Beginning of the Year!!

It is hard to believe that I have already been in school with kids for 13 days now.  Wow-it has gone by fast already.  I thought I'd share a little bit of what we have been working on in class these last 13 days (besides all the routines and rules).

1. Daily 5-I love doing daily 5, so we have already started to build our stamina in Read to Self and have been working on Read to Someone as well.  The kids are starting to get the hang of it!  :-)

2.  The kids were so excited to see the solar eclipse. Our PTO purchased glasses for all the students and teachers so we could go out and look at it.  We did an eclipse art project and enjoyed a treat for the eclipse as well!

3.  In math, we have worked on tally marks and did sidewalk tally marks and used a pool noodle to do human tally marks.  The kids were also excited to practice writing tally marks on their desks.  They had a lot of fun with these activities.  

We also worked on 2D shapes and drew a picture with shapes and labeled the shapes.

4.  We started working on our vowel sounds in reading and have introduced them to some of our connect four games that we have on TPT to practice these skills.  The kids are asking me daily if they get to play them again.  

  

5.  Finally, you know that the first weeks are a lot of going over routines and rules.  I was so excited when the class lined up like this, I had to take a picture and every now and then I pull it up to show them and remind them of what an awesome line they have!  :-)

I hope that all of you back to school are having a great year so far!  If you are back to school, I know that you are probably as tired as I am.........

I'm thinking, I'm on my second week and still feeling like this little kitten.  

Have a great day!

Classroom Tour

Here is a tour of my classroom this year:

 

The first set of pictures shows the whole room.  UGGHHHHH on the colors of my blinds .......Crystal did them (I am now in her room this year) and I love them except she used KU colors (they should have been purple)!!!  I am a KSTATE fan!  :-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the baskets that I have in the middle of their desks.  They have pencils, erasers, germ-x, white boards and markers with pom-poms on them as erasers.  I found the pom-poms idea at Fifth Grade Frenzy and they work great!

 

 

These are my frog theme birthday straws.

 

My frog behavior chart

This is my chart where students pick a prize after having 10 good days.  They just put their clothespin on what they want.

 

Our cool book boxes this year.  Last year we had cardboard book boxes and this year we have plastic ones.  Notice they are purple!!!  :-)  YAY!!

Our Daily 5 Board (not much on it yet), we are still in training to do it.

 

My reading group area with my cat litter container seats that I made this summer

 

Calendar Area

Math Manipulative area

 

Mountain Language area with worksheets in the baskets

 

Lunch and Milk Count area.  Students move his/her stick to take lunch and milk count.

 

Our Morning Routine Freebie on tpt that I use every morning.

 

Job Chart

 

Also my mystery walker sign that I found at What Happens in First Grade

 

My Secret Student sign that I got at What Happens in First Grade

 

Rules and points that I give the students throughout the day for doing good things

 

My whole brain teaching posters

 

 

Area where students turn in their work.  They highlight their name before they turn it in.  The one on the right is where they turn in their homework.  They find their clothespin and put it on their paper.  This makes it easy for me to quickly see who did and didn't get homework done.

 

 

Work Folder-this is where the students put any work that isn't done or needs corrected.  My co-teacher's mom sewed them for us and did a fantastic job.  I love them!

 

 

 

My gym shoe and water bottle holder.  I had seen baskets put under chairs at Kindertrips and loved the idea.  So, when looking at our student chairs, I decided to use containers I already had and bungee cord them under the chairs.  This has given the students a great place to keep their shoes for gym class.  I also decided that I didn't like having water bottles on the desks because they take up too much room.  So I found holders and attached them with zip ties. 

 

Hope you have a great and restful 3 day weekend! 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Read Alouds and Calendar Advice

 

We have joined the linky party at The Teacher's Chair.  The topic is Favorite Read Alouds. 

 

I love reading books to the kids.  They all seem to love it as well.  I have a lot of books that I read every year to the kids, but the one that comes to mind that I read every year on the first day is: 

 

David Goes to School By David Shannon

 

 

I use this book to introduce our classroom rules.  The kids think this book is funny and we laugh a lot and talk about why you shouldn't do the things that David does in school.  We also discuss the better choices that David should make in school.

