Teacher

It's summer vacation and I'm already thinking about the next school year.  I thought this was supposed to be my vacation where I don't think about work.  But as a teacher who truly cares about my craft, profession, and most of all my students my mind is already wandering about what this school year will hold.  So here are the items running through my head about how I can streamline some of the things I normally do in my classroom in order to save myself the gift that is so precious in a teacher's day, TIME!
The ideas that are currently running through my head to give me the gift of TIME:

• Pre-written generic emails to parents
• Unprepared for class
• No Homework
• Behavior issues
• Low grades
• Daily Check-off List for after school
• Take time and enter all 150ish parents emails into my school address book and sort them (by subject, class period, etc.) for easier mass emails (This will be time consuming the first week/weekend of school, but I think the pay off for the school year will be huge)

So as of this moment my word documents are open and I am sitting here watching TV doing school work.  Yes it is by choice but again the gift of TIME is probably not going to be there once this school year starts.

So now how does this connect to Mom~Teacher~Saver

• Mom - Completing these projects will hopefully, keeping my fingers crossed, give me more time to spend with my son at home in the evenings so that I don't have to work as late on a daily basis and I can also take care of myself by working out in the afternoons
• Teacher - I can use this definitely this school year and hopefully in the years to come.  I won't be using up as much time thinking/retyping these kind of emails to parents on a daily basis.
• Saver - Didn't I say this would be a TIME saver!

Monthly/Weekly Dinner Menu = Savings at the Grocery Store

Summer is almost over for teachers and you know what that means back to having less time.  In an effort to save money, when my husband and I first got married back in 2005 we started making weekly dinner menus.  Being new to having a dinner menu for the week was an odd concept to me because I did not grow up that way.  However, when working full time I now have one less thing to think about during the week.  Since we go married, my husband made me CEO of Menus and Food Budget with a $450 monthly budget.  I have a yearly calendar on my computer that keeps track of the menu and there is a framed white board (which my wonderfully hubby made) in our kitchen which I post the weekly menu on and it is also a place to write down items we need at the grocery store.  The saying in our house is, "If it's not on the list, it's not being bought."

Creating the weekly dinner menu has allowed me to only go to the grocery store once a week.  Yes, I said "Once a Week".  By going once a week it helps me stay within my monthly budget and by Sunday night you already know what you are having for dinner that week.  My groceries for this week cost us $93, that includes 3 meals/day for a family of 3.

Here is a run down of this weeks menu:

Sunday - Pork Tacos (4 ingredients: chili powder, garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste)
Monday - Sausage Spaghetti
Tuesday - Left Over Pork Tacos
Wednesday - Meat Lovers Orzo Pasta (from July parenting magazine)
Thursday -  Baked Potatoes
Friday - Tortilla Crusted Tilapia & Mexican Rice
Saturday - Turkey Burgers & Sweet Potato Fries

***My disclaimer: My groceries would have cost us more this week, but I do buy my meat/fish in bulk or on sale and I already had the following in my freezer: sausage, pork, spicy italian sausage, tortilla crusted tilapia, and turkey meat.  Understand that even though the meat/fish was bought in bulk or on sale and was already in the freezer, I still stay within my monthly $450 budget.

If there is anything you want more information about I will post pictures or tell you what I do.

Classroom: Grouping Sticks

Grouping Sticks for the Classroom

Classroom grouping stick

Ok so here is the low down, I will be honest I absolutely hate making groups in my classroom.  So I decided after observing a high school math class this spring and seeing some simple store bought grouping sticks I would make some of my own this summer when I'm off because I'm not currently grading papers or writing lesson plans.  Some of you who are not teachers if your reading this may be wondering what's so hard about making groups in your class well let's think of everything that could possibly make it an unpleasant experience ~ COMPLAINTS from students and even parents at times.  So after pitching this idea to my husband who is also a middle school teacher I decided that I would make these simple grouping sticks, however I am a math teacher and a little OCD so I ended up making these a little more complicated than I had imagined.  However, during the course of making this grouping stick project I ended up coming up with so many other ways I could use these sticks in my classroom.  Today, I posted a picture of it complete on Facebook and a bunch of my teaching friends want to steal, I mean apply it in their classroom. Please make them work for your classroom.  So here is a go at a tutorial for what I did to make these grouping sticks.

