A Tip from Us to You - Shoes It Wisely (Hee hee)

Ok, let's get real here ... what's the number one skill that a first grade teacher needs to have? If you teach in lower elementary this is a no-brainer - you need to be a world-class shoelace tier. In fact, we should probably start being a little more hard hitting in our teacher interviews. "Oh, you have a masters in education. That's nice but can you tie teeny tiny shoes all day every day? Can you undo partially tied double-knot shoelaces with the utmost patience and care? Yes? You're in!"

One day while visiting the LAND OF BRILLIANT IDEAS AND LOST HOURS (aka Pinterest), KH was collecting ideas about exercising instead of just getting off her rump and actually exercising when she came across a post about a way to double-knot shoes that is as easy as 1-2-3 to undo. This elicited a quick double-take THEN an excited, "Say what?" THEN a rapid lemme try this out for myself. And, guess what??? It works and it's brilliant. So from us to you, here's how to tie double-knot laces that are easy to undo.

Gratefully borrowed from this website: http://www.organizinghomelife.com/archives/4123

Go forth and tie, our dear teaching friends. May your fingers be ever nimble and sure, and your students' shoes securely tied.

From the limb,

Levity from the Limb #3

Anybody feeling a little like this lately?

The other day KH was doing a Core Phonics asessment on a kiddo. When they were done, she asked the kid to get her the next person to be tested. It went a little something like this:

Ms. H: Excellent job, Student X. Could you please get me Ryan Reynolds? Thanks.

As the child happily went off, KH started thinking to herself, "Wait, did I just ask her to get me Ryan Reynolds?" As in ...

Yep, Ryan Reynolds. There's really nothing more to say after that except ...

WHY DIDN'T SHE ACTUALLY BRING ME RYAN REYNOLDS?!?!?

That's the only thing that would have saved the day.

From the limb,

Something Happened This Summer ... and It's Kinda a Big Deal

Oh, what? How's our summer going? Is that what you asked? Well, gee ... thanks for asking! Actually, something pretty exciting happened this summer for one of us and since you asked so nicely, we're going to tell you in comic form. You're welcome!

Kristie got married this summer!!!

Pretty exciting news, eh? So henceforth from this point forward, KB will cease to exist and KM or Mrs. M will be the moniker for Kristie on this blog. Now, KH just has to get used to calling her by her new last name, which is not going to be easy ... just sayin'!

From the limb,

Conference Week

We did 40 conferences ... 40 ... forty ... foooorrrrrty ... did you get that we did 40? In one week and 2 days, btw.

Now did we have to do 40? No. But, as with everything we do, we had some good reasons, okay!

1) We both are their teachers and we wanted to make a clear statement about that.
2) We both work with the children continuously throughout the day and we both had important things to share with the parents about their child and the growth they've made.
3) We wanted to meet and talk to all 80 of our parents since we haven't had the opportunity to have extended one-on-one conversations with most of them.

It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds. We split up the talking time and it was fun to do it together so the time went quickly. But don't get us wrong, we sure were happy to have a 3-day weekend. In fact, this is how we felt after our last conference on Friday:

Happy Veteran's Day! (P.S. Kristie judged me for color-coding this but doesn't it look more festive this way. So unpatriotic, tsk tsk!)

From the limb,

Just Saying

Our attempt at a Pinterest-inspired calm down jar, and can we just say....

Example                                        Ours

Don't be jealous of our glitter milk jar.  We WILL be trying this again.

From the limb,

Just Saying ...

Kristie bought a drum ... that is all.

From the limb,