Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! Today I was able to make it to my clinical site in time to celebrate Halloween with the first grade class I'm observing!! OH MY GOSH THEY WERE PRECIOUS! They all looked so adorable in their costumes! I came dressed as a pink crayon and they all loved it! I cannot even tell you how many times I was asked "Miss Elmore, can I color with you?!" Too cute!!

As a little surprise before they left, I brought them all little spider suckers that I made! Here's what they looked like:

They were a huge hit! Last Friday was an awesome day for observing as well! I gave my first spelling test and they were all super excited that I was giving it! And it was so funny because one of their words was "but" and as soon as I said it, the class could not stop giggling! It was adorable. Then I also took a group of three kids out into the hallway and worked on math games with them! These three have trouble recognizing numbers past 10 so we just worked on that as well as putting the numbers in order up to 30! They had tons of fun and didn't want to come back in when my cooperating teacher told us it was time to move on! It makes me feel awesome that they are learning and having an awesome time while doing so. That is going to be such a big thing in my classroom!! In my opinion, nothing establishes a motivation for life-long learning like making it enjoyable for the students! :)

I think that's pretty much it for today! I am dead tired and my room is a mess from crafting and searching frantically for the supplies to make those little spider cuties! 

How were your Halloween parties? Or just your Halloween in general? Hope everyone had a fantastic day!

-Michelle

Pilgrim Craftivity!

Okay guys this is my first shot at making my own craftivity! I'm sure there is something just like this out there that I could have bought but I wanted to do this on my own!! Plus I'm not selling it so no biggie :P This is my pilgrim craft! She's a rough draft, obviously her body needs to be bigger so you can tell she has one, but I'm pretty proud of it! I also make the little response sheet she's holding! I am also planning on making a boy version as well! :)

Let me know what you think!!

-Michelle

School updates and my first official follower!!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to check in! This week is midterms for me and I am STRESSED! Two of my hardest midterms are tomorrow and I feel like I haven't been able to study at all! Fingers crossed I do well, haha!

Also, I have BIG NEWS!! I officially have my FIRST FOLLOWER!!! So excited and many thanks to Heather's Heart for being my first follower and offering me your input and advice! I appreciate it more than you can imagine and can't wait to hear what else to you have to say!!

If anyone else happens to be checking out my blog, you should also check out hers! I'm excited to get the chance to really sit down and go through it all her posts! :)

Also, here's a picture of the bulletin board I made during my first day of observations! I wish I could have added more leaves to the bottom because looking back at this, it's kind of bare there! But hey, what can you do?! I had to work with what she gave me! :) (Also don't laugh at my fat tree!!) Each student has their name on a leaf and then there are some extra so the tree doesn't look too bare! Pretty cute :)

Anyway, this was just a quickie post! I've got a lot to do this week and will be observing my first graders again on Friday! I'm sure I'll be back around then with another post about how awesome it was!! :)

Enjoy the rest of your week!!

-Michelle

Day two of observations!

So today was my second day of observing the first graders! I am in LOVE! Today I had a moment where I was sitting and watching some lessons and I just had this weird feeling, like, I just knew that this was the right place for me and that I am definitely on the right track. It really felt good to have that moment of reassurance. I never really had that while I was in dental hygiene so this is really exciting for me!

I began to talk with my teacher today about the lesson that I am supposed to prepare and teacher for her classroom! It is going to be presented right around Thanksgiving, so YAY FOR ME I get go present a Thanksgiving related lesson! She hasn't given me any specifics yet of what exactly she wants me to do it for, but tonight I kind of came up with my own idea and then I'm going to show her and see what she thinks! Right now it's a lesson involving pilgrims! Basically learning who they were and just a little bit of history about them that would be understandable to a first grader! Then I made this really cute worksheet where I plan on having them draw their own pilgrims and then write three things they learned about pilgrims during my lesson! I really hope she approves because this would be the perfect thing for my portfolio :) I'm so excited about it!! I'm so stoked to show her :)

Anyway, I really need to go to bed! Tomorrow is my boyfriend's brother's wedding! It's the first wedding I'll ever have been to, so I'm super excited to go!! Tonight I spent a little too much shopping for accessories to go along with the wedding/every day items. I got this ADORABLE leather jacket which I want to wear with my dress (edgy feminine!!!!) and plus the weather is saying it's going to be pretty cold and the reception is in a barn! I also got these super cute bootie/heels as well as a black cardigan and a chunky necklace to go with my dress! I hope the whole outfit looks super cute tomorrow :) It does in my head, haha!

