First week, Monday Made It!, and Currently

Wow! I can't believe that the first we1ek is over, and the second week has started! I will post about the activities I used in the first week in more detail and with pictures tomorrow, but for now here are some of the things we did! What have you accomplished in your first days or week?

1.  Math:  We started teaching math on day 2, so we have actually gotten quite a bit done here.  They are decent math students this year but slow as molasses!   I swear we could teach math all day long and still not finish!  :) Ok, maybe not that long, but definitely we keep going over math block and into reading!
     Interactive Math Notebooks: These are amazing!  The kids love them, I love them, everyone loves them! Mostly though, I just love that this group can fold, cut, and glue paper....  It is fantastic!  We started with an entry I call "Math about Me" and then have done some pages on Place Value and Comparing numbers.
    Population Project: This was amazing!  They kids had so much fun, and they did such an amazing job on them. You can find the project on my Teacherspayteachers site for free! (that is my Monday Made it). After I created it, and used it myself, I touched it up and made it more complete to post.  It has everything you need to do it in your own classroom to practice writing large numbers in word, standard, and expanded forms.  Also, I am sure that you are also trying to find ways to increase global awareness as 21st century learners!

2.  Reading: We started Daily 5 with Read to Self.  I will post on that on Friday. I think I am going to make Friday my Daily 5 posting day.

3. Back to School Project - Personality Spheres - This is my favorite project.  The students create a sphere using 20 cut out circles and attaching them together. On each circle they answer a question about themselves. 

I think that was all of the exciting things we did in the last week.  I swear, it takes this group so long to do anything!  They do good work, but even just putting a heading on our paper takes several minutes.  I think I am going to have to start finding ways to motivate them to be quicker! Have you had groups like that?  What do you do?

Task Cards, Smart Boards, and a massage

Today was a very tiring but great day.  I was so happy this morning to play with my task cards that I made.  I laminated them with the fabulous personal laminator.  I really love that thing, but am out of the laminating sheets. I am hoping that one of my parents brings some in, although the wish fish was one that stayed on the board.  Anyway, I cut them out and put them in the containers!

What a great find those were! I found 4 x 6 plastic photo boxes at Micheals and JoAnn Fabrics for less than 2$ each.  They are perfect to hold the task cards!  I used clear plastic packing tape to tape the objective card on the outside, and the direction card inside the cover.  I also posted more of the task card sets to teacherspayteachers.com.  I need more plastic photo boxes, but I think that I have a mom who is going to bring them in for me!  I am really excited about my common core task cards.


After playing with my task cards I was really busy doing lots of unexciting stuff.  Until the late afternoon, when they installed my SmartBoard!! Yay!!  I did a little SmartBoard dance in the hallway when they wheeled the stuff down to my room.  Sadly, the cords are too short to reach all the way over to where I want them to be permanently, but I have a place to make it work temporarily.

The final part of the awesomeness was that I came home and had the most amazing massage ever. Just what I needed!!  My roommate's girlfriend is a massage therapist.  She offered me a massage in exchange for me giving my bag of old tennis balls to him to use in his classroom.  I would have jsut given them to him, but I jumped at the chance for a massage! Ah.. relaxation!

Open House

I cannot believe how ready I was for Open House.  I have never been so ready and it was almost scary how smooth it went!  I had all of their packets of back to school forms and information in sheet protectors with their name on a sticker on the outside.  I am so rediculous, that I put a sticker on all of the forms that need to come back to school, and put them at the front.

Next, I set up stations with signs to show all the things that needed to be done during Open House.
I wanted to have the students occupied so that I could secretly ask the parents to write a sweet note to their child for me to leave on their desk for the first day of school.  :)

Here were my stations:
1.  Name plate: I have used white 2 x 7 in paper strips for students to make their names on their desk for the last few years.  Tonight I had the students decorate their name plate so that I could laminate them and have them ready for the desks for the first day.

