A little bit of venting...

I feel as though my world at school has been turned upside down! We had an emergency faculty meeting last week (first, I want to say that emergency faculty meeting is NEVER a good thing....last year I found out big changes were being made which was causing my department chair to leave :( )

I was in NO hurry to find out what news would come from this meeting. Just as I suspected...we had a Math teacher and an ELA teacher pulled from our campus to be reassigned elsewhere! I was like what the heck?!?! We test in all three grade levels with both of those contents....

I felt bad for those two new, first year teachers...they worked so hard setting up their classrooms and putting in so much effort to bond with their students...all for nothing. Last week we had to say good bye to our 6th grade math teacher...

This being my first year as department chair with so many first year teachers in my department was stressful enough...throw in this and I felt as though my world was collapsing. I am a firm believer that God will only give you what you can handle (and right now I feel he believes I can handle ALOT!). I am thankful for all the support I have and the encouraging words I hear from my husband, family and friends; I don't know where I would be without that. 

Our Math department has a lot of obstacles to overcome this year...but I know that with dedication we will perservere through all of this.

With all that being said...My 8th grade math class song is this:

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Already brushing off the dust

You hear my voice, you hear that sound

Like thunder gonna shake the ground

You held me down, but I got up (HEY!)

Get ready cause I’ve had enough

I see it all, I see it now

I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire

Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Louder, louder than a lion

Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

Oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh oh oh

Oh oh oh oh oh oh

You’re gonna hear me roar

-Katy Perry

This song came out at just the time I needed it :) 

First week!

What a week! I forgot how crazy it can be :) 

My kiddos have enjoyed their first week back at school and they absolutely love their teachers.! They got back into the wake up early in the morning routine down and that makes for one happy mommy!

My first week was great too! It seems that this years group of kids are going to be great :) We have been hitting it hard with math already and they can already tell you when our STAAR Math test is. 

With all of the new rules, new teachers, new principal, and my new position on campus things have been going kind of hectic for me this week. 

Monday: First day of school. I wanted to be apart of my kiddos first day of school; I was able to walk them in and sit with them for about 10 minutes and then my parents had to take over because me and my husband both had to work. 

Tuesday: My husband was coming off of shift so my dad had to come to my house super early to watch the kiddos and get them off to school because I had a meeting bright and early for our campus leadership team.

Wednesday: Fairly easy morning and the day was a blur

Thursday: My first Math Department Meeting as Dept. Chair

Friday: Thank God it's Friday!

Needless to say with it being the first week of school and meetings this week I had NO time to plan! So I spent my Sunday doing just that!

But first...before I did that...I had to finish a summer project that I started (the first week after school let out). My husband and I ripped up all our carpet so we could put laminate flooring down. I had this brilliant idea that we should pain the living room because it desperately needed it...so I started putting putty in all the holes. Once we finished the flooring I had no energy to paint!

So this is what the room looked like:

You can see the white spots and you can see where I started to test paint colors on the wall...

Now I did put the room back together but this was the only picture I had with the wall issues.

I am happy to report that as of today it looks like this

still a work in progress but the walls are SOOOOO much BETTER!

Until Next time,

The Math Diva :)

Back to school!

I love back to school time! I love summer time too but I really like structure and routine and school time gives me lots of that!...I guess with having lots of kids can do that to you :)

I was lucky to be able to be on campus off and on towards the beginning of the month so I was able to set-up my classroom for the most part...don't get me wrong, I still have quite a bit to do but at least when you walk into my classroom it feels like home :) 

This is the before pictures:

As you can see it was very bare (We have to take EVERYTHING down over the summer...).

A couple of hours later with 3 kiddos in the room and this is what it looks like

I still have some work to do but I'm loving it so far!

This year we have 47 miniute classes so I need my warmups to be quick. A friend of mine gave me the mountain math so I'm trying it out this year

I love my white board area...I really love our math posters that shows the students examples of how to work the problems out...please excuse my student info center as it is still a work in progress!

Here is my student info center...I haven't gotten everything for the board but it is still a nice little area!

Here are my classroom rules section...as well as my amazing posters to add color to my room :) I also have a picture of my data wall and champs section.

I've been running around like a crazy person the last couple of days! I am so glad that I got my room done before we officially came back because I have been getting Navigator systems set up for the new teachers and helping out around campus and I have had NO time to work on my stuff. (I actually brought all my stuff home tonight so I can work on lesson plans and Math Journals!

Once I have finished my data wall, Champs, and student info center I will post updated pics :)

Until next time,

 The Math Diva :)

Why I do and love what I do!

"Why do you like working down-town? You have a rough crowd...Aren't you scared?!...; Why don't you teach closer to home? The district is much better..."

These are the questions I am faced with a lot. Most people stereotype where I work as a place where only hoodlums, gang bangers, and druggies occasionally show up to school. It really outrageous me that people think this way. Yes, I work at an inner-city school where we deal with kids who are in gangs, and kids who do drugs; but lets face it...you see that stuff in lots of schools. The only difference  is that where that stuff is taking place it is up scale neighborhoods, kids who have all their hearts little desires... I'm going to stop there; but we all know that inner-city schools get the worse rap.

I work at a beautiful well kept school. My school does not have graffiti on it or trash littered on the ground. The students who attend my school are just like any other kid attending school; they are sweet, kind, respectful, and they need to know that you honestly care about them. My kids may put up a tough front but over the years working here I have learned that most of the time it is because that is their defense mechanism to survive when they leave school and go home. 