 

After we get done with the book, the students will make a class book of positive choices.  They love the fact that they are making their own class book. 

I found this neat idea at Ready-Set-Read.

 

 

 

Make sure you stop by and share your favorite read alouds. 

 

 

 

 

With school approaching, I have been thinking a lot about my daily schedule.  I am still pondering my calendar time.  I have always done a traditional calendar.  But, I am thinking about doing it on the mimio board this year.  Has anyone done their calendar time on the mimio board?  If so, how do you manage it?  If not, how do you do your calendar time?    Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many Monday Made-Its = Freebies!

Let me apologize in advance...this post is kind of all over the place, but it does have lots of pictures! You will want to stick with me - our 400+ Giveaway is at the bottom. :-)

 

First my daughter's "made-it"...she's been busy! Check out how she dressed up some of her school supplies from last year in preparation for back-to-school:

 

Made-It #1 - Flower Bed

This summer I finally put in a flower bed...we moved to the country in 2007 and there was so much dirt work to be done around the house, I kind of gave up the idea of having flowers like at my house in town. I had hubby move a giant rock out by our driveway and created the flower bed around it. Here's my first Dahlia bloom. Beautiful!

Made-It #2 - S'mores Pie

 

Birthday picture - not a great one! But hey, I told you I would let you know about the S'mores Pie (pinterest inspired). I think it should be called S'mores Candy, but it was pretty tasty. :-)

 

 

Made-It #3 - Rules Posters (Freebie)

 

Click the picture to grab it!

 Here they are up in my room!

 

 

These posters were inspired by Stephanie at 3rd Grade Thoughts. I loved hers, which are also free, but I didn't want...

"Raise your hand for permission to stand."

(which was part of her rule #3)

 

My posters say:

1. Listen when your teacher is talking.

2. Follow directions quickly.

3. Raise your hand for permission to speak.

4. Respect others. Respect yourself. Respect our school.

5. Be safe. Be kind. Be honest.

 

 

Just had to add this picture too...it is my Reading Focus Wall coming together (below the rules). Hooray!

Please note - if you downloaded my free Focus Wall Headers, I changed the yellow to orange so they would be easier to read (same with my thought bubbles - see below). You may want to redownload.

 

Aren't they cute??? Love how they turned out.

 Made-It #4 - Binder

 

This binder part goes along with a great linky going on over at:

 

 

 

I blogged about the binder pack I purchased here. It comes from Bridget at Little Lovely Learners. The made-it part comes as I have put it together and added to it... I was going to wait to post this because I'm not all the way done, but I know some of you are already back at it and thought you might benefit from seeing how I'm putting mine together, so... 

First thing you see when you open it up is my daily check-list. I know my check-list will change this year, but I went ahead and put it in to remind me to include it. This truly saved me so much time last year!

 



 

Monthly Calendar - The binder pack comes with a good 1-page calendar...it took me awhile to choose, but eventually I went with this FREE 2-page spread from Marshall in the Middle.

Weekly Calendar - I wanted to combine my binder...personal and school...so I wanted a weekly spread to keep me organized with all our activities through the week. Grab them here free if you want.

 

A place to write dinner plans at the bottom = one less page in my home management binder.

 

Okay, back to more school sections:

 

I made this yearly planning calendar.

I got the idea from someone else - it was chevron backgrounds. If it is you, let me know and I will point people in the right direction. I also don't want to give this away in case that person had it for sale. Sorry... :-(

 

The binder pack comes with MANY more covers and pages for inside your binders. I plan to make at least three more binders: Student Information/Data, MTSS (Bridget made by special request), and a Sub binder.

***I also absolutely LOVE a work skills/behavior checklist that Bridget includes in the pack.

 

Okay, if you've stuck with me this long, you deserve a giveaway! Kristi and I are so excited that we reached 400 followers on Bloglovin' that we wanted to celebrate. We figured anyone can enjoy a $25 gift card to Target! Use the Rafflecopter below to enter and good luck!

 

 

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to link up your Monday Made-It with Tara!