Classroom Sneak Peek

If you follow me then you know that I will be having surgery on Monday which means my room had to be arranged in decorated before summer school ended because I'm not sure how long my recovery will be. I took a few pics before leaving today to give you a sneak peak. I'll probably post more during teacher work week, assuming I'll be well enough to report back to work by then.

Writing Station, Whole Brain Teaching Board

Behavior Chart

White Board

Super Improvers Board, Calendar, 7 Habits

Math and Writing Wall

Carpet Area

Classroom Library

Vocabulary Word Wall, Organizational Items

Reading Group Area {please excuse the table, those are my back to school copies and story books, all ready for me to lesson plan}

Guided Reading Bulletin Board

Five for Friday

This is my first Five for Friday, which is ironic because during the summer I can't keep up with what day it is. 

 

I had the awesome opportunity to attend the VA Bloggers Meet Up in Richmond on Thursday. I meet an awesome blogger who works in the same district as I do so that was exciting, she actually works at the school 2 minutes from my house. Do you see me? I'm the brown one on the end...LOL!

So I got rid of my teacher desk in my classroom because there is not enough room for 30 student desks, that are in a funky triangle shape that only fit together in groups of four! If you've ever looked at my classroom tours you'd see what I was talking about. I found this awesome store on TpT, Learning in Wonderland, and bought her Melonheadz Organizing Set as well as her Mini Card Set. So basically, everything that was on or in my desk fit in all these organizing bins. My Teacher Toolbox is from Lowe's, I spray painted it black. The Steralite containers came from Walmart and the colorful bins came from the Container Store. I got them on sale, they were smaller than I envisioned, I wouldn't have paid full price for them.

So I think I'm finally going to take the plunge and purchase an Erin Condren lesson planner for this school. I completed 10 years of teaching in June and I think this is what I'll treat myself to. I have looked at the ones for sale on TpT but I also looked into the printing and binding at the local office store and I didn't see much price difference.

My creative juices have been flowing since being on vacation. I use to be a die hard Thistle Girl Design fan and her graphics were the only ones I'd use. But now I have two new favorite artists. Creative Clips and Melonheadz. I know... I know... I'm late.

Three weeks of summer school down and two more to go. Then my annual trip to Lakeshore. On August 4th I'll finally be having my surgery. I had a scare this week when I received a letter from the insurance company saying they weren't going to cover the surgery or the hospital stay or something, saying it wasn't medically necessary. Called my doctor in a panic and now everything has been approved. Looking forward to starting my 11th year of teaching PAIN FREE!

Whole Brain Teaching Part 1

According to Amazon my professional reading books should be delivered today! I haven't had to create many resources for this because there are "tons" of free quality items out there for you to download. Here are my favorites so far...

I downloaded the Super Improver's Wall from Tonya's Treats for Teachers. I was going to make my own, but hers hit the nail on the head and I wondered, why reinvent the wheel! They're colorful and the clip art is adorable! It's from Melonheadz and I have this set on my wish list right now. I am going to purchase matching cardstock paper to cut up and use as the students cards for them to earn stars and level up.

 

 

I really like the rules from Amy Groesbeck. It has Chevron and the same Melonheadz clip art. So I printed these out and laminated them.

 

I chose Christie from First Grade Fever's Call Back Set. Love the Polka Dots and again, it has the Melonheadz clip art.

Behavior Clip Chart without the Clips

Wooden Numbers to match my Behavior Clip Chart

I've been a pretty busy bee this last week! At the end of the school year parents in my classroom chipped in and they gave me a $100 gift card to Michael's for one of my end of the year presents... they know me so well! First I went to Michael's and just walked the entire store, seeing what they had as opposed to my other go to craft store Hobby Lobby.

I've never really had a behavior management system before, never really needed one. But now that I'll be implementing Whole Brain Teaching and Leader in Me strategies I thought it was a great time to start one. I created my clip chart from scrapbook paper I got from Hobby Lobby.

sorry for the blurry picture

I intend to put magnets on the back of these and place them on my white board vertically. I'm not into the clothes pins idea so I took to Pinterest for ideas. I thought about making DIY Glass Magnets but then I went to Etsy to see what they had to offer and ran across this shop OCD by B they had some cute wooden magnet numbers but they were going to cost me $40. So I figured for that price I can make them myself.

materials from Michael's

I went to Michael's and purchased all the items I needed to make my own numbers.

