Good News Just Keeps Getting Better

We've had a few good news moments since the beginning of the year that I haven't yet shared.  Good news moments that only teachers can understand and get excited about.  Let's start with the best news of all.  As of today (at 11:06 to be exact) I am DONE with beginning of the year assessments!!!!!!!  WOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!  Yes, it's October 9th.  Never-mind there's rumor of a new district assessment that would start in November.  Apparently we took the slow and steady approach which translates to drag everything out as long as possible.  Long enough that I had to do running records AGAIN because the ones we did the first 2 weeks of school are no longer accurate.  Long enough that our servers BROKE in the middle of MAP testing, dragging it out into a third week.  Not just "went down" broke, either.  No, they actually broke.  A piece had to be replaced which meant we were out of luck in anything network related for nearly a week.

But, back to the good news.  We began our year with 2 or 3 recess duty days per week.  We rotated each day so one week you'd have 2 days, the next you'd have 3.  That lasted a week.  And now?  DUTY FREE!  Heck.  Yes.

Look what arrived just in time for Open House...

CHAIRS!  Remember how we started the year without any?  We are now a chair filled room.  I have kids at my tables of 3 asking why their table has 4 chairs. Because that's how tables work, kids!

Shoot, I had one more piece of good news and now I can't remember it.  I guess I got too excited about finishing assessments.  Oh well.  

I hope you've received some good news lately!  Enjoy the rest of your week!

Our Party Rocks and a Freebie

Wow, talk about progress!  I'll be the first to admit that the school year started out a bit rocky.  We have a brand new math series and an ELA program that's a bit up in the air somewhere between hold steady with the old and change everything.  Oh, and let's not forget that 3 of our 4 first grade teachers {myself included!} are new.  So, baby steps was and still is the name of the game.  And then the kids showed up who really did rock...back and forth, onto their bellies, rolling around...All. Over. The. Room. It cause me to drink way too much Diet Pepsi for that to continue all year.  So, practice, practice, breathe, practice.  And now?  Our party is ROCKING for much better reasons.  Each and every day is way better than the last {I hope I'm not jinxing myself!} and we even earned our SECOND paw print for good behavior.  Our school has only earned 3 total.  Just saying....my class is rocking.

We're still knee deep in assessments and trying to find our normal routine.  Next week we're rolling out our full Daily 5 schedule with actual rotations.  I may have a small panic attack about not having total control over my class during this time.  I know it's not the "real way" but I usually have my entire class do each rotation at the same time.  This year we're going to try having different groups at different stations.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed this doesn't all fall apart after day 1.  I've spend too much time convincing myself it's going to work for it not to!

Oh, and those assessments?  We were on day 2 of Map assessments when...our servers crashed.  For our entire district.  As in a part actually broke and is still being delivered.  So, our internet is spotty at best and I have no access to any of our drives.  That includes ALL of my files.  Talk about being WAY too dependent on technology.  Luckily I still have a backup on my external hard drive that's mostly up to date to get us by.

Luckily the stuff I had planned to share with you tonight was also saved on the external HD.  I shared with you a tour of my classroom HERE.  I made most of the "poster" type things on the walls.  So, if any of them can be of use to you...here you go!  The file includes clock labels, color words, months of the year that I used as a birthday board, and money signs/labels.  I'll share my number words and tens frames as soon as I do a little editing.

I hope your party is rocking as well!

Let The Fun Begin

Clearly I was having too much fun this summer and my blog once again got a bit neglected.  All for good reason though.  Our own wedding, 2 friends' weddings, and our last summer together before my husband graduates from grad school and starts a full time job makes for a pretty busy summer!

But, another school year has begun.  I'm a bit late to board the classroom tour train, but I'm too gosh darn tired to blog about anything else.  So, here it is.

First up, our clip chart.  Someone PLEASE explain to me why red is on the TOP.  I know, I know, so kids don't associate red as being a negative color.  How about we stop worrying about negativity {they shouldn't be there anyway!} and start worrying about confusing the heck out of the teacher.

From the front corner

This is standing at the door looking straight in.

Standing at the door looking in toward the right.  Our carpet has since been flipped to go the other direction but other than that, this arrangement is working pretty well!

Standing at the door looking more to the right.

The wall to the right of the door.  Those book bins have been moved quite a few times in an attempt to find the perfect arrangement and are never. moving. again.  EVER.

Closer view of that bulletin board.  I tried to make everything BIG so my kids across the room could see it.  Unfortunately the sun shines right on the laminate and creates a glare.  And our shades are broken so no chances of blocking it.  Oh well.

Back of the room and the rest of our classroom library.  Our word wall is still lacking words, but we're getting there.

Did you notice anything missing?  CHAIRS how about?  And the math manipulatives and games that go with our new math series?  All on back order.  To arrive...some day.  Nobody knows when.  Parents looked at me like I was absolutely nuts when I told them they only had 3 chairs to choose between to fill out paperwork at our Back to School Night.  We've stolen enough from the computer lab to get by for now and the mis-matched collected is about enough to make this OCD teacher go off the deep end.  I'm not holding my breath that any of it arrives anytime before Christmas.

