 Hi everyone. Welcome back to my channel, Apple Zantiares. So today I'm going to be doing a little sit-down kind of Q&A chat video. So I posted a few days on Instagram about how I was going to be doing a copy summer chat with you guys and I asked you to post a couple of topics or questions that you had for me. So I'm going to go ahead and go through all of these topics or questions and just answer them for you guys. Before I start, my glasses are from iBuyDirect. They are the Myrtle style and then my t-shirt is a tank from Lipstick and Little. It just says, live in my best life and then my earrings were a gift from Ashley from Lipstick and Little so I don't know where they're from but I assume it's probably from some wonderful Etsy shop somewhere. Okay so I'm just going to scroll through the comments. There's about 20 comments on this post and I'm just going to answer them as best I can. All right the first question comes from Bretaful Teaching. Ideas on how to tell your administration about your social media platforms. This is kind of one of those things where it's like kind of up to you. My principal knows about my activity on YouTube. I don't know if he knows about my activity on Instagram but he does know about my activity on YouTube and that is strictly because I was vlogging in Seattle when we went on our avid trip. We were at a conference and I just told him I avidly vlog for teachers. I like to give ideas on YouTube and I'm going to be vlogging this trip and he was completely fine with it. He had no problem with it at all. I think that it depends on the principal but they just need to be a person with an open mind and luckily mine is very awesome and supportive. I don't think that he watches. I don't think that any of my administrators watch or really care as long as I'm not posting things that are inappropriate which I don't so. Switching from fourth grade to third grade. This has been a really fun transition and I find that it's really a good one to do. I've never switched grade levels before except for fourth to third but I found that it's really helpful because I know what the kids are going to need to be successful in the next grade level so it's easy for me to support them as upcoming fourth graders. So a lot of the fourth grade stuff is relatable to well a lot of the third grade stuff is 100% relatable to fourth grade. It's kind of introductory and just a little bit simpler. Okay, tips for an aspiring teacher. If you are aspiring to be a teacher you are getting ready to enter one of the best careers out there and I think that if you are aspiring to be a teacher it's a really good idea to immerse yourself in the teaching community. Go and observe in some classrooms at all different age levels. Find out your niche and obviously the YouTube community of teachers is a great place to be because there's a lot of really amazing ideas out there. A lot of amazing teachers who are willing to share their ideas with you. How do I do my math rotations? I don't really do math rotations. Rotating is kind of a thing that I despise. I think that it's way too much to manage and I would rather do small groups with some students working on other things. So my centers are more of like a weekly rotation so my students will do five different centers in the week. So they'll have a full day to do one center then the next day they do another center, the next day they do another center. They might even do the same center twice. It just depends on the center. Tips on teacher YouTube. I think that if you're going to start a teacher YouTube channel you just need to remember that nothing that you have to share is not important. Does that make sense? How about I reword it like this? Everything that you have to share is important and will impact somebody. You should share every and any idea that you want to because if you've thought of it maybe hundreds of other teachers haven't thought of it and they're going to use it and they're going to enjoy it. So I think that every person who's aspiring to be a teacher YouTuber should absolutely 100% do it. How much time do you spend outside of contract hours? Advice for a soon-to-be teacher on how to balance it all. I would say that I spend about one hour to an hour and a half outside of contract hours. My contract hours are eight to, or sorry, seven thirty to three thirty and I generally get to school at seven and I leave school around I get to school around seven and I leave at three thirty. So really only an hour to a half an hour each day outside of contract time. Balancing everything I would just say that like pick and choose the most important things that you want to grade. Find things resources that are low prep. Don't spend all of your time socializing at work. It's important to have friendships and be social but I also think that you can work at the same time as socializing so try to use your time wisely. I work during my prep. I work during my lunch and I try to get everything done. Baby weight. How much did you weigh after you had cash? How much have you lost? What have you been doing to lose the weight? Daily schedule? What are you eating? So before I got pregnant or right when I got pregnant I was about 155 pounds and I'm five seven so I'm not a skinny person but I also worked out a lot and lifted weights. After having cash so my last weigh in I believe I was 180 maybe 175 so I really only gained about 20 to 25 almost 30 pounds. After I had cash I breastfed for about four months, three months exclusively and then the fourth month I pumped and I supplemented. During those four months I lost all of the baby weight just by breastfeeding alone and I think a lot of that had to do with like I would sleep throughout the day and I wouldn't really eat as many calories as I was supposed to eat and so I lost a lot of weight that way. After I went back to work a few months in I gained most of my pregnancy weight back and I was hitting about 170, 175. Then last year I started taking 5-HTP which is a really awesome vitamin for stress and anxiety. I