Student Recognition

Happy Thursday, mis amigas! (I'm just assuming most people reading this are ladies...)

So I went in today to school because I didn't bring all of my manuals home and I wanted to plan a little. There were also some housekeeping types of things that I wanted to do also. So I texted my cousin, Lisa, and we headed to school for a little bit!

While I planned, Lisa did lots of stuff for me, like put away some books, set up the April calendar days in the pocket chart, got my April math quilt pieces ready, and punched out some letters for my XtraMath student recognition board!

I have been meaning to make this board for like.... 2 months. I make a BIG DEAL when one of the kids masters an entire operation on the day that it happens but it sort of gets forgotten after they get their certificate. I want them to be proud of themselves! So here we are. I have four little ladies who have finished addition so far. Maybe the excitement of seeing their names on stars will inspire the other kiddos to do the same... I will let you know.

Has anyone found any new hobbies during spring break? I have discovered the amazingness of Draw Something!!!!!!! I am so, so bad at drawing but this game is so fun.

I've also been reading. Right now I am working on two books - Elijah of Buxton and Earth.

Both good in very different ways. :)

My Teeny Tiny School

So yesterday when I linked up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her lunchbox linky, I am pretty sure that the only sentence anyone read was that we only have 5 teachers at school!

I wanted to tell you a little more about the teeny tiny school where I teach.

I teach in a Catholic school in a rural-ish town where more than 50% of public school families qualify as low-income. Additionally, over 25% of the public school students are classified as Limited English Proficient. Many, many more speak English as a second language but aren't necessarily labeled as LEP.

Both of those percentages mean that our enrollment is pretty low. Catholic school tuition is not really affordable for a family who qualifies for free lunch, although we do have some financial support available. Lots of families are not always willing to take the support, though, which is understandable. Also, none of our teachers are bilingual and I am the only one who is close to an ESL endorsement, so if a family has a child who doesn't speak English, we aren't really the best fit for that student. I am hoping to turn that around though!

So anyway, we only have 70ish students at school. There are 5 classrooms - Kindergarten, first/second (that's me!!), third/fourth, fifth/sixth, and seventh/eighth. We also have preschool and specials teachers, so technically we have more than 5 teachers... but only 5 full time people!

I have 12 students - 7 first graders and 5 second graders. They are energetic enough to feel like way more than 12. The smallest class is Kindergarten at 11 and the biggest is third/fourth at 18. Next year I will have 18 kids if no one else signs up - 11 first graders and 7 second graders. I have talked to one mom who keeps showing up to things like Friday Mass and some of our family events. I know she has a first grader right now so I am thinking maybe he will be coming next year... then I will have 19!

What this means to me is that I am ESPECIALLY grateful for the blogging community, as I have no grade level team at school. So when I'm not sure how to tackle a specific thing, like fluency in first grade, you all are the first people I turn to because you understand! So thank you, friends!!

Looky in My Lunchbox!

Today I am here to show you my lunchbox! Thank you to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for hosting!

My lunch bag is a Rachael Ray bag. My boyfriend's mom got it for me for my birthday last year. I really like it because it has long handles so I can carry it like a purse when I take the kids down to the lunch line. My old one had shorter handles so I was always juggling things. I also like it because it is VERY roomy.

Here is what I ate today. It is a pretty typical lunch for me even though it is not usually set up on a plate since I am on spring break. I have a tuna sandwich on rye bread (MY FAVE), veggie chips, and an orange. If I was at school, I would also have a little carton of chocolate milk. Yum yum calcium!

A few days a week I eat the school hot lunch because we can eat it for free.

As far as my lunch situation... we start school at 8:10 and we eat at 11:30. So it's a perfect time, I think! The whole school eats together in the cafeteria and all 5 teachers eat in the little teachers' lounge upstairs. I usually stay and eat from 11:30 to 11:50ish and then I go back to my room so I can get things ready for the afternoon. Recess goes until 12:15 so all together I have 45 minutes for lunch and recess unless it's Thursday, when I have recess duty from 11:50-12:15.

That's my lunch story! How about you?

Survey Says...

Hi! And happy Monday!

Today was my first official day of Spring Break. It was pretty good. I slept in a lot and then I went to the eye doctor where I ordered new glasses! It is very exciting for me because I haven't gotten new glasses in 4 years so mine are starting to lose it... also I'd like to say that I ordered kids' glasses. Apparently my head is little? Weird.

