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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You Have My Vote!

I've had a long list of things I wanted to blog about that's been piling up until I could find a free moment.  The last couple of days' events have taken over that list.  I guess you'll have to wait to hear about our Halloween fun until next year.  So, enjoy a small portion of my daily life.  I tell you, these kids keep me on my toes!

Yesterday we were busy assembling a story about Presidents and the Election.  The pages didn't come in order and so I was trying {with little luck} to instruct 17 kiddos about the correct order for their books.  After the first run-through with a success of only 4 correctly-ordered books we started over.  It wasn't until the end of the second set of directions that one of my sweet kids said, "Ms. Schlimgen is page 6 supposed to come after page 5?"  Ummm...excuse me???  Yes.  There were page numbers.  That I didn't see.  THANK YOU sweet 6 year old for pointing that out.  O.M.G.  I told myself there were only a few minutes left in the day and I was just tired.  {Are you laughing yet?}  And yes, we left our pages out of order because I didn't want to rip the staples out of the ones that were already correctly put together in the wrong order.

In the spirit of election we held our own little election today.  We read 3 fabulous books about elections; Grace For President, My Teacher For President, and Duck For President.  After reading our stories we voted to decide who should be the next President.  I'm happy to report that yes, I did win.  However, the Duck still managed to get 5 of our 17 votes.  Really???  The DUCK got 5 votes????  You little munchkins will be getting extra homework tomorrow.  Kidding.  :)

And the one that takes the award for cutest story this week...I was doing a writing conference today with one of my kiddos.  His story was called "My Teacher".  I just knew it was going to be a good story with a title like that!  As I read the story he helped me to decode his fabulous first grade spelling...My teacher is goofy.  My teacher is fun.  My teacher is nice.  I really wasn't sure what the last page said so I asked him to read it to me.  The sweet little one turned bright red and said "My teacher is BEAUTIFUL!"  Want to know how to melt my heart?  That's how!  Totally made my day.  Thanks, kiddo.  :)

Here's to hoping the rest of the week is as good as the first part was! 

You know you talk about school too much when...

On Saturday night we went to one of our favorite local restaurants for dinner and some fun.  You know, the kind of fun that doesn't involve IEPs, Common Core, or recess duty.  {Read:  Adult Beverages.}  In the middle of all of this fun I was texting one of my friends, who is also a teacher.  My text had NOTHING to do with school.  She had asked how the race was that I ran that day.  You can read about how that went here.  When texting her back I wrote "The run was great!"  Here's the problem.  My phone auto-corrected the word run to RTI!  Are you kidding me!?!?!?  I don't think phones are supposed to recognize RTI as an actual word.  Apparently mine does though.  Proof that I spend all too much time talking about school.  I absolutely love my job, but even my phone realizes I spend too much time on school and not enough time running!  Ok, point taken, trusty phone.  I will go for a run...tomorrow.  Tonight I have school work to do!

19 Days And Already Sick?!?!?

How is it possible that on day 19 I was already home sick???  I know every teacher is guaranteed to get sick at some point throughout the year and I seem to have a non-existent immune system, so it should come as no surprise with how sniffly nosed my kiddos have been, but really?  I couldn't even make it to day 20?  And not only sick, but in bed for 2 days and on the couch for the 3rd and missed a day of school sick.  Luckily it hit me on a Friday so I didn't actually miss that much time with my kids.  Remember that 3rd teacher I told you about?  Totally a life saver since she already knows what happens in my room so I didn't feel the need to write down every last detail on my sub plans before leaving to go home for some R&R.  Yes, I drove all the way to school on Friday with determination to make it through the day.  I was 5 minutes into my 35 minute drive when I realized there was no way that was happening

Big thanks to my loving fiance who made multiple trips to the store to get supplies for every last home remedy cure I could think of and yet another trip for orange juice and candy pumpkins.  Nothing will make you feel better faster than candy pumpkins!  And in case you're wondering, the only thing putting garlic and olive oil on your feet will do is make your mouth taste like garlic and make your house smell so bad you want to throw up.  I don't recommend it.

