Classroom Tour 2015

This is probably my favorite time of to be a blogger! I LOVE seeing everyone’s classroom, gathering ideas, and the fresh new feel of the beginning of the school year. I relish in seeing how creative teachers turn a classroom into a beautiful, welcoming environment for learning.

Here is my 2015-2016 2^nd grade classroom:

This is the before picture. I had my work cut out for me this year since I moved classrooms.

I have moved up stairs to second grade! This is my second grade hallway and what I see every morning. I love the message it sends to the students.

This is what you se when entering the room. It is kind of a little hallway before you can see the whole room. My decor is from SchoolGirl Style Frog collection- I just took out the frogs and made it look more like the Paisley Blue collection. Other decor is either from Really Good Stuff or various blogs.

This is a view from the room once you enter.

This is the view when you turn right. From here you can see the word wall, cubbies, book boxes (dark blue bins in left cubbies), writing, word work, (next to the writing table in blue bins), and math games (green bins in the far right cubbies.

This is the view if you turn left. My guided reading table, materials, and computers.

This view is also to the left but in the center of my room, the classroom library.

This is my desk area and calendar area at the front of the room. I had no choice but to keep the desk and it had to go here because of plugs for the phone and computer.

This is a view of the front left part of the room.

This is a view of back of the room from the front.

Well that’s all folks! I hope you enjoyed the tour of my 2^nd grade classroom.

I am back to school ready! I got a haircut, laid out my clothes for tomorrow, and rested up this weekend. I’m ready for my first day of second grade tomorrow! 

Red Ribbion Week & Random

Hey blog friends! 

I've been slacking on my blog a bit! I want to share with you some of our Red Ribbon Week doors from this past week. These are all of my first grade teammates doors.

Be Drug Free Anything Less is Despicable! 

This is my door. :) I got the idea via Pinterest! The kids made the iPods and wrote on them iPledge to be drug free! and signed their names.

On the left side she posted all of her kids putting fake bugs in their mouth. Super silly and fun!

We promise to "leaf" drugs alone! 

We don't fall for drugs! She had the kids all sign a leaf.

The small sign on the tree says "Drugs make you batty!" All her kids made bats and sign their names in white crayon. 

I think they are all pretty awesome, cute, and creative! We had a contest where admin voted on doors. I won for my grade level. I was kinda floored because I never win anything. My class got some rocking guitars keychains and Twizzlers as a prize. FUN! 

I just discovered this great site...check out this awesome FREE math resource: 

There are several math games for K-7 using interactive boards. I will be using this for warming up their brains for sure! My kids love anything to do with our Smart Board!

In other news, I have parent-teacher conferences this week! I had 17 out of 18 parents sign up! So I have many meetings before and after school. I have also started AAA tutoring to help 3-5 graders build their reading comprehension and raise their test scores for the FCAT (our state standardized test). It is an hour each morning. I tutor one group for thirty minutes and then they go on the computer for Reading Plus and I tutor another group that was just on the computer. 

I'm enjoying this "chilly" front on the east coast and looking forward to Halloween this week! I'll post back here on Friday with all the fun that happens during our week.

Have a wonderful week! 

Wrapping up the Week

Just reflecting on my past week with my kiddos! My students are getting into their routine and meeting my expectations! They are really doing a fabulous job with everything I put in front of them and I'm super happy with my class this year! I am still being very strict with them but I think they are really starting to know me and the lighter/silly side of me. I'm still feeling like this multi-tasking teacher though: 

This past week we had three birthdays in our class: Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Parents must have been busy in January of that year! I have five kids with birthdays in September. The kids were super excited to take home the birthday bag and eat cupcakes in class.

This week I had my kids bring in family photos. I sent home this letter explaining that I wanted the our classroom to represent their families and feel more like home for my students.

Click here to download this letter for free.

This is how I am displaying their family photos. All of them aren't up just yet but I think they look really nice! Each picture is above that students' cubby.

I also attached these boy/girl signs I've had for a long time above their notebooks. I separated their notebooks into cubbies and wanted to make it easier for them to get them quickly. This was my solution! These notebooks are not kept in their desk because they are used for centers not desk work. I have a readers response journal, poetry journal, and spelling journal. I also have a science journal in their right now because we haven't used those just yet....eventually those will be in their desks.