Anyway, I am doing this linky party because I really want to blog during break but I have nothing to say. You pretty much read what I do every day and I have nothing left over right now! :( So... linky parties it is!!

This is coming to you from 5th Grade Rocks, 5th Grade Rules!

1. Are you married, do you have a bf, or are you flying free as a single lady/man? I have a lovely boyfriend! He is awesome.
2. Where did you grow up? I grew up in the far out suburbs of Chicago and I am still here now.
3. Do you have any pets? If so, what kind and what is his/her name? I have a dog and a cat. My dog's name is Max and he is a miniature schnauzer. Cutest dog EVER! And my cat is black and her name is Natalia although I call her Kiki or The Keekster. Yeah!
4. What is a favorite TV show that you are embarassed to admit to watching? I don't really have any shows that embarrass me... so I will just tell you that my two favorite shows are Seinfeld and 30 Rock!
5. Are you a saver or a spender? Definitely a saver, I get that from my mom. Although I spent a TON of money on glasses today... I guess that's why you save!
6. What is your favorite children's book? I am a Mo Willems fan, specifically the Knuffle Bunny series!
7. Were you the class clown, teacher's pet, or neither? Absolutely 100% the teacher's pet.
8. Who is your favorite athletic team? Chicago Bulls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you. The funny thing is that people find my blog by searching for the Bulls or for pictures of Derrick Rose's parents, which is weird. And now that I wrote that I will probably get more google searchers!
9. Where did you go on your last REALLY fun vacation? I never go anywhere but I did go to California a few years ago and that was fun! I am not a huge clubber but the club scene in San Diego is WAY different than the one in Chicago.
10. Who is your favorite actor? Actress? Hmmm... I love Jude Law and James Marsden and I have a newfound love for Alec Baldwin. And staying with that theme, I will say Tina Fey is my favorite actress! She is so funny and also very political!
11. Tell about the last time you cried because you were happy. I have tears of joy on a very regular basis and it pretty much takes nothing for me to shed a tear! Like today I was watching Hairspray (which I am currently in love with) and I shed a tear when Little Inez won Miss Teenage Hairspray!! Sorry if I ruined it for you. I don't know why I care since it is movie and clearly not real life...
12. What is your favorite season? Spring! It's my birthday season (thank you friends for your kind wishes!) and the weather starts to get wonderful. And flowers bloom!
13. What is your biggest regret? Oh man. I regret not preparing more for an interview I had a year and a half ago. It was for sixth grade Language Arts and the principal loved me on my first interview. He narrowed it down to 4 people so I had a good chance of getting the job... and then I totally bombed the second interview. :( But maybe everything happens for a reason...
14. What food do you just NOT like at all? I am a ground beef hater (don't tell my class I said "hate"!!).
15. Who was your most memorable teacher and why? I always loved my third grade teacher, Mrs. Waites. She was young and we just connected for some reason. Now she is the principal of my old school and last year when I subbed, I found out that she led one of the first grade intervention groups every day and that just touched my heart.

All right, that's the scoop!

It's My Birthday!!!

Yay for me! It's my birthday (at least for another hour)!

I have nothing teachery to say today!

So I had a great birthday. My boyfriend gave me these BEAUTIFUL flowers!

So pretty!! He is not a flowers kind of person so this was a big surprise and it made me so so happy! And they smell wonderful.

Today we went to visit the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. I feel like I live there since I have been there like 3 times in the past year... even though that isn't THAT often. Haha! He loved the extreme green house and the butterfly haven and the rooftop gardens. That place is the bomb dot com, and if you find yourself in Chicago, you should for sure check it out!

Afterward, we went to see the play version of Mo Willems's Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.

It was very good! It's kind of amazing how they made a musical out of a 20 page picture book. They did a great job and the acting was lovely! We were definitely the only people there without a child companion but whatever! I'm a teacher, it's fine. :) If you haven't read the book, you defffffffinitely need to read it because Mo Willems is the bomb dot com!

I also ate some delicious tamales at a little place I found on Yelp. I love you Yelp!

