I have a dream....

Those four little words have never really held such a high standard and meaning to me until today. I have always had goals and dreams, (I usually aim small so I can accomplish them lol) but last year I set my sights a little higher. Everyone who knows me knows that my students are my world. Anything I do, I do for them. For the last two years (when I first began this journey as a teacher) at Halloween (my favorite holiday) my assistant and I have made costumes for our students to go around their wheelchairs and accentuate their costumes just a little bit more. Each year the money for this project comes out of our pockets. Something my husband was never to pleased with :) He's kind of a penny pincher lol. 

After Halloween we decided that with funding we could make these costumes so much more. I looked into turning this project into a charity. A real charity that could take donations. OH MY GOSH at all the red tape you have to go through to get to be labeled as a non-profit. I quickly got discouraged. Shortly after beginning our journey into legit-ville, my husband and I lost a baby that was conceived 9 weeks prior. Emotionally and physically I couldn't put my whole heart into this project being that it was in pieces on the floor of what was supposed to be our baby room. 

I postponed everything. I took the months of November and December to mourn. January, for me, is a month of fresh new starts and a brand new year. While listening to my favorite morning show, Kidd Kraddic in the morning, I heard them advertise a contest called "I have a dream." My mind instantly went back to the costumes for my kids, and the dream of giving them more than I have been able to do so far. So I went to the website an entered. The task was to tell them in 100 words or less what your dream is...so I did...I ended up with well over a hundred words ha ha. It took me almost two hours to cut it down to fit in the allotted space. Never thinking anything else about it. I never win anything but I knew I will have at least tried!

Last night I am working on my newest addiction (made from scratch flat bread) when my phone rings with a Los Angeles number...I hit ignore so it will go to voicemail b/c I'm really sketch to answer numbers I don't know. Not ten seconds later the voicemail notification pops up. I finish kneading my dough and check the voicemail...It's a man named Robert from Kidd Kraddic in the morning. He gave me his cell phone number and asked me to call him back as soon as possible, it was urgent. I called the number he gave me (which sounded kind of strange for him to just give out his cell phone number to random people) and he answered first ring. We talked for about three minutes; he read my essay and asked me about my project and what my goal was. After I get done telling him about our costumes and the meaning behind the name Erase the Space, Given by one of my costume recipients, he drops a bomb. He tells me that I am a finalist and they want to look into it more so someone would call me tomorrow to interview me for the show!!!!

Anyone who knows me, knows my emphasis happy dance :) It would put Carlton to shame. I figured hey, if I don't win maybe someone will hear my goals and help me out!!! Yay positive publicity!!! I immediately called my principal to tell her what was going on and ask her if it was ok to have my cell phone attached to my hip at all times tomorrow. She agreed and expressed her excitement.  This morning when I get to work, I let my co teachers and assistants know what was going on incase there was an urgent phone call....and then it came :) At 9:22 my phone rang. It showed up a Texas number not one I knew but I answered anyway. ha-ha. The woman on the other end let me know that the crew wanted to interview me and ask me some more questions about my goal. By the crew I had NO IDEA she meant THE CAST!

 When they introduced me J-Si was the first to talk to me. I got to say “happy circus” which has always been on my bucket list if I ever got to talk to them. I got nervous b/c the line went silent for a minute. Everyone kind of gasped remembering the story behind that phrase from Kidd Kraddic himself. It was bitter sweet. They talked about how I must have been a long time listener. J-Si read the essay I sent in. After about 3 or 4 minutes of talking and asking about our project and my students, Kelly freaking Rasberry gave me the greatest news of my life. They were not only going to send me to a guy who is charge of their charity (Kidd's Kid's) and walk me through the process of starting my charity with all the paper work, but they were also going to send me $1000 start up money to help me through the process!!!!!!!! I know I sounded like a blubbering idiot but I just broke down. I immediately started balling my eyes out. I thanked them a MILLION times. I wasn’t really sure what to say. My world has been turned upside down and I am so blessed beyond words. Since then I have emailed been emailed back and forth by people from the show. I’m not really sure what happens now, I just know that my kids are going to have the most AMAZING costumes this year. I’m pretty sure 2014 and I can be friends. So far so good!

September 2014

                                                       Fall is my FAVORITE time of year!
                     So for this month I focued on the season of fall and my favorite sport...FOOTBALL!

I am a die hard ravens fan :) Born and Raised

THEMES- FALL

Some of the activities didn't have pictures b/c well I'm a slacker and I forgot, but here are a few from fall

                  We worked on sequencing from the amazing story of Apple Trouble! My favorite Fall book!

                              Looking through old magazine working on our cutting and gluing skills!

            Our fall vocabulary had a little bit of Thanksgiving and Halloween in there but it works ha-ha
                                           Thank you http://pocketfulofcenters.blogspot.com

 Spin Art is another favorite of our kids. Thanks to adaptive switches they can turn on the spin art machine and turn it off. Working on their grip we were able to let them pour the paint of these beautiful fall leaves :)

Some of the other activities include: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Graphing-Fun-370726

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Leaves-Letter-Match-File-Folder-167428

THEME: Sports

While I may have been a little too one sided on my sports selection for the kids, I just LOVE football!!! We had a lot of fun playing sports as well as many sports activities. I slacked and participated in these activities rather than taking pictures but here are a few of the places where I got the activities!!!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Football-Prefixes-or-Suffixes-143360

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sports-Words-for-Writing-684537

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sports-Graph-freebie-622733

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sports-Rhyme-Time-Game-137602

Now remember, if it involved writing of anykind we didn't participate in that activity, but what we ded was modify using the pictures for bingo, picture match, word match, or graphing.

