Mrs. Grisham's Christmas Vacation and the best Student Gifts Ever!

Hello everyone!!

This first week back from break sure has flow by. I have 3 meetings this week, yes THREE!! Who does that the first week back from break?! Thankfully I work for an amazing school district that pays us extra for all those extra, after-school meetings so I don't mind too much :)

I have a great New Year Resolution Writing/Craft FREEBIE that I will share tomorrow because of course I left my flash-drive at school, bummer. My plan was to share that today, but seeing as I don't have the file, I will share about the adorable gifts I got my from kiddos and my vacation instead!! I also have a fun gingerbread unit I'm working on with my kiddos that I hope to share soon but back to the gifts and vacation!

We rarely see my husband's family (they almost all live out of state), but once every few years everyone flies in from various parts of the country to gather at grandma's house and spend a week together. We spent 12 hours driving to grandma's house and the trip was great! It was BEAUTIFUL!! While it was weird to experience Christmas without cold weather, a little vacay in the sun was nice! My body loved that vitamin D! We were able to have lots of family time, go hiking, explore the beach, wine tasting, and we even saw the magical musical "Into the Woods". Such a great trip! After 5 days we were ready to go home, but of course we missed everyone the second we left.

Before we left for vacation, I had a Christmas party with my class where we watched Frosty the Snowman and ate candy canes, yum!! My sweet class brought me the best gifts ever! I worked at a private school for 5 years and while we didn't get many student gifts, they were often expensive, nice gifts their mother had picked out. While I sure loved those Philosophy gift bags, the students often had no clue about the gift and there wasn't a ton of love behind them. 

These public school kiddos are so different and I love it!! While the gifts are not extravagant at all, I can tell that the students actually took the time and thought about me. I love that they care about me as a person just like I care about them. I wanted to share a few of my favorites this year because they are just so adorable. I sure felt loved when I received these gifts!!

This was a Thanksgiving gift but I still love the heart behind it! Granola bars with a note about how awesome I am in addition to all the "teaching and learning" ( This inspires some new writing mini-lessons)

Half used gel pens, some colored paper, and a candle tin with the candle already melted away (I'm actually going to put paper clips in this tin, I love the pattern!)

A "teacher" pen that was being sold in the student store for $0.50 with a lovely hand drawing of an ornament.

Here is some others from mostly students and a few co-worker gifts. Just love it!!

I of course gave all my kiddos a little something too. Candy canes, a fun Christmas pencil, and a free book certificate to Scholastic!! Usually I actually order books for them, but I was a bit behind this year with that schedule so coupons it was!

I'd love to hear about your vacation or your favorite student gifts; comment below! Happy Holidays!!

Goodbye First Grade!!

I love, love, love 2nd grade. Those 2nd graders are still cute and little enough to satisfy my need for adorableness, but they are old enough to tackle some real deep content. They start reading chapter books but still like to color. They're starting to figure out who they really are, but still like to read to a stuffed animal. For me, this age is the perfect mix of big kid/little kid qualities and I love it because that's how I feel like when I watch Frozen (a kids movie) while drinking a beer (a grown-up drink) The best of both worlds.


I student taught in 2nd grade and my DREAM was to teach 2nd grade in public school, helping kids who really need it. Well, I graduated college in 2008 and around here in Washington, as I'm sure it was in other parts of the country, teaching gigs were hard to come by. Funding was cut. Teachers who had been teaching for 5 or 6 years were getting laid off so a newbie teacher like me really didn't have a chance. I took the next best thing, a job at a private school.

I taught a 2nd/3rd split there for 5 years and enjoyed it. We did fun projects and the kids were really great. It was not where my heart was though. We had small class sizes, like too small. 7 or 8 kids small. It took on the feeling of a home-school group which was what the families of the school wanted, but I didn't feel fulfilled there or that I was where I was supposed to be.

About 6 months ago the DREAM ball started rolling and I took a job as a 1st grade intervention teacher in public school. I felt like I was at the right place. Our school is 80% free and reduced lunch, lots of ELL kids, and exactly where I felt like I was needed and could make a difference. The place was right. The position? Not so much. Intervention and Special Education teachers have a special place in my heart because classroom teachers really rely on them for support and it takes a certain sort of teacher to be a stellar special education teacher, however I am not that sort teacher for a myriad of reasons I will not go into here. But I did my best, made academic gains with the kids (yay!) and then took a job in the same school as a 1st grade teacher for next year.

I was stoked!! While 1st grade wasn't my favorite, I finally was a public school, classroom teacher, yay!! I moved all my stuff into the 1st grade room and started getting ready. There were rumors of 2nd grade teacher planning to retire the next year so I had a master plan. I would teach my little heart out to these firsties this year and then gain enough admiration from administration to move up to 2nd next year when she retired. Well, the universe had other things in store for me!!

I was the lone teacher working one day. Our fabulous principal let me in the front door (teachers in my district don't get keys to the building which I find frustrating, but I digress). She mentioned that the 2nd grade teacher decided to retire THIS year and that maybe she should send out an email to everyone seeing if anyone wanted to move grades before she posted the job opening. Oh man!! My little heart jumped. I told her I'd LOVE to take it. It's my favorite grade, blah, blah, blah. She said okay. Yay!!

I also got the choice of staying the room I had already moved into or moving into the 2nd grade room. I really loved the other room better than the one I currently have so I accepted moving too!! My custodian thought I was crazy because, well, I just moved into this room and perhaps I am a bit crazy, but I also am a bit of perfectionist and would much rather spend extra energy making my space feel right than accepting a less than perfect situation.

So. . . now I'm working on 2nd grade math games (my favorite!) and waiting to get the okay from our principal that the retiring teacher is moved out and I can move it. Yay for 2nd grade, finally!!

Now I'm trying to find the best 2nd grade teachers out there so I can follow their blog and keep growing. My absolute favorite so far is Amy Lemons!! I love all her teaching ideas AND I love hearing about her adorable little girl. I'd love anymore suggestions for amazing second grade teacher bloggers!

I'll end with a hilarious post from BuzzFeed: First Grade Problems. Hilarious!!

First Grade Problems