{Almost} Back to School

Hi Everyone!  I'm about to start my last weekend before school starts.  Instead of actually working on checking off that mile long to-do list, I'm going shopping and to the spa with my mom and sister!  I guess school will just have to wait.  :)

Since we haven't actually started our school year, I don't have any pictures to post, but I wanted to share one of my favorite back-to-school activities and books.  There's a great party happening at Blog Hoppin' and of course I waited until the last minute to join!

I am a HUGE fan of the David Shannon books.  You can find them at The Clever School Teacher.  I linked No, David! for you HERE.  They are great for back to school for a couple of reasons.  Aside from my kiddos finding them absolutely hilarious, most of them can read the books.  It's a great confidence builder as we start our Reader's Workshop.  After reading a few of the David books we talk about school and what we should and shouldn't do.  Last year we made a class book called "No  First Grader, Yes First Grader".  I know this idea came from someone, somewhere but I have to apologize...I'm not sure who or where.  My team member gave me a copy and I don't have the original source.  If it was you, please let me know!!!  Each child thought of something they shouldn't do at school, then thought of an appropriate alternative.  No running in the halls, yes to walking in the halls.  Then, they illustrated their page and we put them all together.  It was a great way to review school rules, incorporate some writing, make some connections to the books we had just read, and an adorable little keepsake from our first week of school!

To those of you who have already started school, I hope you're having a GREAT year.  To all of my Wisconsin friends and others who haven't started just yet, have a GREAT last weekend of summer and a GREAT start to your school year!

Freebie Friday!

Happy last day of Teacher Week!  It's been fun linking up with all of the other teachers out there.  It forced me to learn some things about blogging too, which is always a good thing!

 

I started a Teachers Pay Teachers store the other day and would LOVE some followers.  I know that the things I have on there so far aren't super exciting but hey, they're all free so they can't be too bad, right?!?!  As soon as I actually get around to making plans for the start of the school year I'm sure I'll have a few more things to put out there.  Check out my store by clicking HERE.

 

 

Thanks for reading this week!  Come back often!

Where I Teach Wednesday {and Technology Tip Tuesday}

 

 

Hi all!  Happy Where I Teach Wednesday! 

 

Since I missed Technology Tip Tuesday I'll start with that then get to the fun stuff.  I don't have a TV/DVD player in my room, so any movie I show is done from my computer using our projector.  I'm not a huge movie fan, but there are some days it happens.  Like the last afternoon before winter break.  Do you really think I'm going to get those little munchkins to do anything productive?  I didn't think so.  I promise I always at least try to connect it to what we're learning somehow.  Here's where my technology tip comes in.  There's a magic key on your keyboard that lets you split your screen.  So, I can work at my computer while my kiddos can still watch the movie.  They can see the movie, but not what I'm doing on the screen.  Assuming it's the same on all computers, you hold down the Fn key and click the F7 button.  Then choose Extend.  Just make sure the screen you want your kids to see is the one in front of everything else on your screen when you do this.  It's magic I tell you!

 

Now, for where I teach Wednesday!  I was bound and determined to finish my classroom the other day so I'd have pictures to share for this.  Talk about motivation!  Enjoy the tour!

 

Looking in from the door.  The first one looks to the right and the second picture looks to the left.   LOVING those chair pockets from The First Grade Parade!  Along that wall to the left is a door to our lab that I share with the other first grade teacher. No pictures - it's still a work in progress!

 The wall to the right of the door.  Tons of storage space which is awesome. 

Ignore my lunch on the table.  :)  It hold our book boxes, my teaching resources, and our mailboxes.  I'm trying those letter trays for mailboxes this year.  We'll see how they work out.  The crates under the counter hold our BEE Binders that the kids bring back and forth to school every day.

My new calendar wall.  The purpose of that birthday area was to make a new space smaller than the poster I had last year.  That new space ended up being twice the size of the poster!  Oops.  I'm going to take pictures of the kids that have their birthday during each month and add it to our wall.

 We have two word walls.  One for reading words and one for sight words.  It's a little word-wall-overload, but hopefully it will help my kiddos learn the words they need to know.  Plus, there's not enough space on either for both sets of words.  The other word wall {for sight words} is on our whiteboard at the front of the room.  Hiding behind those cabinets of math manipulatives and games are our computers.

 Book Nook heaven.  All of our books are categorized.  We have themes, authors, series, animals, and chapter book categories.  Color coded bins, color coded stickers, and every book has a place!  Doing a quick count in my head I think there are about 100 different bins each holding a different category.  That was HUGE project last summer.  {Thanks again to my loving future Mr. for helping!  I think I've forever scared him away from my classroom after that project!}  Our leveled library is over there too.

That's pretty much it.  Ready and waiting for 18 new fabulous kiddos!



 

 

Happy Teacher Week: Must-Haves Mondays

Happy teacher week!  I am so excited to be joining up with everyone to share some of my favorite must-haves.  I just {Do I dare say it?!??!} FINISHED setting up my classroom today.  I'm sure I'll find 506 more things to do before the start of the school year but for now, it's done!

Here are a few things I use all over my classroom.

Picture from www.buy.com

These little schnazy things are AWESOME.  They make life so much easier when trying to label and re-label things during the year and the following year.  You just stick the plastic thing to whatever you want to label, and the label goes inside.  No more scraping labels off of everything at the end of the year!



Picture from www.walmart.com

I am SUPER excited to use these. One of my best friends and my go-to for all things school related tipped me off to these. They don't soak through as much as other markers, and don't smell. No post-anchor-chart-making-marker-high? I'm ok with that! I may have splurged on the mega pack just to make sure I had one in EVERY color.

I'm not sure how to post a picture of the famous Dollar Aisle at Target, but let's be honest - that place is every teacher's dream.  I've been known to go out of my way to stop just to see what the dollar aisle has since it can be different from store to store.  Enough said about that one.

I'm sure there are things I'm missing, but right now, those are the favorites that come to mind!

Come back for tomorrow for more Teacher Week fun!

Finally Some Freebies!

I'm finally getting around to posting some of the stuff I've been working on this summer.  I'll add more this week, but for now here's a checklist I made of all of the common core standards.  Sorry, just first grade math and literacy.  Math is squished onto one page, but literacy is too darn long to do that for.  Let me know if you find any mistakes!!!  I'm hoping to eventually come up with (or steal!) assessments that go with each.  Then, I can have a copy for each kiddo and check of the areas they have mastered.  Sounds like a good plan, right?!?!  I made this plan back in June...it's now August.  Oops!  I've just been dealing with more important things like setting up my classroom and trying to figure out how I'm going to squish 4 kids around each of the world's smallest tables I have in my classroom.  More about that later.  It may have led to some classroom rearranging this afternoon.  Not exactly what I had planned to go to school for, but still a good thing.

Here they are!  Math Checklist and Reading Checklist

Freebies Coming Soon!

Just as all of you have probably been doing, I've been working like crazy this summer to get ready for a new school year.  I'm in the middle of trying to figure out all of the copyright rules and as soon as I do I'll have some freebies for you.  My goal is to have them by the end of the week.  So, some things to look forward to:  Reading Log Bingo, monthly spelling choices, sight word lists and books, and more!