Haricots Vert with Herb Butter

I love green beans, ok let me clarify I love fresh green beans, more so french green beans because they are longer and skinnier, which that are cooked in a delightful or interesting way and please if I ask you to bring green beans do not bring something out of a can or that awful awful casserole that may be nice for you for a midweek dinner but Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter please take the time to act like you have some class and not serve that disgusting goopy mess.

I found this awesome recipe over at Epicurious for Haricots Vert with Herb Butter and for anyone else like me thought it would be nice to share as another option typical fresh cooked green beans and it sounds fancy but is super easy.

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons finely chopped tarragon
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 lb haricots verts or other green beans, trimmed (trimming can be done up to a day ahead of time)

Preparation:

Stir together all ingredients except haricots verts with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a large bowl until combined well.

Cook beans in a large pot of boiling salted water (1 tablespoon salt for 6 quarts water), uncovered, until crisp-tender, about 6 minutes, then drain. Toss with herb butter.

Honestly these are great as they are but I always like to add my twist so some as in a light sprinkle of fresh grated parmesan and slivered almonds makes it a little more special when served.


Notes: 

You can make the herb butter ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze there are plenty of recipes for herb butter and you can always make what appeals to you. For a cute gift you can line a Pampered Chef Scalloped Tube Pan with plastic wrap and fill with a room temperature herb butter, cool until solid and then pop it out and rewrap with new plastic wrap (just to make it pretty) and give the butter and a nice loaf of homemade or artisan bead.

Kisses Ashley

Re-purposing

Does your school collect Box Tops for Education or any other labels?

Mine does and last year I had students bringing in one, two, or a ziplock bag full of the labels to my desk where they would then get set aside in a bigger ziplock bag in my file cabinet. I had forgotten to turn them in for our school until the last week of school. So this year I have a new system that I can see daily and when our awesome TA comes to collect them I have the labels handy and can just dump them in a ziplock bag with M. Jones on it for them to know who to bring my bag back to! :)

I started with TWO Cool whip contatiners

220 Grit Sand paper

Left over chalkboard spray paint from another project.

Chalk

TIME

Razor blade

cutting board

First you have to eat the cool whip :P  Next you wash and let them dry really good. After they are dry you have to sand the Cool Whip containers to take off the shine so the paint will stick.  It says let the paint dry 24hrs. Then the next day I did coat 2. Today I day 3.  I followed the directions to rub chalk all over the painted items then wipe off. Next begin writing.  I used and razor blade and cutting board to cut the slots in the lids.

~Mary

I made TWO so I can leave one on the counter at home and one at school! :)

~Mary

More Anchor charts

It is always helpful to have charts to give the students a constant picture of how to do things and in what order.  So this is another for Math because honestly some of the students have a very hard time with subtraction.

Along with Math we learn about Geography in our Social Studies so here is the S.S. anchor chart.

As a disclaimer... even teachers really are human.. so yes.... Desert has a whited-out S because I had DESSERT my mind and was writing and drawing and coloring my heart out.  Once I finished up completely with this chart I went to take the picture and was like "NO desert is spelled wrong," and after finishing it I sure didn't want to start all over so there is a mistake. We all make them! 

Both of these are from PINTEREST .. they are not my original ideas. :D

~Mary

Behavior Can Change :)

Last year(2012-2013) the 1st grade team tried to have a better solution to behavior management.  

When we were teaching in Kindergarten(2012-2013) we had themes; such as Apples on a tree. It worked where as the students get in trouble they went up to the bulletin board with the Apple Tree and move their apple down. They can move from the tree to 3 different buckets; yellow, orange then red.  I had Sail boats in the water that sank to different levels and another teacher used Monkeys dropping from the tree.  The down fall was students couldn't redeem themselves if they got in trouble and therefore their moods and listening went DOWN the drain for the day.. sometimes even the rest of the week!  Which I'm sure fellow teachers and parents know how hard it is to keep them behaving once they set out for a bad mood.

WE came up with a new behavior chart and have it utilizing our schools Leadership language to encourage the students to turn their day around.

I've seen it many times on Pinterest and we came up with our own.

Last year mine was on cute scrap book paper and printed the headers on them. Then we made them into a behavior continuum.

THIS year I made it solid COLORS! :D  Making it so much easier for the Open House nights, parents can see it and not have to remember the polka dots, strips, sunset area or mutli-shape area on the behavior chart.  I've seen this behavior chart be extremely effective because some students would start out in the middle on Ready to learn and move downwards then completely redeem themselves to the very top! This is also a visual for those who struggle and the next day they come in and make progress.

OHH I'm sure you are wondering what I use to move the students up and down with!??? Well Once this is laminated and hole punched at the top it will hang in my class room with a clothes pin with each students name on one. They all begin in the Middle on green and can go up or down.  I promise in 1st grade this works, I've also seen it in 2nd and yet again in the Kindergarten classes last year!

