Kindergarten or bust!!

Ok so here goes...I'm a 30 something, mother of 2, wife, and teacher in Maryland. I recently took a year off after teaching for 9 years in low income schools at various grade levels to stay at home with my kids. 

I don't know what it's like where you live and teach, but here in Montgomery County Maryland if both parents aren't working, you will run out of funds faster than you can say, "Holy crap we are broke!" So after a lot of discussions and happy hours with my besties who are still teaching, my husband and I realized we need the benefits and I still have a small itch to be a teacher. Ok it's more like a full body, I can't stop myself rash!! This was made very apparent when I was offered a position as a kindergarten teacher and immediately got off the phone and started Pinteresting ideas for my classroom at the dinner table. 

I have known for about 2 months that I will be teaching kindergarten, and I have spent about 30 seconds less than that planning my first year. I spend every waking moment reading kindergarten blogs, reading books by "The Sisters", buying EVERYTHING that is offered on Teachers Pay Teachers, and printing, laminating, and organizing all my new finds. Now I know you know nothing about me and when I say I have bought everything you think ok, she bought a few things...she has laminated a few stations...

Each of these bins contains amazing math stations and Daily 5 word work activities. All of these beauties I have gotten off Teachers Pay Teachers from an AMAZING kindergarten blogger, Martha McGuire. If you are not following this woman yet, you are stupid. She is amazing and she has changed my life. I first saw something of hers on Pinterest.  I began staying up til all hours of the morning reading and rereading her blog from the beginning (she started in 2012). I had never seen such adorable activities and ideas of how to teach the same boring concepts for an entire year, but make them come alive for the kids. I was/am truly obsessed. I began talking about her so much, my sister coined her my "best friend." Everything she makes I want to buy, as evidenced by my first TPT purchase of over a hundred dollars of only things she has made for the first quarter (back to school, apples, farms, harvest, etc), downloading every free product she offers, buying the exact same bins she has with the labels, and signing up for Stitch-fix. I want to be this woman. I want to start the year off and WOW the pants off everyone. 

Am I the only one who thinks this way? I want people to walk into my classroom and say, "Wow, she is so organized." "Wow, her students are the best behaved." "Wow, her reading and math data is amazing." "Look at that bulletin board!" It is for this reason I spend every waking moment trying to learn everything I can about how to be better. 

Let me be very clear...my classroom is never the most organized. My students are never the best behaved. My math and reading data is never the best, but a girl can dream can't she? 

This is my goal for this year and my reason behind this blog. I am one of those people who is SO not creative...but I'm a really good COPY CAT. I like to find things that other people have done and try them out. In a planning meeting I never come up with really good original ideas, but I DO take other peoples ideas and run with them. So this year, I plan on taking the ideas of greater kindergarten teachers and trying them out in my classroom. I would love for you to join me in my journey.