Currently: September

Ah, Farley.

You give me an easy, fun way to post at least once a month, and I must thank you for that.  :)

I would totally write a more meaningful, detailed post, but I must go to bed immediately.  These kiddos are really gonna give me a run for my money, LOL!  I've got some hilarious little sweeties this year.  It usually takes a little while for most of them to really come out of their shells, you know?  Not so much this year!  HA!  I consider it payback for my own behavior when I was in school.  Yep--B in Citizenship on every. single. report card.  "Needs to learn to control her talking."  That was always the teacher comment.  :D  My friends and colleagues would NEVER guess this about me, HA.  (Yes they would; I still never shut my mouth.)

Anyway.

By the by, Brix wines are only $6.99, and I swear they are good, 

at least if you know nothing about wine other than the fact that you like it.

Be sure to holla at Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade.  

Link up, and remember the rule of 3.  You know you wanna.  Peace out, and get some sleep.  2 more weekdays.  And good luck with assessments if you're as bogged down in them as I am right now!  :D

Classroom Tour

OK, a week into school, and I'm already exhausted beyond belief.  I got up with the baby at 5:00, but he took some milk and went back to sleep.  My hubs got up with him when he woke up and let me sleep till 10:30, God bless his soul.  Then, after doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen, I took a NAP during baby's naptime, too!  I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to recover from this week.

Monday and Friday were full days, but Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the K-2 kiddos went home at noon while we did one-on-one assessments all afternoon.  We had no planning time and no duty-free lunch.  Monday & Friday I worked almost 12 hours.  So yeah.  Exhausted.  Not to mention my class...it's definitely going to be an interesting year.  I'll leave it at that.  :)

So anyway, I've been meaning to post a classroom tour all week, but you know...it just wasn't gonna happen.  ;)

Here we go.

I've since added white strips under the A and E on my CAFE board.  :)

Do you see the adorable Math Alphabet?  I got it from someone's blog but can't remember whose!  If it's yours, please tell me so I can give credit!  Sorry!

Book Boxes.  Got these at Hobby Lobby for 1.99 each, but they didn't have enough, so I have 6 of the cheap cardboard ones on the bottom shelf.  :(

The buckets are numbered and are inside an old pocket cd holder.  This way, the kids can slide their notes behind each bucket for their classmates.

Daily 5 storage.  Need to make a couple more labels.  

The colored bins on top hold my weekly papers.

Made the black vinyl letters on my Cricut.  LOVE.

I intended this to say "Spotted: Super 2nd Graders," but I didn't have enough letters.  And those glitter letters were $7.99/pack, so I gave up.  LOL.  Oh well.  I am planning (in all my spare time) to cut out a big peace sign from my black and white polka dot wrapping paper so the bottom of the door doesn't look so empty.  :)

View from my door.

Front of room.  We do whole group lessons here.  

Read alouds are done by the rocking chair over by my CAFE board.

Behavior chart I made for my team this year.  Love the clip chart, and even our 1st and 3rd grade teams decided to use my chart this year!  They felt that their system of "strikes" wasn't working that well, so they decided to try something new!  I think it's nice for the kiddos to have continuity like that.

Part of my library.  Love the bright neon bins from Really Good Stuff.  

My school bought these for me last year, and they work great to hold picture books!

Another view of the library.  Love my new black baskets and my green polka dotted cushions!

New black bins to hold math manipulatives!  My labels were inspired by the AMAZING Kristin over at Ladybug Teacher Files.  I loved her "flipped" labels, but I wanted to include one of my colors.  She is AWESOME.

Close up of the labels.

Vocabulary pocket chart for when we start "Text Talk" and our Must do/May do board.  Started that last year (saw the idea on Pinterest, of course), and when a kiddo says "what should I do now?" I just point at the board.  LOVE.

To the left of my desk: printer, newborn pic of baby boy, and my cute new Pop Top jar.

LOVE THE POUFS.  It's like a party every day, LOL.

Pencil area.  I put the "Quietest Classroom Sharpener" on my wish list, so I'm hoping and praying one of my parents will get it for our room!!  :)

Spotlight on board.  This will change out with the specific skills we're working on in reading/grammar.

Storage and Turn in basket with the ever popular "highlight your name" poster.  I found this on Pinterest last year and have told everyone at my school about it.  It literally CHANGED MY LIFE last year.  If you have not implemented the "highlight your name" procedure, do it.  Do it NOW.  You will thank me, I swear.  :D

I read Work Hard, Be Nice this summer (about the guys who started KIPP schools).  Great book, very inspiring.  These are 2 of our class rules this year.  (Gotta re-route that pesky cord.)

Well, that's all for now!  Hope you enjoyed my tour!

I missed some of the linky parties, but I'm linking up with:

50+ Followers--Freebies--and my Must Haves

Hey there!

Well, today was my first day back for in service, and it was...long.  I was there till about 6 this evening, but my room is getting close.  Very close!  Pics to come soon!

It was fun to see everyone today, but I saw quite a few people over the summer.  :)  In other words, I would've been ok staying home another week or two.  :)  Anyway, we had our meetings and all that jazz.  Our district's "theme" this year is "Operation Transformation."  As in...changes.  Lots of 'em.
YAY.  Nothing like adding all kinds of new expectations on top of already full plates.  Don't you wish they'd wait until at least the 3rd week of school to tell you about all the new things you have to do (on top of the old ones)?

Today I finished my "Bucket Fillers" area (on the inside of my door), and I think it turned out pretty cute.  I've never done it before, but I got my book in the mail and will introduce it next week when the kids come.  Those of you who do "bucket filling," do you usually read the book and introduce it on the very first day?  Just curious.  :)

My major accomplishment today, though, was cleaning up.  I went on a 10 minute spree before I left, putting things away as quickly as I could because I REALLY wanted to leave.