The good news is I was finally able to upload a couple more things to Teachers Pay Teachers!  One is a reading log.  I'm trying something new this year and giving my kiddos a bingo board each week.  Each square has a different fun choice on it for a way to read.  Completing a bingo will earn them a prize.  There are also boxes at the bottom for those who don't want to participate but still need to read.  They can check off the boxes instead.  The other item is a different list of ways to practice spelling words for each month.  The best news of the weekend?  I already made 60 cents!  WOOO HOO.  Ok, I laughed too BUT it's 60 more cents than I had on Thursday!

Off and Running

We are off and running in first grade land and loving every minute of it.  My kiddos are settling into our normal routine and seem to be loving everything I put in front of them.  I LOVE that first graders are young enough to still think that their teacher is one of the coolest people they know no matter how dorky I act.  At least that's what I tell myself.  :)

I am feeling super lucky this year to have a third teacher that floats between our 2 classrooms.  Our enrollment was high enough to put us over the class size limit for the SAGE program we receive funding for.  It is SO nice to have that second pair of hands and eyes in our classrooms to help out.  I'm afraid we'll be a little spoiled and won't know what to do with ourselves next year!  It's amazing what just one more person can do to help your classroom run smoothly.  Do you think I can convince her to be a full time volunteer next year???

I've stumbled across a few things this year that are totally saving me from total classroom chaos.  Minor things that are making a HUGE impact in keeping my kiddos engaged and our classroom running smoothly.  Not that my classroom was chaos before, but these few things definitely help to keep us moving along.

The first one is our Smarty Pants awards.  I think this came from Babbling Abby.  Each time a kid gives a super smart answer they get a little slip of paper that says "I'm a Smarty Pants!" and get a Smarties candy.  I think she prints hers as stickers, but I decided to save my labels.  You want to see 19 little hands shoot in the air with an answer?  Start handing out Smarty Pants!  I don't use them every time I ask a question, but often enough to keep it exciting.

Whole Brain Teaching has been another life saver.  I'm not even going to pretend to be an expert in this since I really only watched a couple of You Tube videos, but the mirror, teach, smiles/frowns, class, and hands and eyes have become a huge part of our day.  They keep my kiddos on their toes and engaged.  I'm loving it!  Check it out.

I have more, but I'll wait until I have some more pictures to share.  Enjoy your weekend!

{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! 

That's A Wrap!

We wrapped up our school year just over a week ago.  I'm still trying to figure out how our school year is already over when it seems like it just started.  Don't get me wrong, there were certainly moments that seemed to drag on FOREVER, but all in all the year just flew.  I'm already busy getting stuff ready for next year and hope to share a few things over the summer.  People keep asking me what I'm going to do all summer.  Are you kidding?!?!  I may not have a job I have to report to each day, but I have TONS of stuff to do to keep myself busy!  

14 Days?!?!

Is it really only 14 days until the end of the school year???  That doesn't at all seem possible when I think of how much we still have to do this year!  How is it that the end of the school year seems more busy than the rest of the year?  We were knee deep last week in animal research reports.  What started as a huge, daunting task and what ended as a huge, daunting task turned out wonderfully!  My excited bunch of kiddos picked their animal, did research, took notes, made a draft of their report and published it complete with maps, pictures, drawings, captions, a table of contents, and a glossary.  Whew!  They were all so proud of their work and were totally bummed I wouldn't let them take them home...yet.  We can't work that hard and not share with a few friends and other classes first!  Plus, I still have to attach a fancy certificate for each of them!  :)

It's going to be one crazy week at school with a late start, music concert, and field trip this week.  I'm saving my Snickers and Pepsi I got for Mother's Day (from the dog!) for mid-week when I need the caffeine kick!

Welcome to Mrs. Jones' Desk!