ENJOY! :)
~Mary

Common Core the new curriculum

As we were given a new curriculum last year we had to adapt and figure out ways to still teach to our fullest potential and at the same time meet our expectations for our Evaluations during observations. Part of our goals are to teach the content and be held responsible for the material to be taught... What better way than to display the objectives for the lessons daily and be responsible for teaching them.  This can be used to help remind yourself to ask at the end of the day "What did you learn about.....?"   

First I bought 6 frames from the Dollar store! :)

Next I opened a word document and found cute prints on Google Images.

Open the image, copy and paste into your document.

If it has goofy edges crop them out in the Picture format tab.

I made my margins 0" YES IT WILL LET YOU I promise! It works.

You can then easily click on the circles of the image on the edges and drag to fit the page.

Next I went to Insert.. and then clicked Text box (Draw NEW text box)

Drew and sized it to what I wanted and typed away!

I did this for each one and just changed the back ground simply by clicking on it delete button then copy and paste the new image and repeated above steps. 

I hope this year I will be able to truly hit all the objective the students are to learn :)

~Mary

What does a teacher do during summer break ? :)

I won't lie there were days where I would sleep until 9:30 or 10am some days, but honestly it is well deserved. Many people think I work 8:00am to 3:15pm which is very true.. That is when I have students in my presence to be taught and nurtured and taken care of. 

However what many people don't know is that teachers usually arrive to school 30 to 45 minutes before students come in and stay up to almost 2 and a half hours after they leave.  There are days I get to school at 7:00 am and stay until 5:00 or 5:30 depending on what time they Janitors are locking up for the day if one is out it is usually 5:00pm.  No it is not everyday, but more than some people think.

 What isn't seen is the binders being brought home, the books to utilize for lesson planning next week, or the following weeks to come. People don't see all the behind the scene work. I read a blog earlier today calling teachers stage performers and this blog hits the nail right on the head! Jennie's Blog  IT IS A MUST READ!  I read it and was thinking the entire time.. this is truly how it is!  

So many people are like you have a great job you get the summer off.... and yes I do love that. I choose this career because I love teaching, I love children, I love seeing their face light up when they GET IT! I love being able to show a student they are smarter than they may believe and if they try and do their best it will get them far in life. I want students to love learning and being able to enjoy school. I have always loved school and no I wasn't stereotyped as a NERD I just put forth my best and loved learning. I have wanted to teach since I was in Kindergarten and the love of wanting to do it kept growing. I did figure in that one day I would have my own kids and want to be home in the summer with them so that is a plus! <3   

I like to be crafty and creative. There have  been times while my students were working on projects  that I would draw up Anchor charts for my class and my teammates liked them enough that I made my team hand drawn copies this summer and myself new ones. Seeing as I wanted them laminated and most industrial laminating machines in town only laminate up to 24inches in width I had to redo a set for myself since my originals were 27inches because I couldn't live with cutting them in half and having a seem.

SOOOOOO here's the big secret of what teachers do in the summer. WE make, buy and come up with things and ways to have a better school year than the last, we try to make it more child friendly, stimulating and educational!

This is one I did just for myself because I had some students who thought they couldn't write and they could. I like it because it shows spelling errors in the process as a way of sounding out words to let them know they can spell it wrong and I will still be happy they tried their best!

The following are ones that I made 4 of each one so my teammates and myself would have :)

In first grade we learn about plants and part of that is the learning what you can an cannot eat!

Math can be hard for some so here are some different ways to show students how they can do math!

This one is very clear. I feel like if they know what the purpose is of writing they will be more enticed to want to write to share with they classmates and myself.

Have you ever had those students who just truly not put forth any effort when it comes to drawing and adding detail? Well this is my new problem solver. If they don't have all the components by the time it is turned in I will ask them to go back and fix it. Pictures can make or break their work I just want them to see they can be so creative if they just add little pieces here and there.

This is a big one for Kindergarten and 1st grade they learn it in both grades, but I love this visual. If they are unsure I ask them to go show me what sound they think it is or which strategy they need to try. I love this as part of morning calendar time because if they see and hear it everyday eventually it will start to click!

Teachers buy things for school in the summer. The brown bags are full of poster runners that follow our curriculum, stamps, ink pads, stickers, crayon boxes, boarders, and many other supplies to be used over the course of the year.... Plus why not buy it on discount at the Teacher store that's going out of business and shutting its doors. It was discounted and then additionally 35% discounted! :D  HAPPY TEACHERS!

Bringing home work for Summer!

Over the year with a new curriculum, in a new grade it was a challenge of being organized, however I thank myself for putting extra worksheet copies in a file folder according to subject and as a normal organized person would the beginning of the year in the front and adding to the back of each folder daily!  This helped tremendously when it came to hole punching and binders for the subjects. I had a folder for each subject for the 1st and 2nd nine weeks combined, then for the 3rd and 4th they were separate.  In the end I feel like I put them in somewhat of an order from August to June :)

The Lovely stack of organized Chaos!

One binder down and Joshua asked what I was up to... I felt a picture would suffice :)

Literally after sitting at the counter from 8am until about 3 only stopping long enough to eat my lunch.... I was organized!

The next day I printed up cute little covers to slip in my binders.  

