December Currently

Tomorrow, very special holiday visitor will be coming to my class, but before I run up to my school to prepare for his arrival, I wanted to share this month's Currently:

I used my new Maggie font for this month's Currently. If you like it, you can grab it here!

Oh, pop music. I love it. All of it. I grew up with the likes of Britney and Nsync, can you blame me? Every time I hear a song I like on the radio, I Shazaam it on my phone and then add it to a pop music playlist on YouTube. I also recently bought Taylor Swift's new album because one of my students picked DJ for a Day for her reward, and she brought the CD to class and I immediately fell in love (my favorite tracks are I Knew You Were Trouble and 22).

Part of the reason I love doing these every month is because it's nice to have these to look back on and see what was going on in my life each month. This month in particular I am loving (no, LOVING!) the fact that my mom got a new job and will be moving to Houston in just a few weeks. When I graduated from college in 2007, my mom was offered a job that took her to Africa (Algeria, to be specific), and after about a year and a half there, she moved to Beijing, China. Then, when my grandmother's mental health began to decline, my mom moved back to the states to live closer to her mom in North Carolina. So, for nearly six years, I haven't lived in the same state as my mom, so I am over the moon excited for her return to Texas. She will be moving here during my last week of school, so the timing couldn't be better. I can't wait to have her be just a few hours away!

I have no idea what to get my boyfriend for Christmas! What do you get for a guy who says he doesn't need or want anything? I'm open to suggestions!

I'm sure I'm not alone in needing more sleep. This past week, specifically, however, I couldn't seem to fall asleep before midnight, and because of that, I developed a nasty twitch in my right eye. I could feel it flare up every now and then, but I didn't realize other people could SEE it until one of the kids in my guided reading groups said something about it! He tried to be so polite about it, too, but you could tell he was kinda freaked out that my eye was going crazy! My boyfriend has a Temper-Pedic pillow and I love it, so I'm thinking I should get one of those to help me sleep.

Last weekend, I decided to bite the bullet and buy myself a new MacBook. My old MacBook laptop is five years old and doesn't do what I need it to anymore, so even though I'll be pinching pennies for awhile to pay for the new one, it has been SO nice to have a computer that works well again! Now I just need some time to transfer everything from my old computer to my new one.

My RAK is from last week - one of my teammates had a terrible day (like the kind where you just want to quit your job right then and there), so to cheer him up, another teacher and I blasted some uplifting music in the third grade hallway to let him know he's our hero and that we love him. During Red Ribbon Week last month, my third grade team and I all wore shirts with each others' pictures on them to show we were each others' heroes, so that's why we played the hero music for him after his bad day!

Me (on the left) and my third grade team with our hero shirts.

Our third graders got a kick out of us dancing and lip syncing to the music in the hall. It was a fun way to start the day!

Another fun way to start the day is by doing this:

That's our assistant principal, me, our principal, and librarian doing the chicken dance in front of 500+ students, teachers, and parents at our awards assembly on Friday. Because at my school, we work hard, play hard, and dance hard, too.

Have a great week, friends!