Day 3 and 4 no power

Day 3 (Friday) after waking up in my bedroom with a balmy 45 degrees I had planned on going snowboarding an well the thought of sitting on a cold mountain when I was already cold didn't motivate me to go. I called PEPCO and they now have said power will be back by Sunday at 11pm. At that point i drove our fridge cooler over to a friends. The food wouldn't make it until Sunday in a cooler in our living room. So I pulled myself together for lunch with a friend at Clydes. Great burgers! Followed by a trip to my parents house to finish report cards. Yes I'm a slacker this quarter. Many thanks to all my friends who offered me a warm place to sleep! I ended up going to a friends in Arlington near where I had dinner plans. I can't possibly tell you how amazing a hot shower is after freezing for days. So I had a great night out, we got dinner at Harry's Tap Room and went out after to Clarendon Grill. I had great night with friends and a warm place to sleep!
Day 4 (Saturday)
Today I wanted to keep busy I drove to Ski Chalet to use a Groupon I bought months ago to get myself new ski poles to replace the poles I have had since 1994. lunch at the corner bakery which seemed to be a great hang out for families without power.




Then I got the greatest text message ever. "the power is back on!" Amazing!!! So I knew it would be cold and I was told not to rush home bc it would take time to warm up so I went to see No Strings Artached. Great movie if you are around age 21-40ish. So finally I'm back home the cooler in the bushes survived




And is now being put back in the freezer. Note the snow packed in the cooler and it worked to save the food! The heaters are finally blowing warm air and it looks and feels like this nightmare is over. Thanks for being my audience to vent to as I lived through this cold adventure.

- Lindsey

Will the cold end??

So were on day #4 with out power after the snow storm on Wednesday and I'm going crazy. I am writing this in two postings.
We have Been dug out since Thursday and even thought there might have been school on Friday thankfully it was canceled but living in a downtown urban area with all apartment buildings and not having power is Ridiculous!



So we survived by candle light the first night as the temperature began to drop in the apartment. I made the smart decision as did all the otter Bethesda powerless to hike to Rock Bottom Brewery which has generators for a little snow storm happy hour ! God bless you RB and your power. Thank god school was canceled wednesday so we werent out in the 3-9 hour commute home many of my friends have.




Thursday became our dig and survival mode day. The fridge an freezer started defrosting so Michelle and I dug out my car and drove to my parents for coolers. They had two big ones one for the contents of the fridge an one for the freezer. Now in any normal snowbound situation putting food in coolers makes sense then you stck them outside to stay cool on a deck or in a yard. Well this theory works if you don't live in a block of apartment buildings. So currently The contents of our freezer are hidden (well as hidden a you can get) in bushes outside our apartment building. If some nice homeless person wants the food more power to them. We went out to dinner on the other side of Bethesda and home to sleep in our 54 degree apartment under 3 comforters and in multiple layers of clothing. PEPCO I am very disappointed in you. They said power back Friday by 11pm.



-Lindsey

Hundreds Chart Puzzles

My class loves puzzles and I thought I'd share one of their favorite math zone activities! in kindergarten our objective is to have the kids know the numbers up to 31 but what do you do with the kids who knew them walking in the door? Answer: continue on up to greater numbers! So for my on and above kids I created two number challenges; one with the numbers 1-50 and the other with the numbers 1-100.

Copy on to colored card stock paper a 100s chart and laminate. I made 5 each on a different color paper so pieces don't get mixed up. Then cut out puzzle pieces with 4-5 numbers on each piece. Ziplock bag them and add to your math centers!

-Lindsey

Ten Black Dots

Yesterday to bring closure to our counting unit I did a fun art project with my kindergartners around the book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews. After reading the book aloud I had the numbers 1-20 listed on chart paper. We brainstormed a list of animals and wrote one next to each number. I let the kids choose what number and animal they wanted to make.


I distributed the cut up sentence (google doc),  the appropriate color word, and number of colored dots to create their own page for our class book.  Then my kids got to work using crayons and their dots to make a page for our class book. My kids love doing cut up sentences we do them almost every day in reading groups so this is a routine for them.  See some of the finished products below.


I had the number 1 (sun) completed to show and made number 2 (frog) to show the steps of how to make my sentence and use the dots to make my picture. The kids loved watching me make my frog as we talked about the parts of the animal. In art class my kids have been learning about how to draw their body with more then just stick figures so this was a great connection for them!
   

I took photos after the kids pages out of the laminator so the pages are not in order. I'm going to make it into a class book this weekend. This project was such a success it is one I will definitely continue in the future.

Metro

So I love DC but a huge frustration is the single tracking on the red line that occurs every weekend. Why metro do you choose to delay my social life? You should be encouraging and supportive of my venture downtown. 15-20 minutes in a freezing station is not fun plus when a train finally does come it will be over crowded. So glad I packed my gloves hat and scarf it's colder down here then it is outside!


