Sunday, July 29, 2012

Classroom - the beginning

Hi all :-)

For those of you who start late... Boo...
For those of you who start early... Doesn't it suck?

Anyways, I always picture my classroom through the decorating phrase so here is it from day 1 to now.

This is how my room looked at I came in... And no, the basket isn't mine...
There were 9 tables and 20 desks in this tiny room... I got rid of 5 and added 6 desks, we have 25 kids on average.
I had over ten extra chairs as well... And yes, the chalkboard is gonna get covered up...
So plain...
My desk area... after moving the furniture and unpacking several bins

Desks set up for the time being but covered with materials... cubbies filled too
The front corner will be my reading corner and I'm gonna do a focus wall next to the backpack hooks and bookshelves.
The board is going to be used as my "facebook" board... have you all seen that? I can't wait to do it
Adding a burst of color for student work with my student work tables

Definitely more to come soon. I spent Saturday making files, spray painting, laminating, cutting, stapling, and gluing. Oh the joys of an obsessive teacher... it must be PRETTY.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

1st Grade Review Math Menu

Here's the one I promised, a first grade review to use either at the end of 1st grade or the beginning of 2nd grade. I hope you all can use this, because I know I will be assigning it as homework for the first week.

You can buy it at Teacher's Notebook and at TeachersPayTeachers (whenever the updates are done).

Check it out and let me know if you have any requests or ideas to use with this.


Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Math Menu - One done, so many possibilities

I'm on a roll, what can I say?

I just finished my first "math menu" and couldn't wait to share with you all. I still thinking of different ways to use this and I will be making one for the beginning of school so they can review what they learned in the previous year, but until I get that done, here's the first one = Money!

You can buy at TeachersPayTeachers or at Teacher's Notebook. I'm also open to ideas about topics to do this type of project with. Measurement? Shapes? Let me know what you think or would like...



Volunteers

Happy Tuesday!

This week is all about creating the remainder of the ALL of the things I've wanted to make this summer. I going to start making my "Homework Menus" for certain times of the year/topics... my goal is at least make one for Back to School since we will have a three day week then.

Here is one of the things I already made last night.

At my school, our parents have to complete 20 volunteer hours for each students, so any way I can help the parents and alleivate the stress is perfect. I orinigally saw this on a pinterest post and changed it to my liking as the options wouldn't work for my school.

You can purchase it as is here or here. If you would like different options, message me on either site, or here, and I'll alter it to your liking for no additional charge.

More to come soon!

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Manipulative Task Cards and a Sale!

Hello all!

Just a quick update here. I have been been in training but made several files to share. All of the tri-folds that I planned on making are up on Teachers Pay Teachers. I believe there are 13 files including Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia and Henry and Mudge in the Sparkle Days.

Also, I finally created the task cards that I had talked about wanting to do with BUILD. After researching many that were either too low or too high or with manipulatives that I didn't have to begin with... I went ahead and created my own set. There are a total of 68 cards in the file (17 pages). I may do another set sometime during the school year or even break apart the sets into categories (i.e. money, patterns, etc.) if anyone is interested... let me know.

Patterns - The students make specific patterns using unifix cubes or shape blocks.

Length - The students measure objects using rulers or common school supplies.

Calculators - Students enter numbers in calculators to see what word they need to find.

Phones - Students use touch-tone phones (old cell phones) to complete mental math problems.
You can buy this file and my others at TeachersPayTeachers and Teacher's Notebook.

Also... ALERT, ALERT, ALERT!!!

I am having a 15% off sale at both TeachersPayTeacher and Teacher's Notebook from Saturday 7/21 through Tuesday 7/24 in honor of me going back to school (at least to unpack and bring in all my numerous boxes of teacher stuff). Enjoy and buy :-)

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Fairy Tale Beginnings

Hello again,

I am back from vacation and while I won't bore you all or make you jealous, I will say the Alaskan Cruise was amazing :-)

I have been in class this week and working on things for this year during my time there.

While cutting out centers and going through books and samples, I have decided to do FAIRY TALES for the beginning of the school year in reading and writing (most likely the first two weeks).

The first day I want to introduce my students to myself by first doing my usual 'bag.' This activity is one that has been seen many times; you fill a bag (I use just a brown paper sack) with things that represent you. Usually I explain these things myself but this year, since I'm going up to 2nd grade, I am going to do it differently. I will only show the object and let them voice and discuss their inferences for why they think it would represent me.

After that, I wanna show them some pictures (gorgeous pictures) of Alaska and introduce some background knowledge on it. Seeing as I'm in Florida, it's safe to say 'all' my children have not see a place like this.

Then, drum roll please...



I will read this book, The Salmon Princess: An Alaskan Cinderella Story, which yes, is from Alaska.

This will begin our 'Fairy Tale Back-to-School' project.

I plan on using the following worksheets that can be found both on TN and TPT. Please check them out!
More  Fairy Tales to come soon...