First week is over!

We have been in school for a week now, and my class is wonderful!! They are so sweet. My boys are ALL boy, but that's okay with me...I can handle that.

Over the week we have been doing various activities to get to know one another. Here are a few things that we did.....

We designed T-shirts to represent our interests.

We completed a graphic organizer to tell about ourselves.

We wrote numbers that told something about ourselves then drew pictures. It was so cute watching them explain their numbers to the class.

(Confession: This picture is from another 3rd grade room, I let my kiddos take their home, ha ha)

They had a chance to answer some questions about school. After those questions, they were able to ask me any two questions. Well, that was interesting. One of my favorites was asking me if I knew how to sing the "Star Spangled Banner". They tried to get me to sing it.

On Thursday, I decided to have my students participate in a team building activity with spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. Thank you Pinterest for this great idea! The goal was to build the biggest tower as a group. In order to create a tall structure, they had to work as a team. It really should me who is a team player and who wasn't. They had a blast! They learned that working with as a team is very important to get things done. Lets just say there were groups that worked more as a team cleaning up than building their tower.

 

 

My classroom...Finally

I have been so behind on the "back to school" linky. I have been diligently trying to get my classroom together and plans together for the kiddos. They come trampling in on Monday, and I am NOT ready. I haven't gone to the school on a Saturday in a long time, but I had to go in order to be totally ready. It only took about 4 hours for me to have everything putting together. Other teachers came to work too, so I wasn't the only "loser" going to work on a "non-work" day :)

I did remember to take pictures for ya'll

                      Here are pictures from a couple of different angels

My library

My daily data board.

Homeworkopoly board (my kids LOVE playing) and our morning rountine

Lunch choice board

I know that the cabinet is a little dirty, but I have tried EVERYTHING trying to get it clean.

My door

What Kind of Teacher Are You?

I wanted to show you this video of an incredible teacher today. Most of us teach elementary school, but that doesn't change the fact that we want to change children's lives. Here is an example of a teacher that lives this out. As we are getting ready to enter into a new school year, just keep this video in mind. Maybe it will inspire us to take the time to build those relationships with our students and do more than teach them academics. What kind of teacher are you going to be this year? I hope that I will be one that gives God glory every day in my classroom, showing the character of Christ to my students each day.

Remind 101--FREE Service

I was perusing through my Pinterest account, and came across this text messaging service for teachers. It's called "Remind 101".

Do you mean that there is a way to send out a mass text message to my parents without giving them my cell phone number?!?! Yes there is!!!!

All you have to do is sign up and create a class name. Then you can have your parents sign up just like they would for texts from stores. There is a number to text and attach the tag line that connects to your account.

Anytime that you have a message for parents, just go to the site (or the app on your phone), type up the message, and then send! They do not know your phone number but are able to get those reminders that are on those newsletters that they never read. You know what I'm talking about....you spend all that time creating a cute newsletter then it never gets home or gets put directly into the trash can.

Did I mention that you can attach this to your class blog?? You create a widget from the settings and place it anywhere on your blog. This way your parents not only get your text messages, but they are able to see the messages you send on the blog! 

I'm SUPER excited about this!! I can't wait to use it in my classroom next year. Most of my parents could care less about newsletters or blogs, but I know that they will check their phones. Whoot Whoot!!

Here's the link

First Week of School is Over!

Before I get started on the events of the week, here is what my classroom looks like finished!

This week has been an interesting week meeting and getting to know my students. They're just doing things that just CRACK ME UP! This class is wonderful too. There are things that they do which shows that they have lots of room to grow throughout the year, but I know that they are a group that will do it in a spectacular fashion!

Since I know that kiddos are nervous their first day of school and have lots of questions, I gave them an opportunity to ask me anything they wanted to know. Well, the results were pretty funny. My favorite was "how do you do hair to do dat?" My hair is curly so I guess they don't know that it can be that way naturally.

Also, I read The First Day Jitters and had various activities that were related to the book which included a "4 square". The first square was about being nervous before school then progressed into how they felt after finishing their first day. There is the website that my team used to find activities for this book.

http://www.mrsvandyke.com/backtoschool.htm 

The school's counselor has the whole school going through 7 Habits of Happy Kids this year as a part of our school-wide discipline plan. The first week is "Be Proactive". I am hoping that this helps my students think about their behavior. Have any of you guys ever gone through this book with your kids??

I do have to say--I have never been so tired in all my life! After work I have to come home and get crackin' with grad school stuff until my eyeballs are going to fall out! This teacher can not wait until she gets used to going to work AND doing grad school again.

Meeting the Students...First Day Jitters

I've been teaching for 6 years and I still get just as nervous as I did my first year when it's time to meet my new students. I think of a thousand things that I need to get done the night before then when those things are finished, I come up with a thousand more things to do.

This was my first official week back to work, but without the kids. On Monday, they walk through the door (aaaahhhhhhh!!). I've put the finishing touches on my room, but I still don't feel ready. I'm sure that I will have dreams of what the first day is like. When things into to full swing the dream escalate to me teaching in my sleep. There are many nights I wake up trying to find out why my bed is in my classroom when I'm supposed to be finding my kids. The nice thing is at least I get to dream with correct faces since Thursday was "Meet and Greet" night.