don't feel like I have a whole lot of anxiety but I definitely have stress just being a teacher and there's also something in that vitamin that helps you with weight loss and sleep. So I feel like maybe getting a little bit more sleep and just not having that huge appetite really helped. I tried to stay away from carbs so I would eat a lot of salad and soup and just try to stay away from like noodles, bread, rice was pretty much my only carb or potato and I don't really feel like I'm on a clean diet. I just like to eat healthy. I like to eat yogurt, I like to drink or gain protein shakes, the meal replacement shakes, eggs in the morning like I said salads or soups or some kind of like rice cake with some kind of meat on top, high protein based diet, try to eat lots of greens and fruit and just try to eat healthy. I also go to the gym a few times a week. I do cardio, I do weightlifting, I've done beach body workouts, I have a gym in my house so it doesn't really give me an excuse not to work out. However, I don't feel like I'm a consistent weightlifter. I think that I just naturally have, I mean I'm definitely not skinny. I will tell you that like no I don't project it on the internet but I don't have a skinny body. Definitely a thicker, a thinner thicker girl if that makes any sense. Like I have a thinner body structure but I definitely carry weight. Like I you know I'm not tone or anything. Like I definitely have cellulite, I definitely you know I think a lot of the things that people think I've lost a lot just because of like angles and you know we can project ourselves on the internet a certain way and you don't really see everything. So moving to third, any advice on prep during the summer, any advice in general? I don't really prep a lot during the summer because I like to enjoy my summer. But things that you could prep is just I would say like find all of your resources that you'd like to use throughout the year. Like know when you're going to teach each standard and then start finding those resources. Start compiling them in the summer so that when you go back to work you have everything ready. You can just kind of pull when you're ready to teach. Your best advice for people that want to be teachers but are discouraged because others say they won't make money. Well you won't make money especially if you teach in a state like I do. But I really don't think that if somebody is telling you not to do it because of the money situation but you're gonna love it then ignore them. They have no idea what they're talking about. They probably don't like their job and they're just trying to get you to not like yours. What advice do you have for new moms who will be transitioning back into the classroom after maternity leave? Alright Kayla dot, Kayla dot dow I think I'm saying this right. I would say if you are stressed out about breastfeeding don't be. If you have gotten from birth to the end of your maternity leave breastfeeding you are fine. You have done it. You are a champion. You do not need to pump at work. If you want to do that that's fine but don't put yourself under that kind of pressure because that's what I did and I never got anything out of it. All I did was get stressed. All I did was get tired and it's not worth it. Your baby will be okay on formula I promise. Balancing work and family leave your work at work. At the end of the day I close my classroom door. I don't bring anything home to grade. I don't bring anything home to plan. When I come home I am mom and that is it. Tips on teacher YouTube and how do you collaborate with your special education department? I'm a special education teacher who just graduated and I loved hearing tips from general education teachers on collaborating together. I think that it's really important to collaborate with your special education teachers as well as especially if you have many students in that program. What I like to do with my special education teacher is share my curriculum map with them so that they know what I'm teaching and when I'm teaching it. I also have resources in my curriculum map so if my special ed teacher wants to be teaching the same thing I am or at least supporting it that's one super awesome way to collaborate with them is just sharing what you're doing so that they can support you in their classroom. Cambria Alexis. I'm going to be teaching third and I'm wondering what are some of your must have resources? I like everything on Common Core Kingdom on TPT. I think that her bundles for ELA are really awesome. I love how she has the kids engaged with color coding their evidence when they answer a question with Cran. It helps them to stay focused. It helps them to find their proof and they love coloring so I think that's a must have resource. Life in general having more kids, how's the new house, the dream age to teach. I love my new house. We have lived here for about a year. Well a year and a couple of months. I absolutely love my house. It's pretty much done. I don't think I'm going to do an updated house tour just because I feel like you guys see the house all the time on my videos but I would like to have one more kid, one more baby. Probably won't shoot for that until maybe next summer. I would love to have a three or four year age difference, maybe even five. I know a lot of people say to have them close in age but I would really prefer to have them a little bit of a gap just because I don't feel like they'll be any closer if they're close in years. Although be closer is fighting with each other so I feel like if I have Cash be a little bit older then he could be more helpful and then I can have a little newborn and Cash can be kind of more independent. So all right the next question is how do you handle two jobs being a mom teaching and birthday parties? So I don't do very many birthday parties anymore but as you guys know if you've been following me for a while I do own a small character entertainment company called a Child's Dream Entertainment and I don't personally do a whole lot of