2.  When I grow up...:  I made my bulletin board with quotes and pictures from Walt Disney.  Then I cut out fish shaped peices of scrapbook paper.  Each student wrote "When I grow up, I want to be a _____" (and filled in the blank of course with what they wanted)   They turned out pretty cute, but I will have to have some redo it because they wrote only the word of what they wanted to be.  Some interesting choices though. They ranged from Cop, to Marine Biologist, to BMXer.  There was one teacher, and my neice (2nd grade) said she wants to work at PetCo.

While the students were working on those things, I had the parents set up with all of their forms.  I pulled out the 3 they needed fill out for open house, and showed them the folders to turn them in to.  Then I explained the cards.  I am really excited about the cards for them on the first day.  I am going  to have them do that seeral times throughout the year I think.

Then I had the students find their writing composition notebook. This is their first assignment.  they are supposed to decorate the cover with anything they want that is flat.  Usuallty I do this the first week of school, but our open house was so early I thought it would be nice for them to have it done before school started.  I put their names on them with return address stickers.

My wish list was made up of scrapbook paper fish cutouts, and I called them our Wish Fish!  We also had sign ups to be room parents and help file papers for our Monday Folders.  I had 22 out off 23 families show up.  It was great! Tomorrow I will call the last one to see if they are still coming and let them know to come by and do the things we did tonight so that they don't feel left out on Monday. :)

Also, tomorrow we pick up our laptops! Our district has laptops for all teachers this year! Yay!

Vacation, craft day, library, and new books...

Wow.. Since I went on vacation there are so many things I keep thinking I want to record!

First, Disney World was amazing as usual! I loved every minute, but was super exhausted! We saw all 4 parks, and had tons of food! This is the first time I have used the dining plan and boy was it worth it!

Next, yesterday was Craft Day in Miss Webb's room.  I painted my behavior clothespins, and used a circle punch to make the numbers to go on the ends. Then I mod podged both sides so they are smooth.  Then I started to make the letter things for word work using circle letter stickers and clear stones.  It is... Not so awesome... Has anyone else tried this? Maybe I'm not patient enough, but I am having a hard time getting them to stay stuck when I try to take thm off the paper.  I also made a calendar using paint chips and a 7$ frame fom Wal-Mart! I also hot glued ribbon into their math journals!

The other major project of this week has been creating, printing, and attaching labels for the books in my classroom library. It is taking FOREVER!!! Hopefully I will finish tomorrow.

The last thing to share today is that I was at the library i found two cute picture books I'm going to use at the beginning of school. The first is called Otto the Book Bear. It's about a bear in a book who leaves his book when no one is looking and ends up getting left behind. It's adorable!  The second is called Chester's Masterpiece.  It's about the cat of an author/illustrator who is the main character in her other books but decides he can make a better story so he hides her tools and takes over. There is some cute dialogue between them via sticky notes and is very creative.  It addresses elements that stories need in order to be complete!

A feeling of success!

So, today was the last day that I can work on my room for a whole week.  I am certainly not sad about that because in the meantime I will be visiting family in Florida and then meeting up with friends at Disney World! I am super excited!!!

I managed to have a lot of focus today! I started with the cricuting and laminating center at home.  I do love cricuting but I will be glad when I get all my big projects complete!  I think I have about 50 little 2" circle charms to cut out from the laminating stuff still... and I want to make signs for each enhancement (special) so that I can put up which one they have each day.

Then I got lunch and went to my room! The goals for today were to finish unpacking my desk stuff, clear off the counter, put up bulletin boards, unpack the books that go in my teacher cabinet (the picture books I use to teach and some others), and put up the lantern lights.

When I got there, I discovered my cute curtains had fallen down.  I have got to figure out a way to keep them up!  I got all kinds of cute little containers to put my desk stuff in from the dollar section at Target.  They are little Dr. Suess square containers and circle ones with funny faces!  I also was excited because I found little pencils with cupcakes and matching erasers. I am going to actually make a point this year to do birthdays.  They will get their pencil with eraser, a birthday certificate, and get to wear a flashing birthday button.