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Five Question Friday

Keep on Swimming

So I coached my second swim practice tonight! It's easy to fall right back into one of my favorite sports, the best part is this time I'm not in the pool!  The team invited me last Monday to come in and coach a trial practice to see if I had what it takes to become one of their coaches and well this Monday I got the call to say I passed the test!
The team is great we practice in Adams Morgan, yes I had no idea there was a pool there until I realized I was going to coach there. The picture is from my first practice, the pool was hot and it was cool outside so for a bit they opened the door and well.... the fog rolled in. I've never seen anything like it in an indoor pool, note to self keep the doors closed! Tonight I had anywhere from 6-8 swimmers per lane so as you can imagine in a 6 lane pool it's very tight. I gave them a great workout and got many compliments after, my fast group did 4,300 yds and my slower groups about 3,300 yds.

The main set today looked generally like this, it varied per group:
Main Set:
3x   Round #1 Fly #2 Back #3 Breast
{4x50's stroke on :50
{2x100's IM on 1:30/1:45/2:00 2nd one faster then the 1st
{2x200's free on 2:45/3:00 2nd one faster then the 1st
{8x25's on 30 stroke build 1-3, Sprint 4, build 5-7, sprint 8.

I think it would be tough to do much more yardage with the lack of space but over all it went well! My swimmers all seemed happy at the end of the practice and now my next job is to figure out the intervals for each lane because it's such a range from lane to lane. It's fun to take off my teacher hat and put on my coaches hat again. I have missed it but I'm still not a huge an of chlorine. 

Diet to Go

So I'm on week number 3 of Diet-to-Go and I'm sticking to the plan with only a few little cheats. So I shared with Facebook my first meals which were great I at first signed up for the 5 meals a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I figured I'd buy in to the 3 a day plan to get my portion size under control. See the picture below for my first meals.




So this week I called to cancel the breakfasts and just do lunch and dinner. I can handle making eggs, a muffin, or having  a yogurt and fruit in the morning. My favorite part is I truly love not having to think about my lunches at school and that they are different every day.


So here is this weeks pickup I have turkey dinner for tonight. Then lunches this week are chicken burger with pear, Turkey and Ham salad sandwich, and a Szechuan turkey burger. For dinner I have Penne pasta with meat sauce, chicken pizza, and turkey chilling.

As for weight I've lost -7 lbs!
I think I can.... I think I can...





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First Snow Day

I'm thrilled for our first official snow day! I didn't expect the flurries coming down last night to amount into much and when I saw it had changed into ice when I went to bed the most I had hoped for was a two hour delay!
(Photo taken around 11pm)  

So now I'm at home an the picture below doesn't look like much snow or ice but I'm told the streets are icy and up-county the roads are a mess. Montgomery county stretches far enough north to have lots of snow and were I live down county sometimes we might just have rain. Any way I look at it a snow day is a snow day and they always make me happy!
  (Photo taken at 11 am)



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Valentine's Day Word Wall Center

So on any trip to Target, I try to shop with a purpose and on budget and always end with a ton of stuff I didn't plan on buying. On this trip the dollar bins provided a great word wall literacy activity for Valentine's Day! I found pink and white foam hearts, a pink pail, and heart measuring cups. I put the kindergarten word wall words using sharpie on the hearts. I'm going to have the kids use the scooper to scoop out a heart and use the words to write sentences.

I also found these dry erase clock activities for when we start on time in a few weeks.



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Time to get blogging!

Hello World! I'm told my friends that my first blog posting should be about me. So here goes...

So who am I?
I'm a teacher, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a roommate, a swimmer, a skier, a kickball player, and the list goes on and on depending on who you are talking to and what season it is :-) I'm a 30 year old, kindergarten teacher out looking for friends and hoping to find love in the DC area.

So what am I going to blog about?
A little bit of everything! I kept up a classroom website for a number of years but it finally came to an end last year when the school system I work for said we were not allowed to have sites outside of the schools. I'm held accountable for the schools site as their webmaster so my class website came to a close and has been left as a teacher resource site. I love to write and discuss the many sports I'm involved in just to list a few I grew up swimming and swam through college (hence the title Whyte Water), I now coach swimming, I play kickball, dodgeball, volleyball, golf, I also teach skiing and snowboarding. I also plan on writing about my family we are all so very different and are so lucky to live just a few miles from my parents and lots of my cousins.

How can we help you?
I'd like to get blogging every day I think it will be very therapeutic but if and when I fall off the wagon I will need help getting back going. I love to share my ideas from work and hope to find out how other teachers are using my activities in their classroom.

Credit for the photo above goes to Dottie Millwater Photography and the wonderful photo shoot Dottie did with me this past fall! Thanks Dottie!!