Today I got an email from Donors Choose telling me that they were giving me $10 to donate to any project I want! This floored me. Donors Choose, you are just wonderful! Now I just need to decide who to give my $10 to!!!

One last little thing! I mentioned the other day that my cousin came in and taught my class about bees. She took a little video of us reviewing the lesson, so if you want to see me in action for a few minutes, here's the video!

The first 2:30 is my class filling out our bee tree map and then singing the Head, Thorax, Abdomen song! You can watch the rest of the video if you want but it is just my cousin's work and an art show... your choice, haha!

Hi, Spring Break!

Considering that today we had a half day, a field trip, AND it's the last day before break... it was a pretty good week. :)

We went to see The Stinky Cheese Man play this morning!

It was so funny and well done. My class loved it! The actors interacted with the audience and even grabbed one of my first graders to go onstage as Goldilocks. This little boy panics when he is under pressure, so I was really worried about him up there but he did so well!!

To get us ready for the play, I read some of the stories from the book and then we rewrote classic fairy tales just like the book did. They aren't done yet but suffice it to say that my class has a lot of imagination.

Moving on, yesterday I checked my bucket filler pocket and noticed two new slips in there that I hadn't seen before! Both of them made me laugh so I wanted to share them.

She does work really hard. True story! Right now this little lady is in India for 3 weeks and I miss her every day!

He sneaked my first name on there!!! (Also did you know that "snuck" is not the legit past tense of "sneak"? Muy interesante.)

And lastly, my birthday is coming up, which meant I had to go to the DMV today to get my license renewed! It wasn't too bad at 1:30. I had to take my written test and the only questions I got wrong were on the sign page... I mixed up "merge" and "reduction in lanes." And I'd just like to say that you merge in both situations so...... they should just be the same sign. :)

Anyway here is my new license picture! I had to take my glasses off because of the glare and it is so weird seeing myself without them!!

Oh wait, one last thing... I just found this book at the library yesterday and I'm already a third done.

Did anyone else read the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books?? Or see the movies? This is the story of the four girls 10 years later when they are almost 30. I am a Kostos lover personally and he is back in this book!!!!

So that's all! Welcome to my life, spring break!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Head, Thorax, Abdomen!

Today we took a little detour from our normal course of action. My cousin, Kelley, is going to school to be a teacher and she came in and taught a lesson to my class!

She is in a crazy class called Insects and People, and for her final project she had to either write a ridiculous paper, rear an insect, or teach a lesson about insects. Clearly she picked the best option. :) So today my class learned about bees!

I definitely did not take pictures of everything... but she had the kids make a black and yellow foldable about bees.

One page was about the life cycle of a bee.

This isn't the finished page, but each bean stood for a stage of the life cycle. Underneath the beans, the kids glued a little piece of paper that said how many days the bee stays in that stage.

There were also pages about types of bees and body parts of bees! We also used a page from Reagan's Gone Buggy Unit!


Part of our super fun day was learning a song about an insect's body parts. I took a little video in case you've never sung this song before. My class LOVED it and sang it all day.

Later, we resumed our normal science unit and learned why fossils are important. We had a special conversation about extinction to make sure we knew that when something dies, it isn't necessarily extinct.

We put together these little fossil puzzles to help us understand that fossils give us clues about plants and animals because the fossils LOOK like the plant or animal that they came from!

I would give this to you... but it came from my science Teacher Activity Guide! I actually ordered this over the weekend because I don't have any of the supplemental stuff for my science program... only the kid books and my teacher's manual. And I had to ask my principal to buy the teacher's manual for me! But the guide was well worth the $4 I paid for it because they really liked this activity and it helped them understand different types of fossils and the type of work that paleontologists do.

And now that this linky party is over a week old, I think it's time to join up. :)

Mini-Paleontologists

Yesterday we started our fossils and dinosaurs unit! We filled out a little schema chart, which includes such things as:

• Dinosaurs are all dead.
• Birds are dinosaurs.
• Dinosaurs run fast.
• Dinosaurs eat people.
• Fossils are from old dinosaurs.
• Dinosaurs are all big.

And so on. We have a lot to learn!

Today we learned about how fossils form and how they can teach us about the past. We also briefly discussed what a paleontologist does. To make it real for them, the kids dug through chocolate chip cookies to get out the "fossils"!

