Classroom Day 4 - More Pictures :)

Friday dawned bright and early... my 3 year old was burning up and only wanted his mommy to hold him - so my idea of spending lots of time in the classroom didn't happen.  My husband was able to give me a couple of hours though of daddy duty before he had to go off to work, so in 2 hours I finished up some projects.  You might have seen some of these pictures over on Instagram or on Facebook yesterday.  So... here is more pictures of my classroom from yesterday.    

This is my classwork bulletin board.  I still need to add the pushpins, but it's almost ready to go.  Usually I only put up cardstock, but this year I found those adorable birds at Office Max and had to get them.  I think it dresses up the board nicely.  :)

Here's my VOICES board.  It was originally going to have FACE strategies too, but all my writing stuff kind of took over.  The french fries cups are going to be synonyms that the tables brainstorm - and we will get in some thesaurus practice at the same time.  Planning on switching them out with different words once a month.  

This is the left side of my front wall.  My Lego calendar came down, and instead I have a gigantic desk calendar to write big on.  I tend to write huge anyway, so now there will be more room.  There is room on the far left to hang the Star Student's poster, and above is my school timeline ready to go.  We brainstorm the best parts of the month the last day of the month and write it on a dicut that gets placed up on the timeline.  

Here's the front wall.  The whiteboard hasn't been sectioned off yet, but I love how everything has come together.    

I finally put up the whole brain teaching posters to start the year.

... and my hand signals are now up.  

The FACE strategies are now up too.  

My storage units are all sorted too.  These black ones have task cards and activities in the 5 drawer ones, and the 3 drawer have reading activities (fluency books, science/ss connections, spelling sorts, word work, and a drawer full of my thesaurus').  

The math bulletin board has also started to be put together - it starts off pretty plain but will soon be covered with anchor charts.  

Below the math bulletin board is all my math drawers - Math Facts, Mixed Fact Assessments, and lots of manipulatives.  

Overall, it was a good day and I'm feeling pretty comfortable with what's left to do.  Isn't it crazy how much stuff needs to be done in a short amount of time on top of getting everything organized paperwork wise to start out the year?

I hope you all have a great day!  

Monday Made It - Redoing magnet numbers

It's Monday!!!  Link up time with Tara to show you what craftiness I've been at lately.  

Remember this from last summer?  If you can't figure it out, it's my hall pass magnet thing.

C is for Classroom, M is Music, O is Office, and B is Bathroom.  

  

Well I loved it this past year - I loved the idea of magnets, of the clips, of it all... what I didn't love was the glass marbles being all the same color... hard to find specific numbers quickly (if the kids didn't put them back in order).  So I changed it up.  

Picked up a package of wooden stars and small magnets.  Everything else (like the paint colors I already had from past projects).  My paint colors are Apple Tart and Pool Blue.  I <3 them!  

I painted half the stars each color - since half of them are going to be for the even numbers, and the other half for the odd classroom numbers.  

I still need to hot glue the magnets onto the back of them, but that can wait since I guess I left my hot glue gun locked up in my classroom cabinet... I know, I know - WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!  August 1st will be here soon enough though. :(  

Easy little fix to make it work better this next year.  :)  

As for my old numbers - I'm still planning on using them on my whiteboard 

for class needs since they work and are super strong.

Have a great day! 

Revisiting Clipboards

Yep - I'm still gone... Do you miss me yet?  Here's another revisit post in case you never saw it....

Remember this picture from last year?  

Last summer I spray painted my clipboards in my front yard for a Monday Made It.  I have loved them and they really have held up to the demands of 9 and 10 year olds.  Kids didn't write or doodle on them, except for a couple of markings on the top silver spray.  They still look great.  A couple of them have part of the red ribbon unraveling, which is understandable - the kids used these basically every day.  I probably should have used another type of ribbon at the time, but I went with the cheap thin stuff (which was what I could afford).  I'm thinking of replacing the ribbon when I go back in August.\

I did end up adding a huge apple sticker to the back of each clipboard.  It wasn't necessary at all, but all the stickers held up over the course of the year and was a great addition to tie it into my apple theme. 