August 2013

AUGUST

THEMES- ALL ABOUT ME

Being that our class is severe and profound for the entire district, we keep the same kids every year until they turn twetny-one. So each year I try and find new things to do each month, but sometimes you have to go with old faithful!

                                            THEME- ALL ABOUT MY ENVIRONMENT

    I love puffy paint!   

Since the kids live all over the district, we decided to learn about the city the school was in and work on our map skills. 

THEME- ALL ABOUT MY FAMILY

THEME- ALL ABOUT MY FRIENDS

For these two themes, it was really hard to take picture of these activities and blur out every picture so I'll just tell you about them instead lol

For the all about my family, *we played family bingo with cards that had names of moms, dads, grandmothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, whatever we had.

*We also made our own little family tree! This was my favorite because we again used puffy paint for the base of the tree and the green top. Once the puffy paint was dry we added pictures to our trees. By pictures I mean we made photo copies of picture they sent to us so we wouldn't hurt their actual pictures.

For all about my friends we learned about our class mates! We made a fun book. Each day we took different people in the class and focused all of our attention on them for the day. We learned about their families (info kept from the week before), what city they lived in (we found it on a map and worked on map skills), What they looked like (we used yarn, markers, and paint to draw our friends), and what grade they were in!!!

Through out this month we also had countless IEP meetings, welcome back open houses, Alternate assessments, and LOTS of welcome back hugs and kisses!! This is going to be a super fun year :)

It's that time again ya'll!

School is back and WOOO it's been a world wind! I loved this daily devotion I was given on the first day of school :)

We started off the year with the same old meetings. Most of you teachers know the ones where the superintendents come out and try to encourage you to have a great year and bring out a great speaker who has sass and tries to keep you awake by telling you stories of when they were in school or working in education. All while knowing in the back of your mind all you can think of is where am I going for lunch and what do I have left on my to do list in my room. This year, I can say was much different. While I had issues arise during the summer with who my assistant would be and which children I would get in my room, I was pretty stoked to go from a first year "fairy tale" and "save the world" teacher to a much more realistic second year warrior. 

 And might I add, I looked fabulous for it too! :)

We had our normal district wide meeting and then broke off into our department meetings. Little did I know the surprise that would be waiting for me there! If you have not seen, heard, or watched these two individuals PLEASE do yourself a favor and get to know their story! I saw this video two years ago when I worked with a different district. This year I got the blessing of meeting these beautiful individuals in PERSON! Their story is overwhelmingly emotional and is much better in person. No matter what you teach, they can bring light to children you think you know how to handle. 

This is the story of Ms. P and Mr. Batiste :)

Video Here!

I'm excited to say that the class of Hardy's Hotwheels has gotten a whole new make over! We went from a fun and girl garden to a fast and functional race track! We also added a new friend to the class :) Meet Yoshi!

 I went with a red, yellow, and green theme (stop light) for each door to help promote color recognition. Daily schedule posted on the back of the door! (random pirate ship is left over from halloween costumes so just look over that ha ha)

 I got excited and decorated some clip boards lol. I got tired of trying to prop the clip boards up and couldn't find the already made clip things so I just got crafty with some stuff from lowes.

 

The plastic checker board patterned table cover worked GREAT as a mess cover on my book shelf! lol John Cena is just pretty. He works as a great support system/eye candy for bad days!  ha ha!

 

We used some dollar tree floaties to make the changing beds look like tire for our "Pit Row" station!

 The "Fan Grandstand" is where we will put the work the kids do to show off their awesomeness!

 

 Quick moment of bragging!

My nephew started kindergarten this year, and got his picture in the paper for being so handsome!

Click Here!

Earth Day!!

We had such a fun week! Earth week is always one of my favorites ha ha, probably because I love baking cupcakes! Thanks to pinterest that's exactly what we did. Ha ha.

We discussed recycling and reusing, our planet Earth and keeping it clean, patterns, shapes, etc. The more hand over hand cutting, coloring, and gluing we can do to build their muscles the better!

I'm updating from my phone so it will be a little while before I can post the tpt sites I got these wonderful activity print outs from, but please know they are coming!

Gardening and explosions.

This was a very trying and emotional week for everyone I'm sure. We did not do a lot in class, but we tried very hard to keep with schedule. During our day we have many Therapists come to our building and work one on one with our students. We have an AMAZING set of therapists. One therapist in particular is an avid runner. Unlucky for us she likes to run more places than just little old Mississippi. She decided to go to the Boston Marthathon this year.

Unless you live under a rock, you know what happened at the Marathon this year. Lord be praised, because our girl finished nine minutes before the bomb went off. She was unharmed and thankfully able to walk away physically unhurt, emotionally however she has been wrecked and heart broken.

http://www.wtva.com/content/news/lee_co_ms/story/Tupelo-runner-recounts-chaos-of-Boston-bombing/7Rgpnp541kOa2E3p-0OgjQ.cspx

This news report is an account of runners from our town in tha marathon. The "best friend" mentioned in the interviewed was our therapist.

The plan was to discuss and experiment with Gardening and tools and learning to grow things. Instead we came together as a family, loving and strong, to spend quality time together; appreciating the things that matter most.

Farm and theme!

This is the first time i am loading from a phone so bare with me. This was a super fun week. We talked about the farm and the animals that live on farms! My husbands parent live on a cow farm so finding inspiration was pretty easy.

For our students repetition is an amazing tool. So throughout the week we made an "Old MacDonald Farm" book that I found on tpt, puffy paint pig (which my kids LOVED getting messy), classic cotton ball sheep, spinning for farm animals from tpt, and of course counting animals from tpt.

We used our assisted scissors so they could help cut out the animals using hand over hand help, Of course our favorite spinner, and of course glue.

A special thanks to the following tpt sites...

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Farm-Friends-Activity-Pack

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Marlene-Ortiz