Oh Where Oh Where Did the Summer Go??

Oh my it has been too long since I have posted on here! But as they say, I'm back, and hoping to get this baby off the ground and running! Of course, since it is almost August, the new school anxiety is beginning to set in, with restless nights and preoccupied thoughts. It's like my mind and body get taken over by some supreme force. Right? How many of you have those same crazy thoughts? To add to my tension, I have been teaching summer school for the last two weeks, and with two weeks to go, I am really beginning to feel the tension. I seem to almost feel resentful of this time lost, even though I cheerfully signed up to teach it in June. Well, sort of cheerful...anyway as summer dwendles to an end, I hope to finish up all those summer projects and spend more me time just doing nothing before the rush of a new school year begins. Heres hoping you will find time to rest and rejuvenate too, take care of yourself before the onslaught of little creatures invade your day!
Blessings, Denise

Another New School year

Hard to believe its that time again. Each year brings so many new challenges and opportunities. It seems teaching gets harder all the time, and not just because our students have more behavioral needs. That's difficult enough granted,  but school administrators seem more out of touch than ever before. Testing results drive everything..including common sense. As a special educator I see the fear in the general education teachers faces and it makes me feel sad for what they are being asked to do. Does anyone remember when each new year brought excitement and joy to these teachers as they embarked upon another year of teaching their beloved students? Creativity, the arts,  in some places recess...things of the past. Our teachers are subjected to evaluations that will include 40% of student testing results with, and this is really crazy, not only their own students, but second language students who only receive 1/2 day of instruction from them, but also special education students who receive ZERO instruction from them! My thoughts and prayers go out to them as they begin this school year. I hope the general public will realize what is on the line here....and carefully choose their administrators in the future.

Oh no, we will be going to school until July!

Another school snow day. We officially have hit 100 inches in our area, so settle in and keep warm. I just finished reading Erica's Ed-Ventures post on getting started on TPT. Thank-you Erica for you expertise and time to help out us newbies in the TPT world. So helpful. It is I.E.P. time for me so today I will finish up my I.E.P's-that a relief!

Getting my room ready, finally!

Oh my, so much to do. I am FINALLY able to get into my room after waxing floors, etc. so I will be posting some pictures soon of the transformation. Stay tuned....

Finding Balance and Inspiration and a Cool App too!

Hello friends...and welcome to my little blog!
As a newbie to the blogging world I am constantly amazed at the talent of fellow teachers, and a little intimidated too. So, this morning I was doing my normal routine..you know, coffee(lots of it!), and enjoying my daily bloglovin posts. I came across the amazing Charity Preston from TBTS. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have learned from her and TBTS about blogging! Slow and steady progress, but progress none the less for me. This time of the year is crazy; getting ready for school and having so many ideas for the classroom, and finding time to blog is hard. Balance in our lives is essential to being healthy and happy. I'm sure all of you are saying "really who has time for balance"? From Charities post I found a post about keeping balance in your life so you don't become an overwhelmed blogger (Well, that's really not me yet since I've been trying to find some inspiration to post- on second thought that is me!). I decided to create a blogging schedule, just to give me some structure because I work best that way. And, since inspiration is the key to a good post, I am carrying around a notebook with me to jot down any ideas that might pop into my head. Does anyone else do that? What inspires you as a blogger? How do you find the time to do it all? I found a cool app called Hootsuite, some of you may already be using it, but it helps to manage all your Social Media sites, and you can sign up for free! Personally, since I am in the beginning stages of setting up Social Media profiles I don't need it yet, but I plan on hooking up with it soon. Thanks for reading my post , and I hope you will come back often!

And Away We Go...

"Children already come to us differentiated, it just makes sense we would differentiate our instruction in response to them." I love this quote from Carol Tomlinson! This blog has been an idea in my head forever, so I am excited to finally get it off the ground. First of all, many thanks to the talented Megan from A Bird in Hand, and I Teach, What's Your Superpower? She was so patient with me and I love this blog design! Anywhoo, I have been teaching special education for many years and I frequently get asked how to adapt classroom materials and instruction to meet the needs of struggling learners. As you all know, students with I.E.P.'s are spending more and more time in the general education classroom, sometimes with support, many times without any support. General education teachers are left with the responsibility of educating students with diverse backgrounds and abilities. That's where I hope the Differentiated to the Core site will be a place educators can come to get ideas and share successes. I plan to post ideas on differentiating core objectives, and be a resource that teachers can turn to for support. I'm sure along the way I will learn a ton from all of you too....there are so many incredibly talented teachers out there! I believe that by sharing our resources and supporting each other we can bring exciting, meaningful learning to our students and classrooms. I hope you will visit Differentiated to the Core often, taking with you practical, easy strategies that you can use in your classroom everyday!