If you are thinking of doing this project this summer I still totally recommend it.  Just remember to get a bunch of cans of spray paint since it takes a bunch to cover them all on the front and back.  Also pick up a drop cloth and watch out for the wind.  It took me 3 cans of blue and 1 of metallic.  Maybe a different color wouldn't mean as many coats - of course I love my blue!  Use a cut file folder to place under the clip part if you decide to spray metallic colors on the top (to protect the color underneath).

The link above goes back to my post from last year.  

Hope this helps someone.  :)  

Monday Made It: Table Signs and Popsicle Place Value

I did it - I made something - I got my creativity back!  

So, I'm linking up with Tara for Monday Made It.  A day late, but if you read what I dealt with yesterday you will totally understand.  

What did I make?  Well, I decided to redo those poofy table numbers that have been flying high all last year.  I took them down last week - they were dusty and then they were hard to store...  So last night as I was wandering around Michael's looking for inspiration (I thought painting might lower my blood pressure), I found these big plywood shapes in the clearance aisle.  

Yes, I know apples are my main theme in my room and I still love them, I just also like the idea of a garden with these little birds...

...and these little birdhouses flying overhead.  

So I painted both sides the 2 of the colors that are throughout my classroom, bubble drew #1-6, and then painted the numbers white.  

I then traced over the outline edge of the white with red sharpie to finish it up.  

Here they are in my hallway.

I also finished up my Popsicle Place Value to Hundred Millions Activity Pack.  Place Value is the first unit I teach, so I made up task cards for intermediate students to identify digits and a matching game for students to identify values.  Since this will be taught in August/September, it was all about popsicles.  :)  

Want to win a copy of the Activity Pack?  Just leave a comment below (make sure you leave your email or have your email connected to your profile).  I'll choose a random winner on Thursday night!  

Have a great day!

My 3 Favorite Places

I'm linking up with Flying into First Grade tonight to share my favorite 3 places in my classroom.  These pictures are from a while ago - but it basically looks the same now.  :)

My classroom library is my first favorite. :)  I love how everything is color coded and labeled.

My Bucket Filler area is another favorite.  The kids write encouragement notes to each other, I proofread them, and then my helpers deliver them.   

I love my ELA wall.  I love having the strategies up and posted.  

Hope you had a great day!!

Minimum Days Mean Rearranging The Classroom

Every year it's the same issue that I have.  I can not just leave well enough alone on minimum days.
I do the same thing at my house and it drives my family crazy  with the constant rearranging.
Parent conferences are this week, and after spending all day on Monday in my classroom, I just wanted to change everything around - at least on the bulletin boards.
So Tuesday and Wednesday I spent a good portion of my prep time standing on a chair.
Here's what I did:
I moved my FACE pictures to a smaller board and my FACE cards to share my VOICES board.  I updated my stars from the VOICES board to laminated lined paper so I could add the colors of the Rainbow Edit directly to those reminders.

The VOICES and FACES information also got a makeover.  I decided to laminate the beautiful circle letters from Ladybug's Teacher Files.  Before I had them in sheet protectors, but I'm trying to make it a tad smaller in size to combine both the boards.

I moved my Reading vocabulary pictures (on the colored card stock) up from below the board to the side of the board.  That allowed me to be able to post my Making Connections and Story Map poster boards up high above the board. 

I also was able to stick up some more anchor charts of the different reading skills (Compare/Contrast, Cause/Effect, Predicting, Visualizing, Asking Questions) on the other side of the top of the board.  I decided to take those FACE cards of those skills and stick them on top of the anchor charts to help kids make the connection.  

I moved my Science vocabulary to the front of the room.  It's just on a pocket chart, but I really want vocabulary to be all up front since it's what we are working on right now.  This pocket chart switches between Science and Social Studies depending on what we are studying.