So, yeah, that's pretty much it for tonight! I hope every one has a fantastic weekend!!

-Michelle

First day of observations... was a SUCCESS!

Oh my gosh you guys, I am seriously in love. The kids are adorable, and my cooperating teacher is seriously the sweetest person ever! I had so much fun! I cannot even wait until next Friday! She even had me create a bulletin board for her already! She already had the basic idea of what it would say, but she let me create everything else and put it up how I wanted to so it was so cool! And she really liked it and I even got compliments from other teachers passing by on how cute it was! I meant to take a picture of it, but I for sure will next time I go so I can post it and and also have it for my portfolio!! But man, oh man, I am just in love. Just seeing all the cool things they were learning and seeing them understand and point out observations they made was so cool! I was even able to take them out one by one and test them on how well they were able to read their spelling words! It was just an amazing experience, and it was only day one!! 43 more hours to go, and I will probably continue to go past my hour requirement! Seriously so cool. I can definitely tell I'm in the right major :)

In other news, I've been shopping all day today with my mom looking for a dress to wear to my boyfriend's brother's wedding that is on October 6th!! I seriously didn't find anything until about 20 minutes before the mall closed!! How crazy! But I'm in love with the dress and I'm really hoping I have other opportunities to wear it because it's just so dang cute!

Right now, I'm about to get cozy and maybe just go to bed! I am so tired! I don't think I've even fully recovered from how worn out I was from yesterday! I don't know how all you teachers do it; I wasn't even TEACHING! I need to learn the secret! Although I'm guessing it's coffee for most of you... :) So yeah, cozy time, possibly doing my nails, and then bed time for me! I hope everyone is having a great weekend! :)

-Michelle

It's finally time!!!

Yep, that's right! It's finally time for me to start my observation hours for my clinical edu class! I got in touch with my cooperating teacher today and found out I would be able to go in tomorrow! I'm so excited! I'll be observing a first grade classroom at a nearby school! The teacher seems super nice and I'm super excited to meet her and her students! Hopefully they all like me, haha!

I haven't posted in awhile but I've been somewhat busy with school and also the injection I got in my eye a couple weeks ago! I was referred to a rheumatologist to check if maybe some sort of auto immune disease may be an underlying cause to my Pars Planitis! Blood tests came back the other day and apparently everything is normal except one test is moderately elevated! And of course this is one of the markers for an auto immune problem! So I'm scheduled to go back in a month and then possibly get another injection in my other eye in two weeks! Ugh! This and I also have to find time to squeeze in a visit to the Chicago Art Museum for my humanities class, as well as write a critique for it, study for midterms, write a paper, and do my observation hours! Things are getting pretty hectic! But hopefully I can handle it ;)

My boyfriend's brother is getting married on the 6th of October as well and I'm so excited! I've never been to a wedding before, can you believe it!? 19 and never been to a wedding! I'm stoked because it's going to be very casual and the reception is going to be in this really cute barn and they are getting customized converse to walk down the aisle in and just UGH so cute! Can't til the day it's my turn ;)

Well, I better end this post now! I've got to get ready for bed so I can be ready for my day ahead of my with some (hopefully) awesome first graders! Wish me luck!

-Michelle

Eye Problems!

Hey all! Just checking in to tell you about my super awesome day yesterday! And trust me, I'm saying that with as much sarcasm as humanly possible.

For the past three months, I've been dealing with flashes and floaters in my eye due to inflammation! I've since been seeing a retinal specialist and after two months of trying a steroid drop to fix the problem, my doctor decided to go ahead and try out a steroid INJECTION. IN MY EYE. Well, behind my eye, which is still pretty bad. I literally felt like my eye was going to dislodge in the process! This whole shot thing ranks up there in horrible-ness with the kidney stones I had two years ago. Sheesh, I'm only 19 and I've already had kidney stones and now eye inflammation with floaters! Whenever something goes wrong with me, it can never be something normal! :P

So after that painful experience, today I am just resting. I forced myself to go to class today because we are working on a really important group teaching project that I needed to be apart of. And good thing I was there because I felt like without my help, my group would have no idea what they were going to do or how they planned on splitting up the work :P

The eye I had the injection in in extremely blurry and I can barely read to type this and I will not allow myself to drive. So I got someone to cover my shift tonight and I just plan on relaxing all night. Thank goodness my school week is over and I don't work again until Tuesday!