I'm linking up today with Blop Hoppin' to share my Must Haves!  Click the pic to hop on over and check it out!

1) My Smartboard.

Dude.  I cannot imagine my classroom without this guy at this point.  I only taught for 2 years without one and was the first one in my school to get one (I wrote a grant).  It is so convenient and engaging.  LOVE.

2) My Flair pens.  I use them for everything.  

They have such great color/saturation yet don't bleed through.  YAY.

3) An organized classroom library.  

Do they still put books in the wrong bins sometimes?  YES.  Do they still leave books on the floor instead of putting them in ANY bin?  YES.  But overall?  It works great.  And it makes it so much easier for them to find books they're interested in.  It took me FOREVER one summer to sort my library and label each book, but since then (about 4 years ago) my life has been so much easier (at least in that one aspect, haha).

4) My teammates.  

Seriously.  I don't know what I would do without them.  I've been on 2 different teams and worked with...9 different ladies, and they were all SO helpful and willing to share.  Let's face it: I SO do not know everything about teaching or have all the answers.  I love team planning, and I love being able to talk to them about my kiddos and bounce ideas off them (or even just vent).  YAY teamies!

5)  Post-Its.  

I use them myself.  My students use them.  We all use them.  Love them.




Be sure to link up over at Blog Hoppin' and let us know your own Must Haves.  :)



Anywho...onto the freebies.  Not sure how many people can use these, but I made some new labels for my library bins, and here they are in a couple different styles.  (Click on each one to view/download in Google Docs.)

Black and white dot labels


Teal design labels



Please let me know if you can use these or if you have any suggestions for changes or for future products since I'm new to making things!  Thanks for stopping by!

Classroom Work Day #2

Well.  My lovely cousin, Melissa, and I worked in my classroom Monday from 10 am to almost 9 pm.  With a short mid-day break to buy more fabric and pick up food.  I'm exhausted, but the room is coming along!

Don't get me wrong, it's still an absolute mess, but I love how it's looking, decor wise.  I hope you like it, too!

partial view from the entrance to my room

the new Word Wall letters I made to match my new colors

Citizenship bulletin board with glitter wrapping paper

Listen to Reading sign (my listening center goes right under this board)

wall outside my door (I'm standing in the stairwell to take this pic--
no one else has this big wall to decorate except for us stairwell peeps)

My new Welcome sign in all its glory
(the backgrounds are paper plates from Dollar Tree)

My new door sign (made them for my whole team)

My cute new bulletin board area with awnings!
Left will be a focus wall.  Daily 5 in center.  CAFE on right.

Close-up (can't find the cards for the first 2 letters, agh!)

View from a side angle

How we made the awnings stick out from the wall
(used a box cutter to cut the cardboard roll from my glitter wrapping paper)
(never would have figured this out--PTL for my cousin!)

I like the aqua glitter letters, but they are so small!
May have to cut some plan aqua ones on my Cricut; we'll see.

Hope you enjoyed my partial tour!  I'll be back with  more pics, but my room is a WRECK right now!  It amazes me how much work it takes to get the room put back together every year.  You'd think it would get faster with experience, but apparently not.  Sigh.  :)  

Only a few more days of freedom till I have to leave my little man full-time again.  *tear*

Linking up with Tara's Monday Made It for my cafe awnings (even though it's Wednesday, almost Thursday).  (Don't judge.)  :)  Oh, and I technically did all this on Monday, so it's cool, right?!  Lol.

Be sure to go check out everyone else's awesome creations this week.  I am always astonished at the creativity out there.  :D

Classroom Work Day #1

I FINALLY got to work in my classroom today since (of course) they weren't finished cleaning it until Friday.  I was there for about 4 hours, and here's what I accomplished:

BEFORE:

Sigh.

View from the door.

Looking to the left as you enter room.

Reader's Beach (Classroom Library)

Computers/my desk area

Front of room/Smartboard

HUGE. MESS.

This was how my bulletin board looked.  Well, it actually had stuff on it during the year, haha.
But anyway, I took it ALL down and will start from scratch with new black fabric tomorrow.  YAY!

Anyone else have 8 billion staples all over your carpet/floor?
I use these hardcore magnet hooks to pick them up quickly.  :)

See?  Works like a charm.

OK, now for the AFTER pics.  Please keep in mind, I am not close to being done AT ALL.  :)

Moved ALL the furniture.  Ugh.

The cubbies with open doors are the ones I still need to "unpack."
And of course the back counter is still full of crap useful teaching tools.

My sad, empty bulletin board.  That's my black fabric draped across the desks.
I hoped maybe some of the wrinkles would fall out by tomorrow.  :)

Changed my desk area.  Got rid of an extra table and turned my desk so it wasn't right
smack dab in the middle of the room.  Not sure if it'll work.  Time will tell.

Now I have no idea where to put my book display.

My new classroom library!  Sort of.  Not quite finished, but I do like my black baskets.
The shelf on the left holds our book boxes for Daily 5.

I'll post another update after tomorrow! My cousin is coming to help me, whoo hoo!  It's an annual tradition for her to come up, and she's the decorating/cutesy brains of the operation, so I'm excited.  I think she'll like all the things I've been making to go with my new color scheme.

Does it drive you nuts when you have a hodge podge of all kinds of different shelves that don't match?  It's driving me nuts.  But what to do?  I thought about spray painting them, but that would require a lot of extra effort, and let's face it, we've all got enough to do w/o recreating the wheel (anymore than I already have).  ???

OK, peace out.