First, they used a toothpick to VERY CAREFULLY remove the chips. We talked about how real paleontologists don't just dig with their hands; they use tools. Also that if they just chip away at the fossils, everything will get messed up and they won't be able to figure out what they dug up.

After the chips were removed, they used paintbrushes to brush the crumbs off. This totally did not do anything but they were bound and determined to brush off all the crumbs. Haha!

At recess, my class found a "fossil" that they had to show me.

I'm guessing it is just a little concrete bump but who knows? Maybe it is a worm fossil. Haha!

I'm planning on doing a few more dig things as we move forward. Tomorrow we are going to make fossil prints in playdough to show how we can learn things from fossils.

Lastly, I voted today!

Illinois people, get out there and vote!!!

Happy March, Leprechaun!

My class went crazy over St. Patrick's Day!

Crazy as in actually crazy... I'm lucky they actually took a spelling test.

Last night, I made shamrock rice krispie treats! I followed the recipe at Simply Designing.

Should've used more green food coloring....... oh well. They were still cute! I got my shamrock cookie cutter at Party City, if you're interested!

Then my brother helped me make little bags that I filled with chocolate coins!

This morning, my BTF messed up my room and hid the bags around the room like an Easter egg hunt while we were at recess! When we got back, the kids LOST IT. They went crazy running around the room and found the bags really fast, at which point they devoured the chocolate in a matter of seconds. But they did clean the entire mess up in under 3 minutes, which was truly breathtaking.

Later, we graphed Lucky Charms! I got the activity sheets at Kindergarten Korner. They were awesome!

I don't know if you can tell, but this girl had an EXCESSIVE amount of shooting stars.  Like over 30. We all had ridiculous amounts of stars and only like 1 or 2 of the other ones. Did anyone else graph Lucky Charms? I'm wondering if my box was crazy or if they are all like that, haha!

I also bought shamrock door hangy things at Party City. These were amazing for the 20 minutes that they stayed like this. Soon after, two fell down and two other ones got tangled. At least I have a whole year to untangle them!!!!

After the kids went home, I found this little note in the coatroom:

If you can't read it, it says...

Dear Leprechaun,

Hi. Thanks for coming.

Happy March.

Love, Audrey

Aw. I love my crazy kids.

Silly Sentences

Today I was staying after school to tutor one of our ELLs. He stays after once a week for an hour because we are trying to boost his reading level. However... you can only read so many Reading A-Z books before your eyes start to glaze over. So I usually throw in a game toward the end to wake us both up and to get him conversing with me in English. Also, so he doesn't hate tutoring! :)

I pulled out Silly Sentences today and it was a hit!

I've used this with my own class and they love it! The game gives you little puzzle-type pieces with nouns, adjectives, verbs, prepositions, articles, and punctuation. Each of the pieces has a little notch in a specific spot, so you have to create a sentence in a specific order. This prevents ridiculous mish-moshes of words.

You can use the words to make sentences, either "silly" or normal. However, who wants to make a normal sentence when you can say, "A blue firefighter jumped on a happy cat"?

All of the nouns have pictures to accompany them, and some of the adjectives do also. It's great for vocabulary building!

I haven't used it to teach parts of speech, but you can definitely do that too since each different part of speech is color-coded.

We had a good old time with this today and my second graders play it a lot while the first graders are doing Reading! Definitely worth checking out. :)

Penguin Cam!!!

So it is super late and I should be going to sleep... but I promised myself that I could blog if I finished submitting all of my projects for my ESL class!! 3 classes down, 3 to go! Next is multicultural children's lit. I literally can not tell you how SUPER EXCITED I am. I will be sure to share any books with all my blogging friends!!

Anyway, back to the subject of this post...

Today I was looking at facebook before school started, and I saw that my boyfriend had written about the live penguin cam from SeaWorld San Diego. Have you seen this??

Amazing. I used it as a reward for my class today after they worked on their persuasive paragraphs. They loved it! I actually find it amazing that 2000 people were watching at noon and still at 12:30 in the morning there are 1300 people watching it! They are adorable.