Speaking of science....I have tons of little scientist who love exploring! This week we have been talking about making observations and sorting objects. We made a anchor chart about what making a good observation looks like and sounds like. We also made another anchor chart about sorting objects by color, size, shape, and texture. I didn't take pictures because we make them together on the SmartBoard and their is too much glare. I'll have to try and figure that out. Anyway I made these observation trays for my kids to observe and sort. They loved this and were so excited when they got to switch trays. They all had magnifying glasses which are totally not necessary but a fun tool to use.

This week I also took some time to catch up on things I like! I started working out with some co-workers and we're doing the T25 workout. It's great because it is only 25 minutes but it's pretty intense. My legs were sore! I also read the Divergent series this week. Yes, I finished two books in one week. These books are amazing! It was such a fast read! I started last Sunday and finished the first one on Friday night. Then I immediately downloaded the next book Insurgent and finished it today. Yes, I am fully aware I'm a book nerd. I love it! Now I'm waiting for the third book to come out October 22. I already pre-order it!

Through all of that I'm getting ready for Open House tomorrow night! Stayed tuned this week  to find out all about how I do Open House! Have a great week!

Chevron Shelf

I made an blah black shelf into a beautiful chevron shelf a few weeks back! I thought I would share with everyone so you could see how easy it is to use shelf liners! 

First I put the shelf liner on the top and cut it with regular scissors. You could use an exacto knife but their was a graph on the back of the shelf liner so it was easy to cut the exact length and width.

Then I covered down the sides and made sure the the chevron matched up on the sides.

I folded it back like this. It was a bit sloppy in the back but no one is seeing that part!

Now this is what the shelf looks like. It holds printer paper, card stock, pretty computer paper, and lots of stickers in the blue bin.

It's the perfect cute shelf for my printer! 

I used this shelf liner and had plenty! I would love to use it on other areas in my room! 

I got the shelf liner from Amazon. 

First few days back to school!

I started school on Monday and it has been a hectic start! We have some many new things that we're implanting this year. New reading and math curriculum, new lesson plan format from the county, new professional growth plan, new principal, and lots of new staff!

I've had an awesome start in my classroom though! My students are babies who need to be whipped into shape. I feel like I say this every year at the beginning! They are just so little and not independent at all! My feet hurt so bad from all the jumping up and walking around the room! I'm getting the kids comfortable with the routine, rules, and first grade work.

I've used Kagan structures this week for class building and team building. So far I've used Find Someone Who, Round Robin, and Timed Pair Share.  In Find Someone Who kids walk around when the music starts and when the music stops they pair up with the person who is closest to them. Then the students introduce each other. Then the person with the shorter hair (I just did because it was easy for the kids to determine) asks the other person if they can fill something out on their paper. I used Abby Mullins Find a Friend sheet from her Fun with Firsties back to school packet. It was perfect for first graders and easy for them to read. Then they switch and the other person fills out their paper. Then it starts all over again. The kids LOVED getting to know their classmates this way. They enjoyed moving around, meeting new people, and finding out new things about them.

Timed Pair Share is exactly how it sounds. In pairs, students share with a partner for about 30/45 seconds while the other listens and then they switch. This has been great for pair work and math talk!

I also used Round Robin for team building. the students shared what they did over the summer with their table. They just take turns talking about what they did to generate ideas for a writing activity. Everyone has a chance to talk and they keep talking about ideas until the time is up. We've done this with some other fun questions I just have a sleepy brain and can't remember right now!

Here is their writing from those wonderful summer activities: 

I'll have to take more pictures of my kids actually doing all this! I've been bad about taking pictures! I did take 1st day pictures of my cuties and I'll make a magnet for the parents of it for open house.

I'm loving the chalkboard stuff right now! I got this sign off Pinterest! 

I took some pictures of my kids doing read to self! How adorable! They read for 7 minutes! They were great at finding spots, staying in one spot, getting out and putting away their book boxes. We broke the stamina because one little guy was goofing off and "fake" reading which led to a whole new lesson.

I'm trying to stay organized but papers just keep piling up this week!

Thank goodness for cute binders and bins! 

I'll leave you with some school humor.

Hang in there teachers we're half way through the week!