menu   Home About Me Contact Me  

Confessions of a Teacher

I'm linking up with Rowdy in First Grade for some teacher confessions.


1.  I'm secretly thankful that my daughter was sick and I needed to stay home with her today.  Does this make me a bad mother?

2.  Although giving the 27-page end-of-the-year math test is PAINFUL with my students, I'm relieved that I don't have to plan for math for at least a week.

3.  I've written an entire IEP the day of the meeting.  Maybe several times....

4.  I hate home projects and have done several of my own kids this year just to get them over with.

5.  I am seriously burned out right now.  Teaching, blogging, and TpT have become a huge chore that I just don't want to tackle right now.

6.  I cancelled our weekly fluency and spelling this week due to end-of-the-year testing and that made me super happy.

7.  I actually despise assigning, collecting, and checking homework.  I'm constantly debating whether homework is useful or not.

8.  I started the end-of-the-year countdown two months ago.  16 teaching days left!

9.  It's really sad how one person can completely make a job miserable.  :(

10.  Reading to my students is one of my favorite parts of the day.

Organizing Student Work for Portfolios

Hi everyone!  I'm super excited to link up for another Bright Ideas Blog Hop!  I love getting new ideas that make teaching easier.


Since I teach special education students, I need to keep student work to show how students are or are not progressing.  I've tried different ways to organize all their work for their student portfolios.  For a long time, I used 3-ring binders.  But they're bulky and honestly sometimes I don't want the work 3-hole punched.

I finally found this super easy (why didn't I think of it before) system just using a simple crate from Target.


For each student, I use 4 cheap folders.  One has their name on it and includes personal information like copies of their IEPs, their last IEP progress report, their contact information, and other random papers.  I make a folder for each area that I'm keeping data.  For me, that is reading, writing, and math.


This makes keeping work super easy and makes filing for each student super fast.  Once a quarter is complete, I take all of the work our and put it in a folder labeled __ quarter.  What I also like about this system is that it's super easy to change out if you have students who move or come in.  Since only one folder has the student's name on it, I can either white out the name and reuse it or throw it out.

There you go!  It's not genius by any means but I wish I had thought of it a few years ago.

Next up, you'll want to hop on over to Amanda from Around the Kampfire's blog to see how she makes the most of anchor charts in her classroom.


Public Service Announcement: Teacher Hoarders

I've taught in a few schools in a few different states (thanks Marine Corps!).  One thing I've noticed is that some teacher are HOARDERS!!  Oh man, do some teachers like to hold onto things for a long, long time.

I was just offered a 2nd grade SPED resource position, so I'm back full time again.  There might be only a few months left in the year, but I can't stand a cluttered classroom.  I've been slowly going through things and throwing junk away.  I'm pretty sure the custodian hates me already!  

So far I've found some interesting things.

This play dough with MOLD on it might be the most surprising thing yet!  Yikes!  How long does it take for play dough to grow mold?  Scary!

A rice cooker and a toaster oven is something you don't see in a classroom everyday.

This blast from the past that I found last year was pretty awesome though!  Man, I loved He-Man as a kid!  Too bad there wasn't a SheRa book though.

I also found some pretty outdated curriculum.  Do we need to keep work books that are almost 20 years old?  

And oh man the worksheets.  Tons and tons and tons of worksheets.  I'm sure there was good intent to use these worksheets, but it just didn't work out.  Please, recycle that paper!  And I have one word of advice to leaving, transferring, retiring teachers.  Throw the worksheets away.  I know you mean well but most teachers don't have time to dig through old worksheets and see what's useable.  Most of us will find our own thing that fits our teaching style anyway.

If you think you might be a teacher hoarder, look around your room and think about what you can throw away or donate.  I've only made a small dent in cleaning out my new room, but I will get it done!  I don't know if I should be scared or excited about the possible finds that are lurking in my 4 floor-to-ceiling cabinets!

LinkWithin