Speaking of persuasive paragraphs, today when I launched this little genre, I started by reading this fabulous book:

It was PERFECT to introduce opinions and reasons! We are writing our persuasive paragraphs on healthy choices, so each kid picked a specific healthy thing to do and they are persuading someone to do it! I didn't think they'd be super interested in the topic, but they are loving it. Today I learned that we should get more sleep because if you're mad about something and you go to sleep, you "kind of forget about it." Haha! So there are your wise words from a second grader today.

Side note - still watching the penguin cam... so cute!!!

And lastly, I wanted to leave you with this Hey Girl. I have not left you one in a while because none of them have really grabbed me I guess! And I am only posting this one because it has Jude Law and I want to MARRY HIM even though he cheated on his fiance......... Jude, Jude, Jude. Shame on you! I don't know what wraparound services are but I hope if you do, that you love this one.

12 on the 12th!

I am so excited about this linky party over at Doodle Bugs Teaching! I have been taking pictures like a crazy person today so you can have a glimpse into my super exciting life.

And here are the stories behind the pictures! I'll start from the top left!

1. This is my school bag, purse, and lunch bag ready to go! Do you take a hundred bags to school? I guess it's a problem but it works for me...
2. This is my class doing Adventure to Fitness because it was pouring rain during lunch recess. We haven't done this in a while, since we've had outdoor recess every single day! They loved it and we learned about castles and battlements.
3. One of my girls was crying because she said she didn't feel well, so instead of doing Adventure to Fitness, she read Cat in the Hat to me and she did AWESOME! And she pretended to be me when she said, "I'll wait until everyone is looking at me." Haha!
4. Two of my FIRST graders working on subtraction in XtraMath!!! Some of my second graders aren't even there yet!
5. I give little snacks to the kids who improve in their mastery score in XtraMath. This is because I found that lots of my kids were typing in random numbers to get done more quickly. This has really helped! Today I gave them rice cakes and they died of happiness.
6. We worked on the St. Patrick's Day craftivity from The Teacher Wife! I actually took this picture to show that since we used up all of our glue resources, we have now resorted to pouring glue into bowls and using q-tips like paint brushes. It actually works out really well, surprisingly.
7. If I did a nutrition/healthy choices related lesson, I will get a gift card to Walmart so I did mine today. We learned about MyPlate and made little bracelets to remind ourselves how many servings we needed. I got this idea from Alisha at The Bubbly Bonde.
8. Then we went outside. I drew a big MyPlate on the ground and the kids had little pictures of food. In teams, they had to run and put their food picture in the right part of the plate and then tag the next person. Sooo... a relay race. It went amazingly although the wind blew our food away and we had to finish it inside... oh wells. They all rocked it though! Go kids!
9. I worked on my 5th box of Thin Mints after school. YUM! Sadly I was not practicing the MyPlate philosophy.... sorry MyPlate.
10. One of my girls gave me this wrapping paper tube today. It is decorated and says "Your birthday March 25" on it. That is a true statement. However... I don't know what to do with this. So I brought it home.
11. I finally switched out my hallway displays. These are our Lenten promises. Most of them say, "I promise to be nice." At least they know what we need to work on!!
12. And I put up our craftivities.

Wow, that was a lot of words. I will go into detail on some of these activities at a later date!!

You Know You Teach First Grade When.....

I learned about this super cute linky party over at Fun For First! Here is my contribution!

Let me just say that this is from the second week of school...... most of my first graders are much better than this now! I never bring any of my students' work home but I found this downstairs and I just wanted to hug myself because they have come so far this year!!!!!!!! I haven't kept any of their work but next year, we are going to be portfolio-ing it up, that is for sure!

What did I do this weekend?

I worked on my final project for my Cross-Cultural Education class. After Tuesday, I will be halfway to my ESL endorsement! YAY!

I started crocheting a baby blanket! Typically I am not a crocheter, I knit for the most part, but I found a pattern online and my BTF (best teaching friend) helped me get it started. Here is what it looks like so far.

The next stripe will be brown! I love how it is turning out so far.

I also read a big chunk of this book:

It's by the same author as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I love. What a different world it was in the 1920s!

I also got an award from Heidi at Raki's Rad Resources!

When I checked out her blog, I found that she has some GREAT ideas!! Her most recent post is about 10 different ways to use sidewalk chalk in educational ways. Love it!

Lastly, tomorrow I am planning on joining up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her monthly 12 For 12 post! You should, too. All you have to do is take 12 pictures tomorrow (the 12th day of the month) to document your day. Get your camera ready and snap away!!