events anymore but I will pick one up here and there about once a month maybe twice and the way that I handle that is honestly with help from family, help from friends. My husband works on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday at two o'clock until midnight so if I want to do any extra jobs on the weekends I have to seek help from either my mom, my in-laws or my wonderful next door neighbors who are so near and dear to us. Christina next door she babysits Cash whenever I need it, I watch her girls whenever she needs it, we have dinner at each other's houses all the time like they are truly our best friends if not just chosen family and then my mom and dad come down every once in a while about every two weeks they'll come and visit so I really do have a lot of help and support and that really does help me balance both jobs but like I said I don't really do that many anymore. Where do you buy your glasses? I get all of my glasses from ibuydirect and on my youtube channel in almost every single video down in the description box is every single style that I own and like a quick brief description so this one will say like the purple frames it has a direct link to the actual frames and then above that is a ten dollar off coupon code from like you can use it's like a code or a link you can go to to get ten bucks off your first order so yeah so ibuydirect is where I get all my glasses. My son is around the same age as your son what do you do to stay fit and energized to keep up with him? Lots and lots of coffee and I go to the gym with him I go to mountainside fitness and there is a really really great child care program there they have really really awesome people working there and cash really likes going there and playing so on Saturdays and Sundays when my husband is not home like right now during the summer it's kind of easy because I can go whenever I want but when my husband's not home on Saturdays and Sundays in the afternoon after before cash wakes up or sorry in the early afternoon morningish time I will take cash to the gym with me and just do cardio I try to stay off of my phone as much as possible when it's just me and him I try to take him outside I try to do interactive games with him in the house like building Legos doing puzzles sorting shapes doing colors just working with him like playing with him not just letting him sit by himself and play by himself I take him for bike rides I take him to the park I do a lot with him just because I feel like when I'm home and I get the opportunity I want to spend as much time as I can with him especially in the summer but when I get home at four o'clock four thirty after the work day is over I just spend time with him and with my husband I also have a workout buddy that I see on Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays after cash goes to bed at eight o'clock since my husband is home those nights I will go to the gym with my friend and it's really nice because I get like a little bit of me time I get to hang out with a girlfriend and it gives me that time kind of to myself I also like to go to yoga with my friend Vanessa she's just for teaching on Instagram I love going to yoga with her I think we might be going I'm hoping that we'll start going at least once a week when school gets back in so those are just some things that I like to do to kind of like balance and keep myself energized I guess curry girl 97 I'm interviewing for a para in a special ed classroom and I could use some ideas as to what questions they might ask how should I answer them honestly I have no idea what a para professional interview would sound like or even go like I know that you would be a one-on-one assistant with children so I would imagine they're going to probably ask you what type of experience you have with kiddos but I'm actually not sure I can help you on that one I'm so sorry these were a lot of really awesome questions you guys I feel like a lot of people really want to know like how I balance life being a teacher and a mom and honestly I just have to choose which is more important to me teaching is my job I teach so that I can live I teach so that I can put a roof over my head so that I can drive a nice car so that I can provide food for my child I don't live to teach but I love it it's my passion it's my it's my art and I can't really think of any other job that I would rather do rather than like performing somewhere but I feel like with teaching I get to perform every day for 25 kids and involve them in performing as well not just like singing and dancing but you know putting on a performance and engaging them with that so I really don't think there's anything else I'd rather do um but when I get home when I walk in through that door I'm not a teacher anymore I'm a mom I mean yeah I'm teaching cash things every day but I just choose to be here and in the moment and his development is really important to me and I don't want to be one of those parents that doesn't involve in their kids education that doesn't involve in their kids development in their play time that's why I had him early in life at 27 because I wanted to have the energy to play with him and I've just made choices in my professional life that allow me to be able to come home and just be a mom so I hope I answered all of your questions there was no coffee involved in this video however I did drink a lot of water um so I hope you guys enjoyed this video I have some other really fun video video I have some other really fun videos planned for you guys for the rest of the summer and moving into the school year starting in about a month I cannot believe I go back to work in a month um but I plan to do a teacher fashion favorites video and I will show you guys all of my glasses all of my lipstick and little shirts all of my earrings from L and J dreams and just all of my like teacher staple must have items and I think I'm gonna be doing that pretty quickly so I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I will see you in the next one bye guys