Made It Monday 8*21*17

I've been super busy this week! My students finally showed up in my gradebook and I love looking at their lil' cute faces, in one short week teachers in my county will report back to school and I'm beginning to get a little anxious. 

This week I finalized my team members birthday gifts. We are a team of 9. My school is the largest in our county with over 1,200 students. Most teams have 9 teachers, a couple have 8. I don't give birthday gifts every year but this year I decided I would. I've already put together the gifts for those team members who had summer birthdays. We're meeting for breakfast and for a team meeting this week , so I'll give them to them then. Each gift bag includes:

• a mini bag of Tate's Tiny Chocolate Chip Cookies, they are my most favorite cookie and Kroger had the mini bags on sale 10 for $10. I racked up!
• a hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works that says Happy Birthday.
• a Starbucks Gift Card

Now that I can see my students I can begin to put names on things. I don't know their nicknames yet but for the most part most students will go by their first name so I like to get a head start in labeling things. Here are past photos of the Welcome Bunting I put outside my classroom. 

My last idea came with the help of my #teamBFF Kaitlyn. She attended "Camp Chromebook" in our county last week and came up with a Digital Citizenship Poster for our classrooms. She sent it to me and I added some graphics and fonts. I love the way it turned out. I also love the fact that she used the SMART acronym, it goes with our school motto, Coal Miners are SMART!

Looking for more Made It Monday ideas, check out 4th Grade Folics!

Classroom Tour 15-16

Normally my classroom would have been finished a month ago but I made a promise to myself to rest this summer and not spend time in my room but time working on resources at home instead.

Sign In Table- email address and room mom sign ups

Welcome Bunting

Welcome Bunting

View from the Door, sorry it's blurry

Reading Group Bulletin Board with Thirty One Oh Snap Pockets

Reading Group Table

Back Wall and Counter

Classroom Library

Focus Board

White Board

Above White Board

White Board

Super Improver Board

SMORE Folder

Welcome Treats- Hand Sanitizer, Fruit Snacks, Stickers, Slinky, Pencil

Those were my pictures as of Thursday, before they added 2 new students to my roll and before the nervous breakdown of century. I have a total of 27 third graders this year, ranging from first grade level to fifth grade level, while my teammates are averaging 23-24 students each. Here's to a new year...  

Summer Projects Part 2

It's August and I report back to school in 22 days. Summer school is over and I've had my family vacation at Massanutten Resort. I'll spend the remainder of the month at home creating resources as I promised myself I wouldn't work in my classroom this summer.

 

For the last couple of years I've spent part of my summer working tirelessly in my classroom but not this summer. I intend to do it all during teacher work week, so between the meetings and professional development this teacher will find out if it really is possible to put an entire classroom together during work week, before Open House. Good news is I've done my first week planning and already made my copies, so the clerical work is done.

  Here's what I'm currently working on.

I'm making headings for my focus bulletin board, it has purple fabric with green chevron border so I think these will coordinate with it.

Remade my Whole Brain Teaching Rules, wanted something more simple and chic.

Remade the WBT Call Back Reponses as well.

Made these color posters for a K-Teacher friend of mine, she wanted to update the posters in her classroom. I used the Color Kids from Krista Wallden. You can download these at the Teaching Oasis.

I made a Welcome Bunting Banner for the hallway, I'm going to run them on brightly colored paper and tie them together with ribbon.

I also gave my library labels a makeover. Frames courtesy of Krista Wallden.