I moved my entire Math wall to the big bulletin board on the back wall.  Now there is room for more anchor charts.  I like that it is on an actual board that has fabric, and that most of the stuff is now at student eye level instead of way up high above the board.
I love it ...at least at the moment.  :)  
Hope you had a good day - last day of parent conferences!

Classroom Pictures as of 12:40 This Afternoon

First things first - did you enter my giveaway?
Now onto the real reason I posted... At lunch today I wasn't feeling good.  Something is going through the staff and I just wanted to sleep during lunch - of course I didn't, but I did hide in my dark classroom to just relax (and then took pictures).  I have one of the last lunches of the day, and with an early dismissal at 1:30 I just tried to make it until the kids went home - then I clocked out before the staff meeting and went home to take a nap.  What a difference sleep makes.
So, over the past month of school some of the things that I created this past summer are working wonderfully, and others had to be changed.  Here's what's working for me.  

 My making connections poster is something that I use every Monday morning.  We preview the story and I just use post it notes to stick on my poster.  The kids write their connections in their composition book behind their vocabulary definitions.

 After reading time (which happens to be right before lunch) we have our first choice time of Daily 5.  I guess my picture didn't include the choices that I wrote on the board.  The kids took their numbers (these numbers are from the Math It Up board that someone wonderful posted - and I can't remember who it was) and make their choice.  Today their choices were Listen to Reading on the MP3 players, Computers - AR tests and Internet 4 Classrooms, Boggle (Word Work), and Work on Writing (if they hadn't finished their personal narrative from last week).  Some of my students were gone to music - so that's why I'm missing some of my 32 numbers... yes, 32...

 Kids love the Bucket Filler area.  By the end of the week it will be filled with kind notes - they collect them out on Friday afternoons.  

 In the back of my room I have 4 cabinet doors.  On this one I have Sentence Starters specifically for my ELL learners.  On our inservice day we had a presentation and one of my coworkers typed up the different responses for us to post.  

 Then I have a couple of Word Work things posted all week long - this cabinet has our Spelling patterns for them to add to the lists in their binders.  It's from Ladybug's Teacher Files.

 This cabinet has my Boggle Board.  Remember how I made a cute one this summer with alphabet flashcards?  Well it didn't work space wise in the classroom.  So I made up a grid, laminated it, and stuck it on the cabinet.  Now every Friday afternoon I change it for the next week.  This week we are reading "Escape" - part of the story of Charlotte's Web, so I chose the letters that will make up Farm Animals from that Boggle website that I posted about way back when.  In their binders they have a Boggle sheet in a sheet protector that they write on with their dry erase markers.  On Fridays we see who came up with the most amount of words.  

 Next to Boggle I have a version of Math It Up.  Same thing - not much room to display my big tri-fold.  Live and Learn... I just write numbers on the grid on Monday, and they can use the different operations to come up with as many problems as possible.  

 Here's my back wall with pictures - if you see something creative on the wall pictures that you like it's most likely from Ladybug's Teacher Files - I also added those pull out drawers on the work table.

 We finished up Unit 1 of Social Studies, so now we are onto our first unit of Science - the pocket chart changes with the different vocabulary words of the unit.

 Then here is my VOICES board that I showed you last week.  See, lots of PIES.  

 Here are our Region Maps - you can't see the cute colored paper on the backing because they take up the entire board... the entire board... I just realized that I hung one of their maps upside down on the wall, or else they painted on the wrong side of CA.  

 I love my mirror - it has also helped when I have to check my teeth for lettuce.  :)  The kids are really good at moving their magnets and taking a clothespin when they leave.  

 I decided to use post it notes on my calendar - even more of a time saver.  

 I used to have my birthday dicuts in a pocket chart, but then I couldn't see all the names... so now they are just stapled up.

Yes, lots of pictures - it was a photo dump type of day.  Hope you are having a good one!