#healthyteacher: Bountiful Baskets

Y'all, I had the best experience picking up my Bountiful Basket last Friday! The whole pick up process ran like a well oiled-machine, and I really think the baskets are going to a) make it easier for me to eat healthier during the school year and b) push my boundaries when it comes to cooking! I got the "conventional basket", and for $15 it came with:

-6 bananas

-5 figs

-a large bag of seedless red grapes

-7 limes

-4 large navel oranges

-8 tomatoes

-1 head of lettuce (cabbage?)

-4-5 radishes

-1 clamshell of cherry tomatoes

-1 large avocado

-2 heads of broccoli

-1 box of mushrooms

I also ordered a bag of cherry pecan granola (an extra fee, of course, but it came with TWENTY-EIGHT servings), which I immediately began putting into portion control ziplocs because it is SO delicious that I would not be able to stop chowing down if I ate out of the big bag. 

Apparently there was another someone in the house who enjoyed the process almost as much as I did...

My meal plan for the coming week looks like this to try to accommodate some of the fruits/veggies that I received:

How do you maintain healthy eating habits during the year?! Let me know!

currently: august

thanks to farley for another fun month of currently! (:

SERIOUS QUESTION: do we think 2nd graders could handle doing a monthly 'currently' in the classroom?

My ridiculous feline has been running laps around our house all morning. Not sure what has gotten into her, but I can hear her little feet scrambling on the tile as she rounds the kitchen...

I am loving that there is Someone with a greater plan than I have. I had all sorts of grand plans to round out my summer and they fell through, but Praise the Lord that happened because I found out that I basically start work in two days! I would have been in major panic mode trying to get home (driving from Florida to Texas!) in time to make that happen! I just have to keep reminding myself to trust trust trust

All that being said, I am thinking about making lists to calm myself. I will be attending the LETRS training for the next two weeks + New Teacher Orientation, and our school closes at 4pm everyday soooo I pretty much have one full day, and then parts of days during teacher inservice week to finish my classroom and get ready for school to start in there. WOAH. Lots of stuff is done, but I have lots of things left to do, too. I know it will all come together, but sometimes I feel a little panic-y...

...and then I remember what the real deal is. If my classroom isn't Pinterest-worthy, IT'S OK because I will love my students more than I will love a perfectly designed and decorated bulletin board. Seriously cannot wait to meet this group of hooligans! I'm going to honestly say (and maybe step on some toes here... yikes! bear with me!) that right now, at the beginning of a new job and new school and new district and new class and new grade... looking at precious blogs and Pinterest boards kinda stresses me out more. I feel like there is a bar set, a standard for how my room needs to look and function and if I am below the cut, my kids will run screaming from the room and refuse to learn. 

BUT, what I have to keep reminding myself is that these awesome bloggers/pinners are putting on display the work they are proud of (as well they should!), but there are likely behind the scenes things that they still have to improve on. I'm trying to focus on 1-2 things per day that I am proud of, and then keep adding the extras to the list!

I kinda basically start work this coming Monday... I have a Monday-Thursday training for the next two weeks, plus an orientation on the second Friday, and then teacher inservice week starts. I'm not sure it has hit me yet that my summer is over.......

Keeping it Organized

Um, 21 days until the first day of school...!!

As I mentioned here, I was in a dilemma as to how I'd be doing my planning this year. My job is a littttttle hectic (more on that later) and I'm planning in various and sundry ways for kiddos all the way from PK-5th.

After some thought on what I actually needed to do (plan for two self-contained classrooms with 5 kids, each in a different grade with vastly different IEP goals, and read lesson plans to help accommodate for 12 other students to so they can be successful in their gen ed settings), I decided that I couldn't justify buying any planner that I couldn't customize on the spot.

I went with a Modern Teacher's Chalk It Up lesson planner- I loved how many options it gave me for different styles of planning, so if I decided in the fall that I didn't like the way things were going I could change it up! My main hang up was the overall cost, but it ended up being fairly budget friendly [see break down below].

There are no office supply stores in my little nugget town, so I was going to take all the printed pages up to school and bind the pages with the binding machine, but then it wouldn't be easy to customize. Duh, Bean. I didn't really want it in a binder because they can get kinda hefty to lug around and don't always lay flat very well. But, when I was perusing our local Dirt Cheap, I saw this guy and knew it would be perfect! I could have probably found one of these Five Star Flex notebooks at out local WalMart, but this one was marked 70% of $8.99 and I am always enticed by a good sale.

A couple mornings ago, I spent about an hour printing all of the pages. It could be a much faster process, but I wanted them printed just so, back to front, blah blah blah #teacherprobs. It ended up looking like this:

each month starts with an "at a glance section"...

...then the full month calendar...

...followed by weekly planning pages (there are about a zillion)

Budget Breakdown:

Five Star Flex: $2.70

A Modern Teacher's Chalk-It Up Lesson Planner (Texasstyle!) from TPT: $8.50

Printing: FREEish (because I already had paper and and my printer full of ink was a graduation gift)

Total Money I Saw Disappear From My Pocket: $11.20

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and am excited to put it to use in just a few days! This coming week holds a day of new teacher orientation AND my first parent/teacher conference. Woah buddy.

My Favorite Things: Back to School (for the teacher)

Well, the countdown is on... 24 days until schools starts! Linking up with Halle for more favorite things!

In preparation for going back to school this year, I have done (or have planned) a few of my verrry favorite things:

waaay too much shopping. When I was on my extended vacay in civilization last month, I spent lots of time at JCrew (hello teacher discount!), Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy. 

clean house. All summer, we've been moving in and moving piles around and putting furniture up in our little red house. The time has come for a deep clean. There is nothing worse than a tough day at school, followed by coming home to an icky casa.

a good pedicure/manicure. Apparently I have been missing out on the local nail salon that serves wine. I will be high tailing it there ASAP. I'm thinking of doing something tacky cute like this for the first week of school... I mean, you only get one first day of teacher ever, right?! Might as well do it big!

pre-packed lunches and snacks. As I mentioned last week, I try to eat kinda healthy, and pre-packing and planning all of my meals while I'm at school is my saving grace. If I know what I have to eat, I am less tempted to run get fast food (hahaha, don't worry though, the only "fast food" in my tiny teaching town of 1200 is Subway).

a good coffee cup and water bottle. To avoid snacking all day, I drink coffee in the morning and guzzle water all day. I have an insane amount of water cups/jugs/buckets/tervises, but am on the hunt for a good no-spill coffee cup. I'm thinking an Autoseal is going to be my jam this year, because if I spill coffee on my 45 min drive to school there is no way I can turn back to change!