I pretty much got everything on my list for today done! I am really happy with my bulletin boards for Daily 5.  I have the headings for the I-Charts. I got perfect little business card holders from staples for 1.99 each that I attached to the bottom of the bulletin board to hold their choice charms.    I started the CAFE board, and put up our schedule.  I really liked how the schedule colors look next to each other.  I will use a whiteboard marker to write the times for each thing on it.  I might end up moving it to the other whiteboard though, or maybe just the other side.

I am still waiting for the smartboard to be installed. Hopefully that will happen next week.  Then I can put up my word wall alphabet, and get my last bulletin board ready.  I am still working on task cards but now I get to pack for Disney!

I can't wait to go! I am the biggest kid ever when it comes to Disney, and a pin trading nerd! Whatare your major projects at this point?  

A daunting task... Part 2

Ok, so if you saw the first post about the state of my new room you could see how much chaos and stuff was in there!! In the first pictures, the majority of the stuff everywhere was stuff that needed to be taken away. (including lots of big furniture)

Today I convinced a friend to help and was amazed at how much we got done!! The cabinets are all clean, the stuff that needed to go away is all gone, and I feel much better!! I have 4 student computers and one monitor.... Don't ask.. I still have to figure that one out... Anyway, it is way more than I had at my previous school. I found a nice little table for my teacher computer and will back my guided reading table up to it, so you can see how my corner is starting to shape up. The cabinets are all close too.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to have the students store their things. I think we may need their cubbies to be our library. There are hooks for backpacks but i don't live that idea either....


Anyway.. I'm ready to continue unpacking tomorrow after tutoring!


I almost forgot my Monday Made it!! I am making my headings for my daily 5 board on the cricut machine. I am using the Life is a Beach cartridge and the square card cut outs for the background. I made 2" charms of the same color patterns and pictures that I will use with the pocket charts I got from the target dollar section. Each student will have a row, and they will be divided into 6 columns. One for their number and then they will put their choice in the round column they want to do each thing! I will put the guided reading charm in the round they have guided reading!

Adventures in Cricuting: Part 1

Ok, so the greastest thing to the classroom since the apple timer has got to be the cricut machine. It is so much fun to Cricut and so incredibly useful.If you don't have one, it is worth the cost. You can even go into it with a friend and then you not only have a Cricut for less money, but someone to Cricut with! :)So, since we got the Cricut (well, since Jess got the Cricut) I have been a Cricuting fool. My roommmate just joked that we might need to have an intervention. In my defense, I was only cleaning up from the cricuting adventure this morning and getting ready to write this post. Here are some things that I have made so far:1. I didn't have an alphabet strip so I made my alphabet for my word wall. My classroom is mostly fish themed, so I have been using the Life is Beach cartridge. For my alphabet, I made 5 1/2 inch Beach balls and Sand Pails. The beach balls are all consonants, and the Sand Pails are the Vowels. 2. Objective boards for each subject. I saw something on Pinterest where you could put cute paper into a cheap frame and write the objective on the plastic with a whiteboard marker. I never did find the cheap frame, but I am thinking the laminating plastic will work just the same. I will put these up on my whiteboard. I made one for Reading, Writing, Math, Science, and Social Studies. 3. Started the elements for Daily 5. I made the label for my daily 5 bulletin board in the shape of a super cute whale. Each choice will have a headline for the bulletin board and then small circle charms that match for students to make their choices for each round. I started Read to Self today. It has a turtle cut out, so its charms also have turtle cutouts. I am going to use the pocket charts from Targets dollar section for the students to make thier choices. What would you make for back to school? I have a pretty long list still, but I am always looking for new ideas!