Speaking of Open House.  I found this idea on Pinterest last year {tell me if it was yours so I can give your credit!}.  My kids and parents LOVED it.  I'm still getting used to this whole name change after marriage things so it totally freaks me out to see Mrs. Jones on everything.  I swear I hear kids saying Ms. Schlimgen at LEAST 30 times a day.  They're not.  I'm at a new school.  In a new district.  Nobody knows my old name.

I hope your school year is off to a fantastic start!  More classroom fun and FREEBIES coming soon!

Making Progress

Slowly but surely, my classroom is coming together.  I've spent quite a bit of time in the past couple of weeks cleaning, throwing away, arranging, re-arranging, and begging people to help me.  Luckily, our cousin and her friend were in need of some volunteer hours.  I promised them lunch and my signature on their volunteer sheet and we were on our way!  They organized all of my books out of the moving boxes into the book tubs and labeled all of the books that were already in the classroom.  THANK YOU girls for saving me HOURS of work.  I also owe my life to one of my BFFs for staying at school with me until 10:00.  That's PM, people.  She's the BEST.

Meanwhile, I've been running around trying to find a home for all of my stuff combined with all of the stuff left behind by the previous teacher.  For anyone that has moved into a new classroom, you know this is no easy task.  I was JUST starting to get everything in my old room in a good place that worked for both me and the kids and now we're back to square one.  Oh well, it's almost there.  Almost.  And my November I'll have moved over half of it to a new spot.  

At the very least my room no longer looks like this...with piles of stuff.  EVERYWHERE.  Seriously, someone could've gotten lost in there!

Now, I'm onto the FUN stuff.  The bulletin board making, labeling, creating, and getting ready for school stuff.  Not that I don't secretly find organizing and arranging fun.  I just find the other stuff MORE fun.  First up - word wall.  I have a vision, I'm just not sure how well it will turn out.  I'll post pictures when it's done and keep you in suspense for now just in case I fail miserably and have to change my mind.  BUT I did get to create these fun word wall headers.  Click HERE to grab your own copy!  FOR FREE!

 12 different colors with a polka-dot theme

There are 2 letters per page to save on printing.

New Product! Daily Math Activities!

WHEW!  I finally finished my latest TPT product.  Our computer was NOT cooperating and some of the formatting took WAY longer than it should have.  Especially considering I had made these all year long and so all I really had to do was copy, save, and upload.   Grrr...

ANYWAY!  It's a 489 page packet of daily math activities!  Each morning my kids are responsible for completing their calendar binder.  I wish I had some pictures to better explain this, but I don't so I'll have to do the best I can.  Calendar Binders are the first thing we do each morning.  It's a great way to have them settle in each morning instead of wandering around waiting for me.  If anyone lost a tooth they record it on the tooth graph.  We use the baseball card holders to represent the day using hundreds, tens, and ones.

Then, they complete a page of activities.  The basic format is the same, but the skills change based on what we've been learning.  The pages are always a review of the past couple of days.  I also mix in some assessments for report card and conference times.  This set of activities was made to go along with the Math Expressions series, but could easily be adapted to fit any curriculum.

There are actually 2 copies of the same activities in the pack.  The first has each "number of the day" numbered for you.  The second set does not.  That way you could use them in whatever order you want!  I hope you can find this useful!  Make sure to head to my store to get your copy!



{Also, if anyone knows how to get rid of that annoying box around my name PLEASE let me know.  I have spent WAY too much time trying to figure that out as well!}

The Itch

I think I've finally caught it...the itch to start planning, prepping, and ultimately stressing over my classroom and the preparations for the year to come.  Somehow I avoided it up until this point.  Something about spending an insane amount of time last summer to prepare for the upcoming school year so that I wouldn't have so much to do during the year combined with a very stressful year planning the wedding sent me into a "no way, not happening, going to enjoy my summer" type of mind.  {Sorry - that was the longest sentence ever!}  

It's not that I haven't done anything.  I've worked on stuff...a little bit.  A very little bit.  I've thought about a lot of things.  And I've spent HOURS catching up on reading my favorite teaching blogs as well as a few new ones!  

But today, it hit me.  The itch to start.  Maybe it was the stress that finally kicked in.  I'm starting at a new school this year and the thought of getting a new classroom and curriculum ready is starting to get a little stressful.  So today I took 2 loads of things to school.  I did go last week to go through and clean out the things the old teacher left so it's a good start.  I also spent the better part of the morning doing this...

Cleaning books bins.  {Ignore the weeds.  We pay condo fees for someone to take care of them.  But they don't.  Don't get me started.}  

Baby steps, people.  Maybe tomorrow I'll print the labels that go with them.

Knock, Knock...Anyone Home?

Yup, it's been 8 months since I last posted anything.  Obviously, blogging took a place on the back burner to make room for other things.  But have no fear, I'm back!  I've made it a goal to post at least once a week, but anything will be better than what I was doing!  As you probably already know many people are making the switch to Bloglovin in preparation for when Google Reader goes away.  You have until July 1st to get your list of favorite reads switched...that's Monday, people!  Use the button on the sidebar to quickly add my blog to your list!


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