It's been awhile

It has been over 6 months since my last post, but I promise it is for good reason! These past few months have been packed busy and unfortunately, blogging hasn't made it to my to do list.

This summer was crazy and flew by. I attended 3 bridal showers, 2 bachelorette parties, and 6 weddings. I think I may have broken a record! It was very fun, but incredibly busy. Not a free weekend all summer! During the week, I spent my time attending class and babysitting for two amazing families in Ames. I had a blast with those kids - spending days at the pool and nights at the park. Along with one of my classes, I had a practicum experience in 4th grade. I had the privilege of being there every day and seeing their growth throughout the summer program. It was awesome!

Now I am almost finished with my last semester of regular classes at Iowa State University. I have been enjoying my classes; learning a lot to prepare me for the future. It was an adjustment having 3 night classes, but I keep telling myself it'll be worth it to be done with the reading endorsement when I graduate :) In addition to school, I have managed to have a little fun too. I have enjoyed making some great college memories with my girlfriends, I will miss them so much next year when we all move away.

This week, I finally found out where my student placements are. I will spend the first 8 weeks at Roland Story Elementary School in 2nd grade and the second 8 weeks at Woodlawn Early Childhood Center in a preschool classroom. I am very excited to begin this last chapter of my college career. I have been doing what I can to prepare!

I bought a clipboard at my favorite place - the Dollar Tree - and spruced it up using a spray adhesive and scrapbook paper. Added a few stickers to personalize it and wa-la! A cute and cheap clipboard!

The binder is still a work in progress, but I have my supplies and I'm ready to tackle it. Dividers, paper, student teaching handbooks, and check out these cute binder tabs I found at Wal-Mart!

As I begin thinking about my first job, I want to do what I can now to organize the materials I have for my future classroom. Over Thanksgiving break, I finally completed a task I've been wanting to do for a long time - organize, level, and create a list of all the books in my library. It was a HUGE task, but with the help of my family's company, a fire burning in the fireplace, and some of my favorite movies on TV,  it was much more enjoyable!

I used Scholastic's Book Wizard to look up the book titles and determine what guiding reading level the book was. I sorted them into piles by the guided reading levels (A-Z). As I was leveling them, I also added them to my classroom library list using an app called Book Retriever. It is a wonderful app that is definitely worth purchasing! It allows you to scan the book's ISBN number and adds it to your library. It will notify you if they don't have the information in their system and you can add the information yourself. Now I can see all the books I have by title or author. It will be very useful as I am out shopping for more books so I don't end up with duplicates. 

Since I have purchased so many books on my own, I wanted to label them so they will not get confused with a school's books when I (hopefully!) get a job and classroom of my own. I personalized my own self-inking stamp from Vista Print and was able to stamp my name in the front of all my books.

I know these next few months are going to be very full, but I will try to blog as much as I can to document the experience. I am very excited to continue learning and grow as an educator!