*wooden 1 & 1/2in circles $3.49 for 22 shapes
*button magnets $1.79 for 12
*1 & 1/2 inch craft punch $9.99 (I could have cut out circles with my Cricut)
*Matte Mod Podge
*Foam Brushes
*E6000 Glue

I used the craft punch to punch out the circles from the leftover colored cardstock I used on my clip chart.

Then I used my Cricut Cherry Limade Font (shadow feature, 1 inch size) to cut out all the numbers.

While those were cutting I glued the magnets to the wooden circles with the E6000.

Then I carefully glued the numbers to the colored circles.

I used the mod podge to glue the colored circles to the wooden circles. Then brushed the matte mod podge over the colored circles with numbers to seal it all together.

It took about 3 hours to make 30 numbers.

my magnets on the fridge

Could I have found a cheaper, easier way to do these? Probably, but I enjoyed creating them... crafting is very calming for me. I'm going to put these next to the "Ready to Learn" section of the clip chart on the white board. Students will "move up" when good choices are made and will "move down" when poor choices are made.

Professional Reading

There are several books I intend to read for fun this summer... the Divergent Series, new books from Mary Monroe. Then there are the 3 professional books I intend to read this summer. I've got them in my Amazon cart ready to purchase.

Each habit has a story that illustrates it, a little tidbit for parents or teachers to read, discussion questions, and several suggestions on how a child can implement that habit. I look forward to implementing this in my classroom this year. I've already created some posters and I'm in the process of creating a clip chart and a leadership binder for each student.

I've seen many ideas on Pinterest about Whole Brain Teaching. I decided it was finally time to read the book. Not sure if I'll implement the entire program next year but I may implement parts of it.

This is the perfect resource for Christian teachers, it provides tips and strategies to help you do just what the title suggests: create the classroom you've always wanted. This book contains fifty daily readings designed to help new teachers conquer the learning curve and to bring fresh ideas to veterans.

What professional books are you reading this summer? Have you read these, what do you think about them?

T minus 13 Days

Only 13 more days until summer vacation! Did you enjoy your Memorial Day weekend? I sure did. My husband and I traveled to Phoenixville, PA for our nephew's 1st birthday party. It was basically a 3 day event, between Monkey Joe's for the kids and Bounce U for the adults, shopping at the outlets and a family trip to Arnold's Family Fun Center, I'm exhausted. But I did make time to visit the Lakeshore Learning Store at King of Prussia. Here's what I bought...

I can't wait to use these Find the Evidence Clips. Students use them during
Guided Reading to mark their book. I'll probably do a test run with these
in Summer School.

I finally broke down and purchased these Nonfiction Question Sticks.
I purchased something similar years ago, but this year they came out with
two separate tubs, one for Nonfiction books and one for Fiction books.

Now that I have both tubs I can pull out the tub I need during Guided Reading
instead of reading through to find which ones apply to fiction and nonfiction.

So that's what I picked up on my excursion. I had a coupon and my husband had a coupon so I saved myself $14. I'll still make my yearly summer trip to the Lakeshore Store in Northern Virginia after summer school is over and... wait for it... before my surgery! After a follow up with my GYN, it was decided that it was time to remove the fibroids. So I will be having that procedure done on August 4th. Since it will be an incision there's a 2-8 week recovery time. I'll be missing all of those August Professional Development sessions that's required there's a possibility that I won't return until after teacher work week, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Now that my class has finished all of their state testing I've got some cute craftivities lined up for them. First, they will each teach a lesson to the class using this resource.

Click the picture for the link.

 Can't wait to display these cute cupcakes in the hallway!



Click the picture for the link.

And these guitars!

Click the picture for the link.

Oh and if you're in need of some FREE end of the year awards, there's some available on my website!



Click the picture for the link.

Must-Read Monday: Geometry

 

I almost never do linky parties but I did read a great book today to my students during math.

 

 

I just started my unit on Geometry and I always read this book when reviewing plane shapes. Basically any book by Marilyn Burns is a great one!

 



I'll read this book tomorrow when reviewing solid shapes.

 

Have any favorites you read when teaching Geometry?