Sunshine Plus Storms Equals More Freebies

When you live in the South, you never know exactly what to expect from day to day when it comes to weather.  In one week, you can have a sunny day, snow day, fog day, and then, when you least expect it, before you've even hit February, you can have a tornado day.  I'm sure you didn't figure it out, but today was that day.  The picture to the right is to give you an idea of what our day looked like.  It's a screenshot from EarthSky.org of all the storms we had earlier today.  You see all of that white? Well, it got up close and personal with my state today.

This morning, within ten minutes of our day starting, we landed in our hallway.  The kids were great, but my stomach was flipping and flopping.  I have hated bad weather since I was a kid.  A teacher suggested we read books, so that's exactly what I did.  I went and got a couple of cute books and read to three of the classes while their backs were up against the wall.  It had never occurred to me to do that before, but I have a feeling for the rest of my career, I will always grab a couple of books when we have to move to the hallway.  Oh, and of course, it's to calm the kids... not me, how could you think that?  Yeah, right!

After that, the day seemed to drag on... and on... and on... and on.  When we first went back to our room, my kiddos definitely had a difficult time settling in, but by 10:00, we were good to go for the rest of the day.  Well, actually, they were good to go.  I was checking weather.com and Weather Bug every ten minutes.  We fully expected that we would be going back into the hallway.  At the end of the day, we were doing our typical routine - Daily 5.  I had also turned on some music to make them feel a little more at ease.  It definitely seemed to drown out the wind, rain, and little bit of thunder we were hearing outside.  Around this time, the decision was made that we wouldn't be dismissing on time.  I can honestly say, I have been teaching for eleven years and I've never had that happen.  I've also never been so thankful that they let us hold onto our kiddos.  We were under a severe thunderstorm warning and the idea of sticking them into a metal bus just didn't seem to be the greatest idea.  So, around an hour later, we took our kiddos up front and loaded them up onto their buses.  By the time the last child was loaded, our principal and assistant principal looked like they jumped in a lake.  They were my heroes because thanks to them, I was nice and dry!

Now, outside of the mega bad weather, I also have a little exciting news.  We had our annual Teacher of the Year announcement.  Well, my sweet teammate won!  She's going to kill me for telling my blogging friends, but I just had to tell you guys!  I have a great little sister, but Alicia is like my little sister at school.  We are so much alike it's a miracle that we can stand each other, but we get along great!  She also is the reason that I make you guys a lot of freebies.  She knows our standards backwards and forwards and has this sixth sense about what I should make next.  Every time I listen to her, it definitely pays off!  So, I had to brag!!!!  I am extremely proud of my teammate and although I'm excited, I'm not surprised at all.  I have the best team in the universe and they are definitely a part of my family!

Okay, so now that I got my "Proud teammate" moment out the way, I have two new freebies.  I know I kind of keep overloading you guys with lots of new stuff, but I guess I just want you to know what I'm about.  Hopefully, this weekend I will get a few new packets created.  I seem to always have BIG plans, but creating freebies is so quick, I just can't resist.  Now that I'm going in ten different directions and babbling, I need to wrap up.  My freebie pictures are below.  If you like them, click on them, and it will take you to them so you can download.

Hope you enjoy them and see you tomorrow.  Oh, last thing - if you have any ideas of what you want to see me create, leave me a comment below.  I try to stick to things between K-2.  I'll pick one item and make it as my surprise freebie tomorrow.  So, remember to comment!