Preparing For School

Since I finally figured out how this whole Linky Party works, I decided to link up with Mrs. Crouse at 6th Grade All-Stars. I am actually excited about this years back to school, though as I think I have said before my friends all think I am crazy. One of the things that I have always been interested in was finding ways to support new teachers, and this topic sounded like a good opportunity to reflect on what it is that I do all the time, and also ways that I have changed that back to school practice. - What grade do you teach? I teach fourth grade. I have taught 4th grade for 4 out of 5 years. One year I looped with my class up to 5th. One positive of upper elementary is that the beginning of the year can be very smooth as the students already know the basic expectations of a student. Unlike the earlier grades where they are still learning so much of what is expected of them. - What is the greatest advice you received during your 1st year of teaching? I don't remember the greatest advice that I received, but there are a couple of things that I would tell a new teacher to help guide their beginning. 1. Spend the time up front to really teach and practice and discuss any behavior that they are going to need in your room. From how to sharpen a pencil, to turning in homework. It may seem silly, and like you have too much curriculum to teach to spend that much time of behaviors but I gaurantee that the time will be well spent and learning much smoother throughout the year. 2. Classroom setup sets the tone for how your room will run. If you want the students to be really organized, we have to model that from the start. The more systems you can have in place the better. 3. There is always something else that can be done. Set a time limit, and leave when you reach that time. I always liked to set one afternoon that I could stay later, but you will be no good to your students if you get burned out because you have no life. - Do you have a checklist that you follow when preparing your classroom (include the checklist)? I wish that I was that organized.... I have multiple checklists. This year, I am moving schools and have a new room. So here is my basic plan: 1. Go through drawers and cabinets and get rid of stuff that I will not need in my room. 2. Clean. Thouroughly clean cabinet doors, shelves, counters, find a way to get the dried up sticker off of the window..... Make it fresh before putting my stuff away. 3. Organize my boxes by type of items (Luckily I was smart enough to label about 80% of the boxes, and I actually did this today when I was stuck between 1 and 2 while I waited for the stuff that needs to go away to leave. 4. Sticky notes! Label each cabinet and drawer with what you think you want to go in there. Leave and come back later. Think about it again before starting to unpack. 5. Unpack 6, Decorate!!! Actually I am working on this step all along since my best friend and I just got a Cricut. Seriously.. well worth the price. Everyone should have one. 7. Once the desks are in order and supplies are organized I will label everything. I am lucky at my school that we (the teachers) get the supplies and the parents bring in a donation. This means that I can have everything labeled exactly as I want it before school starts. 8. Get ready for open house. Find forms print them, put them places. Make my wish list. This year they will be on cut out fish. My "Wish Fish" will match my underwater theme. For some of the weird items I am putting on it I will print pictures. Try to have items that range in price. Anything that you think sounds too expensive you can list as a dream item. (ie: a Cricut machine. You never know who has one that they never use, or just updated to the new one but has the old one. Or who has the ability to get one for you somehow.) - What are some must haves in your classroom that you cannot live without (ex. items, books, posters, management strategies)? I cannot live without my Daily 5 organization stuff, My color chart for behavior, and my student library organized in book tubs. - What is something that all teachers should have in their classroom? A really good hole punch, a paper cutter if you can get your hands on a 12 x 12 one, a comfortable teacher chair at your small group table, and a Cricut. Well, maybe not a Cricut but it is pretty spectacular! :) Head over to {6th Grade} All-Stars to see how other people start their year! Good luck, and I will continue to post my journey from a room of chaos to what I hope will be the most fantastic 4th grade room ever. :)

A daunting task...

I went to my new school today to continue working in my room. It is a slightly overwhelming task. My first step was to go through all the stuff that is there and figure out what goes and what stays. The next thing I want to do is thoroughly clean it. Then I can deal with my own stuff and figure out how I want things to be. I stopped for a moment and looked around. I decided I should probably take some before pictures so that I have proof of how awesome I am when I am done. :) Where would you start???

My new favorite thing...

Yesterday, my be brought me her new Cricut machine so that I could play with it, and then teach her how to use it. It is by far the number one item I have wanted for years. There are so many things you can do with it in the classroom.

Right now, they are on sale for $199 on the Cricut website or at Michaels. Also, at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts, they have 25% off of accessories, and you can use your teacher discount of 15% on cartridges. We are going to have fun Cricuting (verb meaning to be super awesome while using the Cricut machine) I have already made a couple of things to test it out.

Later, I will use the Life is a Beach cartridge to create tons of things for the classroom. I will post more when we have made them. For now, I will leave you with a fun idea. Get a couple of friends together and prep for a new year with a wine and cricut night!


What have you made with a Cricut or your classroom?