Hopefully these hours I felt were well spent will pay off this year and many years to come :)

Now for fun! :)   I made this at the beginning of the school year

... Last year. Hot gluing crayons on a canvas of your choice size then melting crayons with a blow dryer was ALL THE RAGE on Pinterest.  Daddy helped we laid the crayons out on the canvas as I wanted to make sure they were equally placed in a chevron format then put clear packing tape across the crayons to pick them up. We rolled them up like a round of machine gun bullets it should work right??  YES It did thankfully. It was a wonderful way to unroll it back out as we put down the hot glue. Then with the hair dryer in hand I melted away. Lastly adding all the cute craft paint on the top and a picture.  I used two hunting dog collar magnets to hold the picture on so if I ever choose to take it off or change it the task would be simple and no holes in the canvas.

WELL  this school year it didn't have a real home in my classroom it was moved from place to place wherever it would hang or sit still and took some abuse. Unfortunately the crayons came off  and it looked neat, but I need a change. Pinterest had already caught my eye once again.

To re purpose this canvas would have been a pain so I pulled out the staples and used the frame.

A few years back at our local fabric store Hancock, I had bought some pretty striped heavier duty fabric in the remnants section for about $1.50yd compared to the original price because of $4 or $5 a yard and there was roughly 2yards of fabric. It was a smaller panel, but I had to have it and knew I could use it one day on SOMETHING.. just had to wait it out and it would come to me!

Pinterest inspiration!

I forgot to take the plain frame, cutting fabric, ironing and then stapling however it wasn't difficult.

If you look carefully you see my printed pinterest inspiration above my board ;)

Next I decided what colors I wanted to use(oh wait those are the only colors I had ). So I started out and just went with it.

Then I went back and did the fabric paint again on the "In Our Class We do"  and the first letter of each word to make it POP.

I even added some of the cute pictures from the pinterest version.

Lastly after my venture into town today I had grabbed some glitter glue and added a hint of some color to the already bright colorful fabric. Hopefully they students will love this and follow it as much I would like them to. 

"In Our Class We do... please, thank yous, kindness, honest, compliments, May I?, clean & tidy, raise your hand, happy, it's okay, quiet (as a mouse), hugs and healthy"

I feel that this will  be some good over all rules to follow as well as the traditional being a Leader with our Sean Covey Leadership School Theme program: Seven habits of a Highly Effective Leader.

Leaving you with one last blog to read, I may not be considered as Godly as the Lady in the blog I'm posting  and the way she ends it, but it is her blog and right to do so.  I do pray in my own way and my own time, I care about each child in my class deeply and the situations they face whether they tell me or not I can see worry, fear, anxiety and all other emotions on their face and I know it may not be my business, however I still hope and pray that they go home to safe, warm houses, with food and a place to sleep and comfort where they are. I have my beliefs and everyone else has their own, I will not push mine on anyone they are mine and mine alone, HOWEVER the rest of this woman's blog touches me deeply how true it is. No I don't have my own children yet, but one day I will and one day I will spend more time with everyone else's children than my own while I am at work during the week, but it's a choice I made to become a teacher to help better the minds of those who pass through my classroom.

Our Purse foots the BILL

Until more crafts are created :)

 ~ Mary

Manicotti with a twist

Looking for something to cook one night I seen we had Manicotti noodles, hamburger and prego sauce; however we didn't have the traditional cheeses: ricotta and mozzarella.  SO time to invent!

I had in the fridge:

Cabots habanero block cheese

Sharp cheddar cheese

celery

onion

tomato

 So I cooked up the hamburger until it was nice and brown then drained it.

I added roughly 1 cup each of celery, onion, tomato. 

Then salt, pepper and some garlic seasoning to taste. 

Once the onion and celery were translucent I added roughly 1/2 cup of each cheese!

WE LOVE CHEESE! 

I cooked the shells as called for then stuffed them with my mixture, poured over the prego sauce and baked up it was all heated thoroughly. 

~Mary

A new type of loaded baked potato

I was on Pinterest...while running on my new elliptical I bought to lose weight... and found an amazing recipe.  Sounds counter productive doesn't it?  Well anyways a few nights later I wanted to try these wonderful potatoes out so I set out on an adventure to the store and bought the following:

Medium sized golden yukon potatoes

block of cheddar cheese

sour cream

stick butter

bacon bits

we already had the following at home:

salt 

pepper

olive oil 

So for starters you wash up your potatoes like you normally would.

Then you lay two wooden spoons on your cutting board so you can put a potato between them.

The spoons will keep you from cutting all the way thru the potato.

Once you make cuts about 1/4in apart from end to end on each potato you then slice up your cheese and butter into thin slices.  You will then alternate the cheese and butter in the slice you cut on the potatoes. Next drizzle with oil then sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake for 1 hour to 1.5 hours on 350* in a glass pan. (I've had a problem with taking them out and still being firm :/   adjust time as needed)  IF you have a pan that has drainage use it they get greasy!

Once they are cooked take them out top with sour cream, bacon and shredded cheese then put back in to melt the cheese.

 ENJOY!

~Mary

Yummy Goodness

Homemade Falafel and mint tea like heaven in your mouth