Materials Used:

Wide Popsicle Sticks (Hobby Lobby)

Mod Podge - Matte Finish

Acrylic Paint (Hobby Lobby) - it will cost about $1.19 for each color

Scrapbook Paper

Foam brush

Silhouette Cameo Machine

Colored Vinyl (I used Navy, Bright Pink & Leaf Green)

Steps:

1.  Plan out your grouping sticks on paper.  Mine was planned out in the following way for a class set of 36 students (you never know when your going to have a class greater than 30 students in middle school):

The proposed grouping plan down on paper

• Math Vocabulary Words - for groups of 2 
• Paint Color - for groups of 3
• Scrapbook paper - for groups of 3
• Math Symbols - for groups of 4
• Numbers - for groups of 4
• Vinyl Color - for groups of 2, 3, 4, etc. since I used 3 different vinyl colors

2. Paint your popsicle sticks with acrylic paint using a foam paint. Let dry completely before proceeding.  I painted mine on both sides.  

Painted popsicle sticks

3.  Trace and cut out your scrapbook paper.  Once cut out, glue scrapbook paper to sticks with Mod Podge.  Once again let it completely dry before proceeding.

Math vocabulary organized in storage.

4. Using my Silhouette Cameo I printed out 2 set of each vinyl color for the math vocabulary words, math symbols, and numbers that would be used for the project. I had to "weed" each number and word for every color, yes this was a little time consuming however it was well worth it for the end product that I now have.

5. Attach in whatever configuration you want the math vocabulary, math symbols, and numbers to your sticks.

Arranging math symbols

Vocabulary words ready to put on

6.  Mod Podge each stick in order to seal the grouping sticks.

I will admit that this project has taken me some time to do after all this blog is called "Mom~Teacher~Saver"

• "Mom" - It has taken a couple of weeks to finish this since I have a 15 month old son, so working on this has to occur during nap time or once he goes to bed.
• "Teacher" - I plan to use this a lot in my classroom this year because I love the idea that my students will never know how they are going to be grouped in my classroom since there are lots of ways to do so and I know that my class sizes can vary from 13 students one class period, all the way up to 32 students another class period.  Crazy I know!
• "Saver" - Most of the supplies I bought at Hobby Lobby and I used the 40% off coupon on "One Regular Priced Item".  Here is the trick if you forget your 40% off coupon at home and you have a cell phone with a data plan, go to the Hobby Lobby website and show them the coupon from your phone by reading off the 4-digit number.  It's that simple and they will give you the 40% off discount.  See you saved some money.

These grouping sticks could work for any subject and elective. 

• Science - vocabulary, elements, moon phases, periodic table
• Choir - vocabulary, musical notes
• Spanish - vocabulary, countries, verb tenses

Here are the ways I can use these now in my classroom.  If you have any other ideas feel free to leave a comment.  

• Refer to Step 1 for my initial ideas and ways to group
• Exit Sticks in your classroom.
• Call on students to give the definition to the vocabulary word.
• Create math number sentences using the number, math symbol, and word on the stick
• I'll add more as I get more ideas.

I am...

I am a wife, mom, teacher and occasionally, well more than occasionally I like to save money wherever I can by clipping coupons from the newspaper and whatever comes in the mail.  In these times when prices are going up for everything, I am always looking for that deal that is out there.  If that means buying in bulk, I buy items like meat, cheese, butter, toilet paper, paper towels, etc. just to save some money. Because as prices keep going up my salary as a teacher does not, so I have to be creative.  I know some people say your a teacher and you get summer offs, so you shouldn't make that much money for the time that you work.  However, I don't think some people understand the hours that are involved in teaching.  A teacher does not just work 40 hours a week, I actually work more than that try 50-60 hours/week or more.  And yes I get summers off however, at times it is hard to "put the cup down" because I am always thinking of ways to be a better teacher.  I am a teacher because I want to make a difference in a students life.  I know that I will not be able to reach each student, however I am gonna try and do my best to make some kind of impact on their life.

Hence the creation of this blog for people and teachers to steal (I mean apply as we call it in the teaching world) some of the ideas that I come up with as I am on a journey as a wife, mom, teacher, and yes a saver when I can.