I think that pretty much sums up my lovely day yesterday! How is everyone else's week going? Hopefully much better than mine, haha!

-Michelle

Clinical, clinical, clinical!

Today was my second day of my clinical class! I have yet to get classroom placement, but I'm working on it! Today my teacher handed out a million papers for us to get started on our portfolios! Little does she know, I already started one last year, but it will be nice to get it more professional looking :)

Also, I finally got my books for my two EDU classes and one of them is EXCELLENT! It's called The First Days of School by Wong and Wong. It is so interesting and informative, I've actually just been reading it all afternoon! It's a book intended for student teachers and first year teachers, but my teacher thought it would be appropriate that we use it now anyway! I rented mine, but I might end up buying it at some point just so I can have my own copy to have forever, that's how good it is!!

Hm, other than that, I'm still living a pretty blah life so I don't have too much to report! I'm sure my posts will pick up more when I actually get into my observations or go back to work :P This is my last week off and I'm not really looking forward to going back! Although I do miss my favorite kids and I'm looking forward to seeing how their first few weeks of school have gone so far! My absolute faves are all starting first grade this year! And they all want me to observe their classrooms, but they go to two different schools so I don't know which school I'm going to pick. Plus, there is no guarantee that I would even get their class! But man, would it be awesome if I did! Fingers crossed that maybe I can request a certain teacher ;)

That's it for now! Thanks for stopping by and I hope your weeks are starting off well :)

-Michelle

Just checking in!

Hey all! Just checking in really quick! Today was my last day of school for the week! I'm pretty worn out and ready for the weekend! I'm also super happy that my job has shut down the childcare center for two weeks so I get to spend my two first weeks of school focused on just that! I only had one class today because my clinical edu class only meets once a week! Today was just Educational Psychology! It seems pretty interesting so far! I was very interested in my intro to psych class anyway, so it would make sense for this to appeal to me as well :P

After school, I really haven't done much of anything! I napped and spent some time with my mom this evening watching The Big Bang Theory! Does anyone else watch that show? It's so funny, I'm obsessed!!

Well, that's pretty much it for today. It's been pretty uneventful in the life of Michelle lately! So I suppose I'm off to stalk pinterest for awhile! I hope all you teachers out there that have just started back as well are having a great first week with your new kiddos! :)

-Michelle

Back to school!

So I have officially started back! Yesterday and today were my "first days" since my classes alternate between MW and TTh! My humanities and history classes were pretty boring so far, as expected, but my education classes I am really looking forward to! In my clinical class, I am actually going to get the opportunity to prepare a bulletin board for the class I'm observing and even teach a mini lesson! I'm super excited about it, especially if I get to put some of my saved up teacher things to use :)

Other than school starting, I really have nothing too exciting to write about. My boyfriend finally got a new car and it's super nice! It's a 2006 VW Passat! It's only a year older than my car and yet with all the features in it, it seems like it could be brand new! I'm totally jealous ;)

Also, I suggest that if you can find them, try out KAZOOZLES! It's candy and they are amazing! I have a huge sweet tooth, so when my boyfriend introduced me to these yesterday, I became obsessed! I even made him stop at a gas station today after school so I could get more :)

Anyway, I think that's pretty much it since I last posted! I've definitely been getting more page views as time has gone on and I thank everyone who has checked me out but DON'T BE AFRAID TO FOLLOW!! I would love to check out your blogs as well and get some tips or advice if you have any :)

Wish me luck as I continue my school week! I am envious of all you teachers out there :)

-Michelle

Mondaaaay!

I love Monday's in blog world because I'm obsessed with checking out everyone's Monday Made Its!! The ones I saw today were totally cute! They make me so anxious to have my own classroom so I could put some of these ideas to use! :P

I start back at school in exactly 1 week! I seriously can't wait! Although I'm sure I will be regretting that a few weeks in because of some of my other boring, non elementary education classes, I am enjoying this rare moment of actually being excited about going back to school! I remember when I first started kindergarten and I was so, so excited! I even got up on a Saturday and got all ready to go! I remember being super bummed when my mom informed me I didn't have school on Saturdays, haha!

