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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Thankful on Thursday

I'm so thankful this Thursday because my Donors Choose project materials came in today! A non fiction leveled classroom library!  Somehow I must have had an instinctive feeling they were coming today because I took my phone charger to work which I never do. The materials were scheduled to come in next week so I'm pumped they came early. I got a phone call during our literacy centers and I usually never answer because I'm busy hello please don't call! No seriously though they (by meaning the front office staff) could e-mail or intercom me if it's that important...I hope all teachers feel this way and I'm just not the mean one. I digress I got a phone call which I actually answered saying that 4 large packages had arrived from Lakeshore for me!!! (YEAH!!!!!) I had to tell my kids because they were obviously listening in and asked what I was so excited about which got them super excited. So I picked up the boxes during lunch and since our room is close to the cafeteria and the office my kids saw all the packages and starting squealing, clapping, and trying to get out of there seats during lunch. This may or may not be why the lights had to be turned off a few minutes later to get the kids at a normal volume. (oops) I couldn't believe how excited they were about the books. I waited until our special area time to even start opening them so I had time to go through the materials. After specials the kids were happy to see them out of the box and wanted to know when they could start reading them. Ahh I love first graders! I told them they would have to wait until tomorrow morning. After school I organized the book boxes and place them against the back wall with the rest of my books. I don't have a shelf or anything for them yet and I'm still considering moving them to underneath my whiteboard. 

The non-fiction level library! I'm still waiting on two levels but this is it for right now! PS I know I totally need to do something with the wall space above but I just don't know what to do. It's very hard to get anything to stay to concrete walls. So for right now I just slapped up some anchor charts as reminders of how to choose books and what to do in read to self and buddy reading. 

BOOKS!!

The new way the library looks! (for now)

The back wall of my classroom. 

Hope you had a wonderful Thursday that you are thankful for! THANK YOU Donors Choose for this awesome opportunity,  thank you Lakeshore for the materials, but most of all THANKS to my fabulous donors who include my family, friends, co-workers, and other bloggers!


10 comments:

  1. That sounds do exciting. I would love to have leved nonfiction books! What was the process you went through to get them? Is donors choice a website?

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    1. @ Kelly Go to Donors Choose.org or click on my button on my blog to see what it's all about! It's such a great way to get projects donated to your classroom!

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  2. Hey Jess! Congratulations to you and your class, how awesome!! I love DonorsChoose.

    I really like the anchor charts on your wall, it seems like the perfect place for them. I don't know if this will help you, but I've used hot glue on my walls before. It holds them up until it's time to just peel the glue. I don't *think* it'll peel the paint off your walls, but you could try a small dot in an inconspicuous place to see if it works first! My teacher neighbor makes fun of me (nicely, we're friends!) because I am a hot gluin' freak!
    Kristen

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    1. Kristen thanks for the suggestion with hot glue...I have used it before don't know why I didn't think of using it again! Sometimes it just takes another person to help you figure it out!

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  3. That's awesome! Your students sound so excited about them. It's really hard to find non-fiction books for kids at this age.

    Sara :)

    Smiling In Second Grade

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    1. @Sara It is so hard to find non-fiction books for kids that they can read so that why this library is amazing! It starts with A Kindergarten level all the way to P which is exiting 3rd grade level.

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  4. How awesome is that??? I would really love to check out Donors Choose!!! :) Enjoy!
    ❤ Sandra
    Sweet Times in First
    sweettimesinfirst@gmail.com

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    1. It's worth your time to check out Donors Choose! I never imagined how much it would help out my classroom and it's such an awesome feeling to know so many others care about education too!

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  5. Congrats!! How exciting! Also hot glue works wonders. I have used it before in other classrooms and it worked on the cement bricks. Currently I have a one wall that is a third actual bricks and hot glue is the only thing that works to stick anything up with.

    Apples and Papers

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