I have had students tell me they didn't know why they were in school...their parents never finished school and all they knew were drugs. Most of my students put up the "I hate school" attitude because all they have ever heard is they aren't smart enough...look where they come from; how could one of them possibly ever make anything out of their life. 

Every year I make it my mission to reach out to my students and let them know that I honestly care. It may take awhile to break through with some of them because in their eyes "I'm just a rich white girl." I always get a kick out of that. Yes, I am white but last time I checked...I'm a teacher so I'm NOT RICH! I'm real with my students and I let them know that they are doing a great job and I believe that because they know how much I genuinely care about them they work hard for me. 

Last year our principle asked us to write about what student success looked like in our classroom. I immediately thought of one student in particular and I am going to share that story now: **My student's name has been blocked out for obvious reasons.**

There is such great satisfaction when you can see the roughest kid who has NEVER passed a state assessment or even been the kid that you thought could amount to anything and you see them come so far.

and kids who put up a tough front because at the end of the day when they go home...they have to be tough to survive. It's stories like this one that make me love what I do.

Take the time to get to know your students...you may be the only one they can truly depend on.

Until next time,
The Math Diva :)

2013-2014 Teacher Binder

What a week! I finally thought I was going to get to finish painting/decorating our downstairs bathroom but one phone call changed that! Over at our rental property a huge tree limb fell down and ripped the power lines to the electrical box out...needless to say me and my husband have been working hard at clearing the debris and trying to find an electrician to get it fixed.

Today was a somewhat relaxing day around the house. Since my hubby is at the fire station it was just me and the kiddos. It also gave me some time to work on my Teacher Binder that I've been wanting to put together. I love the idea of having everything I need in one organized Binder. I am a very organized person but with having 6 kids (all doing different things), my school schedule and my husbands schedule it begins to become somewhat of a challenge.

I love looking at Pinterest for ideas on what to do to my classroom and came across a few good ideas on what I would like to incorporate into my Teacher Binder. One of the Best Pins that i found was
Great Binder Ideas! I don't like to pay to get things that I can create myself so I used her ideas to create some of the documents that I have placed in my Binder.

I have really grown to like the chevron print so I created my Title pages with it. (I had my stuff printed at Office Max so I wouldn't waste all my ink...unfortunately they didn't turn out the way I had initially created them but they are still cute.)
 

This slides into the outer cover of my Binder.



 The rest of my sections look like this...

Other sections: Lesson Plans, Special Pop., Parent Contact,

Behavior/Absent Log, Grades, Tutoring, Misc.



This is my week at a glance that goes in my Planner Section. I love this because I can quickly
write down and see what is going on this week. I use my calendar on my IPAD to keep track of
everything but I like to have a written copy as well and this is PERFECT!

This goes in my Lesson Plan section:
I love this especially if you have mutliple preps. You can see
what you are going to be doing day by day on one page!

I absolutely LOVE this Parent Contact Log. I have always needed
more room to write notes and this is PERFECT!

This lovely To-Do list will be kept at the front of my Binder!
I have a serious problem of writing down things I need to do on seperate
pieces of paper and then by the end of the day I have no idea where those
papers are!


  I am very excited to use this system this year! Now that I've created this binder I guess it's time to start my 1st 9 weeks lesson planning!

until next time,

The Math Diva :)

Change is good!

 Change is good! At least that is what I keep telling myself :) I'm not one for change most of the time but because I am going through so much change with this upcoming school year I am going to embrace it!

I am new to this blogging stuff and this is my first blog post! I have found that Facebook and other social media drives me nuts because I don't want to hear how many times a day people are working out and I really don't like hearing about all the bickering I've seen on there lately...not to mention I'm sure they are tired of me always talking about school and posting pictures of my classroom...the only people who like it are my school teacher friends :) I enjoy talking about what things I create for my classroom and listening to what other teachers are doing in theirs (My husband is a good sport about listening to me but he just does it because he loves me :) ) I am hoping that starting a blog about my classroom will help me manage my excitement about my classroom so I can try to have "normal" conversations with "non-teacher" friends :)

Just to let you know a little about me...I am married to the most amazing man in the world! He is a firefighter and my hero! We have been married for almost 2 years and I have never been happier. We have a blended family of 6 kids; 3 girls and 3 boys, and yes we have been called the Brady Bunch! Our kids range from pre-school to Senior in High School. Yes, we have a busy schedule once school starts as you can imagine! So I hope that you enjoy reading about my life journey this school year!

This will be the start of my 3rd year of teaching! I teach at an inner-city school and have never been this happy :). I teach 8th grade Math (and it can be a challenge getting the kids to LOVE math!) and to add to my title I will now be the department chair (I might add this scares me a little bit but I am excited about this new adventure). 5 out of our 7 math positions are being filled with new teachers and I am excited to get to know them. I know we are going to do great things this year.

During the summer I typically do a bunch of "school" stuff but until yesterday I hadn't touched the 8 crates I brought home

My nice clean room before I brought out the school stuff

 8 crates later

and 1 big mess!

I was able to throw away a bunch of stuff that I would not be using again

and this is the final product!

Now I can start on my back to school projects! I am hoping to have time to finish my Teacher Binder sometime this week and I'll post about it when it is complete.

I am also excited about getting my keys to my classroom this week so I can post before and after pictures of it! I think that is my favorite part of the year...decorating my classroom and making it my home away from home :)

until next time,

The Math Diva :)