Today was a pretty slow day at work for me. I got in some more reading of Fifty Shades of Grey but I just don't like it very much! I'm over half way through the book and it's becoming a struggle for me to even finish it. Anyone else feel this way or are you totally in love with the book?

If anyone has some really sweet Monday Made Its that I should check out, leave me a comment and I'll definitely be sure to do so! Hope everyone has had a fantastic Monday!!

-Michelle

Beautiful day!

It's been a super nice day where I live! My fiance just got off work so I'm getting ready to go over and spend some time with him tonight! It's supposed to get down into the 60s tonight so I'm bringing a super snuggly cardigan with me in hopes that we'll spend some time outside! I'm so excited that fall is almost here! I'm a big fan of chilly nights and sweaters.

Next weekend I'm hoping to have a bonfire with some friends! We all start back in school on the 20th so it'd be a nice way to sort of "end summer!" I can't wait to go back to school, though. I'm beginning a clinical edu class where I'm required to get 50 hours of observation in a classroom! I'm super excited about it and so are all the kids I work with because they are hoping that I observe their class :P

Well, I suppose that's all for now! I need to finish getting ready and get going before it gets too late! Thanks for checking in!! :)

-Michelle

Two posts, one day D: About me!

Hey all! I know, I know, shame on me for two posts in one day, but I figured I'd post a few pictures to help everyone get to know me a little better! So, here we go!!

This is my fiance David and I! Please ignore the crazy face he's making... he doesn't like to take pictures, haha! We've been together for 3 and a half years! We're engaged young, but we plan on waiting to get married until we are finished with school! David is currently going to school for criminal justice. 

I have a slight nail polish obsession! I seriously cannot go more than a day without having my nails painted and I often repaint them every three days! This is a nail polish rack I crafted a few months ago and my collection has grown since this photo! 

I was originally going to school for dental hygiene! As I posted before, teaching has always been an interest of mine, but as I began high school, I got hooked on this profession that paid very well for the amount of school needed! I spent my first two years in college doing prereqs for this major before I realized this really isn't want I wanted to do. So after one day of starting my anatomy and physiology II class, I dropped it and changed my major. I honestly could not be happier with my decision!

Speaking of elementary education classes... this is an image of my very first bulletin board project I did after I switched majors! I had a BLAST creating it! This was for a weather unit for second graders! I also had a "make your own rain stick" craft to go along with it :) I'm pretty proud of this and cannot wait to make more in this upcoming semester!

I am OBSESSED with cupcakes and everything sweet!! Hence my blog name ;) I am currently planning on having a classroom that is totally based around my love of sweets, but it's still a few years away so who knows what I'll want by that time! But I don't really expect my love of cupcakes to change :)

This is me a couple years ago with my favorite cat, Jax! I am a total cat person, and a lover of all things fluffy in general! I've got three cats in my house, as well as an adorable chocolate lab!

Well, I think that covers most of the basics! If you'd like to know more, leave a question in the comments below! I'd love to hear from you guys :)

-Michelle

Blogging newbie... sort of!

Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Michelle! I'm a 19 year old student currently going to school for elementary education! Don't be fooled by my young age, though. I graduated a year early from high school and already have my associates in science! I currently work in the childcare center of a local YMCA with elementary age children. Teaching has always been an interest of mine, and by always, I really mean it! When I was younger, I played school with my neighbors ALL the time! I made my mom buy me my own grade book and I even had a "pet fish" for my classroom!You can all probably imagine my excitement that I am actually pursuing this as a career and I honestly cannot wait until I can step into a classroom and call it mine!

I am not exactly a blogging newbie. I have a blog on another blogging site but that has been mainly used for fashion pictures, etc. I discovered a few teaching blogs on this site earlier this year and have since become ADDICTED! So today is the day I finally have to decided to stop lurking all the blogs and actually create my own and follow you guys! I'm really excited to start posting about my journey through my elementary ed. courses and maybe even trying out some of the cool crafts you all are always creating! It kills me seeing all these adorable ideas and not being able to really put any to use! So sometimes I just break down and make something to have for the future :)

Anyway, this post is getting really babble-y so I suppose I will end it here! I hope some of you will take some interest in my blog as I have yours! I can't wait to start this "blogging journey" with you all :)

-Michelle