called teaching and seems to the me the alternative cope mechanisms are far more destructive to myself and others. ***update*** This sounded so negative when I read it. Yikes. I am referring to the fact that teaching is grueling, intense, time consuming, draining and so much more.  I didn't mean to make it sound like I hate it though. I am emotionally, mentally and physically drained because I pour my heart and soul into teaching and I LOVE Kindergarten! Yes I do!!!! 

Loving... all things Spring. The weather is gorgeous today. The birds have started to sing and  there are potted flowers for sale in Walmart (which makes me anxious to move HOME). Maybe the winter in my soul is about to thaw because Spring is around the corner.

Thinking... about all the assessments I need to do in the next two weeks for report cards and for parent/teacher conferences. My pie-in-the-sky ideas for creating easy to administer and easy to record assessments hasn't happened and now I'm out of time and would have to sit here chained to a desktop at the school to make it happen because my computer (again, insert *SIGH* here) is in Kansas.  

Wanting... ??? Is it fair to say.... my computer?! Aaaaaaa!!! Um, I stayed up late one night recently and did my taxes and we have a return coming this year and it needs to go toward our debt that got CRAZY last year when I was student teaching and didn't have financial aid and we didn't get a return to speak of, but I want it to go toward.... well, everything else! That long, run-on sentence didn't even really cover what I wanted to say, which is~ my wanter is turned on HIGH. I want... new furniture, to finish my basement (how's that for future-tripping... we won't be moved back into our house until July), clothes for myself and my kids, a new laptop, and do I dare even type it in... I caught myself looking at a new TV today in Walmart!! I think we should get another TV and put the Wii in the basement and have more SPACE. Ugh, I am getting tired and poor thinking about everything I "want." Now that I've said all this, I REALLY want to pay down my debt, to live peaceably with mankind (um, sorry kid at Braum's that reaped the benefit of my rage when we sat in the drive-thru while our ice cream sat there and melted), and to be the best person I can possibly be.  Maybe God can help me out with those things, because left to my own devices, well, my WANTER (how do you know if made-up words are spelled right???) is all the way up on high. 

Needing... a job. That's right people, I need a job. I love my Kinders, I love my colleagues (Academy C, you know I love you, right?), and I love my principal (she is going to make a lasting difference in this community).  I really mean those things. I am really excited about what is going to happen here in regards to children and reading because of changes the "new" principal is making here. In ten years, when these Kinders get to High School, this community will start to see huge differences in test scores. I think it is exciting. But there is a giant housing shortage here and I can't pay my rent and utilities and so we are moving back to our home in the middle of Kansas. And I love that too. But I'd sleep better at night if I had a JOB to move back to. I do NOT want to wait tables this summer and feel like I am selling myself short and selling out my dream of teaching school. I am a GOOD teacher people.  Really. I am good. Not as good as I will be someday, I am just starting this adventure, but seriously, this is a part of me, teaching.

Like... Love... Hate... read below: 

LIKE LOVE HATE

you have to use ONLY 3 words 

that is IT...

and the words have to start with the first letter of your first name...

Carrie. That's my name. So here are my C-words for my Like, Love, Hate... 

Like... Candy. Okay, I like and hate it. But a box of Milk Duds was required to help me achieve this blog today. I hate that I am addicted to sugar and the ups and downs it puts my body through or how I don't feel compelled to eat healthy because of my candy love. But hey,  it's a "C" word, and I do like the Candy. *** update! After my first publishing, I thought about CAFFEINE! Which includes both COKE and COFFEE! Coffee being my first love. Yep. I like them, love, need them, am addicted. But I'd CUT them Cold turkey if I had to choose between these or my CLAN.*** (hey look... CHOCOLATE also starts with C... )

Love... I was going to try and say kids but with a C, but it looks dumb. Can I say children? The ones that are part of my own "community". OoOooo... how about my community of children? That sort of encompasses my class family and my clan at home. Clan. I had to look up synonyms for family~ HA! I love my crazy clan. My children are the life of me and they probably have the power to be the death of me as well. I love my classroom community, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my clan, and I love that once I leave here, I will spend some time with my youngest kin, just us, since my other C-word (her name starts with C also) is Kansas this weekend. (p.s. something I don't love... car time, cruising to central Kansas to recover the missing member of our clan). 

Hate... Crunch time. It's that time. Two weeks until... report cards are due, parent-teacher conferences, and Spring Break! Yikes. I do not want grades/assessments/whatever hanging over my head during the break. I want it DONE. So that means, yes indeedy, it is crunch time. Conferences, that starts with C also. I don't hate conferences. I hate what it does to my life for two days. Conferences start at 4 and run until 8 for the two nights before the break starts. I hate it that I miss my opportunity to see my kids, and that I'm exhausted when I get home those two nights! UGH!! 

From Farley~

remember the rule of 3...

you need to comment and share the love on the 2 in front of your link and then come back and share some love on the one behind your link...

Love you all. Thanks for stopping. Don't forget to scroll back up and hop over to Farley's blog and link up.