Old-Fashioned Paper Chain

It has started. The countdown to the TAKS. I always have girls wanting to help me with things and today when I didn't have anything for them, I got a brilliant idea: make a paperchain!!! I know it's old-fashioned, but it's still just as much fun!!! So there it is, our class paper chain. There are 33 school days until math TAKS! Ah!!!

But like so many of my Blog Titles, this old-fashion trend is about a lot more than just our TAKS paper chain. I have made a discovery about myself and my teaching style: I am an old-fashioned teacher with new, modern tendencies. I have no idea if that sentence makes any sense, but I'm not really worried about it. The first thing my mom said to me before the school year was, "Mollie, this is the era of entitlement." Well, you're not entitled to anything. I've also learned I am not an enabler. I am not going to just hand you the answers because you get "special services." You still have to put work and effort into earning your grade. My one goal for this year was to just make it without stepping on any toes, and I don't know if I can do that anymore. I'm much more fed up with the special services department and the "help" that they're giving. I know I can't fix everything, and I'm honestly not trying to; I just want the kids to be successful. If we hand everything to them now, how are we preparing them for the future?

Onto happier topics: I've had my bridesmaid flowers in my room since my best friend's wedding in July and I took a picture with just my little camera phone and I love it. They were ivory roses that dried into an awesome rustic color. This picture is not in sepia tones or anything, just normal color. They are right by my bed and are a good reminder to see everyday when I come home after one of those more difficult days at school.

This paragraph is going to be anything BUT old-fashioned. One night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to write a song about area to Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never." The next day I went to Waco and sang my song for my cousins; they loved it. So obviously our next step was to make a music video!! It was so much fun to make and my kids have absolutely loved it. I haven't even played it for my on-level kids and they came in already knowing every word! Hopefully that makes our area unit that much easier! Area, area, area, area -a -a -a

Enjoy: Never Say Never: Area Remix

The last old-fashioned I'm going to talk about is my kind of old-fashioned. I love looking at pictures of my sisters and I growing up and the other night I came across a good one. Right before this picture, there was one where we were holding up our Easter presents. Hannah and Caroline were holding up candy; I was holding up a book on patterns. Go Math Nerds!!



I'm 7, Hannah - 5, Caroline - 3