Are You There, Spring Break?

It's me, Jill, and I could really use you right about now.......

You know, until today, I couldn't really commiserate with people who were saying they couldn't wait until Spring Break. Things had been going just as well as normal - not perfect but I wasn't pulling my hair out.

However, we have been having lots of physical aggression issues. Like, unprovoked punches to the stomach, scratching, whipping of necklaces into other kids' faces... it is incredibly frustrating to me. The saddest thing, really, is that the "victims" have all been my very well-mannered, kind kiddos who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I checked this book out from the library:

I reeeeally hope it helps. We have had more conversations than I can count about being kind and making good choices and being a bucket-filler. We wrote out a bunch of kindness hearts when we were being kind... I am really at a loss!!!! If you have any words of advice, I would appreciate them. :)

Okay, that is enough of being a Debbie Downer! Here are some things I am happy about!

1. I started teaching the "counting money" unit to my second graders and found out that they are LEGIT AMAZING at counting money. It is unbelievable. So we skipped straight to the test today and they all rocked it. I think this will be incredibly helpful when the first graders start their money unit. 
2. One of my first graders, who sees a Title I teacher every day, is becoming a great reader! He was a little low to begin with, nothing really alarming, but the extra help is really making a difference. Today he brought back this tiny book from his Title I teacher, mostly made up of CVC words, and asked if he could read it to the class. I snapped a phone picture of him reading to us and sent it to his parents with a little note, and his parents were SO EXCITED. And so am I. I'm glad things are clicking for him!
3. My parent club is going to pay for me to go to a Kagan workshop! I am really excited about that. We don't really do any professional development at school and I want to be a better teacher!!!
4. Two of my second graders were "caught being good" at recess and it was such a relief because I thought the Kindergarten teacher was coming down the hall to tell me that they were beating up little kids. Whew!!!!!

Happy almost Friday!!!

Celebrating Spring

Perhaps you remember that on Friday afternoon, that is 4 days ago, it snowed crazily by my house.

Well, as Chicago weather often does, it turned itself around and we had a BEAUTIFUL day today!! What do we do when the weather is nice? We take a walk, of course! Sadly my phone refused to take pictures... so I will repost this old walk picture!

It pretty much looked like this... except everyone was wearing winter coats and there were no leaves... But it was 65 and AMAZING outside. Seriously the best way to end the day.

Can you take your class for a walk whenever you want? Our parents sign a walking field trip form at the beginning of the year so I can take them out whenever.

Yesterday we made our March math quilt! It went amazingly, which was unusual for a math quilt day and unusual for a Monday. Here's what I did differently this time...

• I played Celine Dion and told them it was "relaxing music." Haha! They were so into it until my CD started skipping... 
• I did not make a sample ahead of time. I doubt this had anything to do with it but that is something different!
• I made them cut all of their pieces before they glued any of them down. In the past, I have shown them the cut and then just let them go.

I'm pretty sure it was bullet number 3 that made the difference. They were intently cutting. The cutting was also a lot better than usual! So maybe it was the pre-cutting... maybe it's because this was our 4th one and they are getting it now... who knows.

So pretty! Except for the disgusting coloring on my phone. Sigh.

And! Staci from Let's Teach Something gave me a Top 10 award today! Thanks Staci! Be sure to check out her blog. :)

Last thing - thank you for birthday month wishes from my Currently post! And for your comments from my exercise ball post! And for checking out Taylor, Molly, and Laura. :) You all are the bomb dot com!!

March Currently!!

Oh I love March and currentlies so much!!

Wow, I love exclamation points.

Let me just say that those 3 words were hard! D is a bad word for adjectives... I googled "adjectives that start with D" and I got winners like - dumb, depressed, dismal, and dirty..... awesome.

I picked delightful for my students because they are obsessed with me and they ask if I will be their mom all the time. I picked determined for my friends because I can be a liiiiiiiiittle bit stubborn. :) And I picked distracted for my family because whenever I have something to do at home, such as laundry, I can find SO MANY more interesting things to do! Amazing!!

I am so excited to read your Currently! Go link up!!

I almost forgot to give a big shout-out to my Illinois peeps who are starting ISAT testing this week!!! You go girls!!!