The girls and I right before "Meet and Greet" (I'm in the black dress and NOT pregnant)

The kids were supposed to bring their school supplies while getting a chance to me, their teacher. I can't tell you the number of times that I was asked about the instructional goals for the school year or the first 6 weeks of school. This has NEVER happened to me before!! Also, there we some very comical encounters with students and parents. There were some parents threatening their children with "beatings" if they acted up. One of my students was TWIRLING in my room like a dancer...wow.

For the first week of school we will:

• Read the First Day Jitters then make a book about being nervous for the first day of school. 
• Make a time capsule where the students will write about their interests and their goals for the school year. At the end of the year they will open it up to see how they have changed and see if they meet their goals. 
• Start an E.B. White author study since we are going to Children's Theatre
• Complete "get to know you" surveys then making Venn diagrams with a partner, comparing how they are similar and different.

What are some things that you are going to do the first week/few days of school?

Our principal had a "trick" up his sleeve for the teacher's first week back. Today we did a team building activity...and it WAS an ACTIVITY. Everyone had to download a code scanner onto their phones first of all. He placed games coded with pictures around the school, and each team had to work together in order to complete the games. In order to go to the next game, we had to scan a bar code telling us where to go. Since it was a contest, there were about 60 teachers RUNNING (full speed with sweat and all) all over the school (3 stories high) for about an hour. It was the most fun I have had on a teacher work day!! Each game was a challenge if you didn't work with your team, and the competitiveness of finding each game around the school was exciting. Of course he through in a little "hiccups" to confuse us. What a great way to start the year ;)

Did you all do anything special on those "lovely" teacher workdays??

School is Starting...Ready or Not!

Well, I only have 3 more days of "freedom" before I am required to go back to work! I'm ready to get back in the routine of working again. I miss teaching my little rug rats! This week has been FILLED with work detail in order to be on top of my game this year (one of which was making a few chalkboards for my room). It's hard not being stressed when you know that your year is going to be jammed packed with stressful things

• Having a new group of kids to get to know
• Teaching a new math curriculum that has LOTS of parts to get together
• Observation year (this only requires TONS of paper work to go with it and hoping that my kids don't "cut up" too much when the principal is in my room)
• Final year of grad school which includes a practicum that will be done in my room
• Having to make sure that I have everything translated into Spanish this year since I will have a few families that don't speak English (first year doing this, so I'm sure that I will become a pro by the time the year is over with)

This weekend will be filled with just a few last minute things to get done so I can at least take my stress level down to about a 5 instead of a 9.

• First 9 weeks of math planning
• Newsletters for the first 2 weeks
• Full lesson plans for the first 2 weeks
• Trips to the store to get a flash drive (mine died at the end of the year) and storage containers
• Pick up one of my grad school books
• Plan some meals to be cooked in the crock pot

Ready or not school will be starting for the teachers on Monday then comes the kiddos on the following Monday! On yeah, I almost forgot that "Meet the Teacher" night is next week too!! Oh my!!! The school dreams have already started and I am sure that they will get even worse as "The Day" approaches. 

I will TRY TRY to remember to talk pictures of my room now that it's finally d-o-n-e. 

Making Progress and To Do List Linky Party

These past 2 weeks have been crazy busy with getting my classroom ready. Those little kiddos will be back August 20th!! AAAAHHHH!! There is still SO much to do before I am ready!

The first order of business was to get my classroom library in my computer system and reorganized. I did not know how big of a task that was going to be with over 700 books. It's finally D-O-N-E, done! I wanted to make sure that the books were separate by genres and have a good check-out system. Now that everything is online, I think it will be much easier to keep track of those books.

There were just SO many books to organize! Ha ha.

Here it is finished. Well, almost. I still have to put down the rug and clean it, but the hardest part is finished.

I was able to get most of my classroom put back together without any problems. Of course, I still have some work to do to make it perfect.

This is view from my desk. Luckily my desk doesn't take up much room since it's like a small personal student desk for a bedroom. I am still wanting to fix the cabinets that have the focus walls. Hhhmmm, that's going to take some thinking.

This is from my door. 

This is from the front of the classroom. You see that huge bulletin board? I found this simple phrase to put up since I am NOT creative or crafty.

These are my new station baskets. One set for the morning RTI time, another for reading, and the last set is for math workshop. Yay! I'm just proud that it's colorful and fun ;)

Before I left school for the day, I sat down and made my to-do list, and joined the "To Do List Linky Party" by The Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies. Man is it long!! I am hoping to get most/all of these things done this week so I can make another one to tackle. 

On another note, I am wondering if the people at Target, Walmart, and the various Dollar Trees are starting to recognize me. I am finding that I am making SEVERAL trips each week to all of these stores. I just don't want to miss out on the great deals for all of the nifty/cheap school supplies. Each time I go there is always something new that I am able to use. I am going to have to start telling my friends that I am not able to out for lunch because I am broke from all of this shopping that I have been doing lately! What is sad that none of it has been for me!! 

This coming year is going to fabulous though...I just know it. I might be a little rocky since HALF (not lying!!) of my grade level will be starting their maternity leave at the beginning of this year. Another one is just coming back from maternity leave, ha ha (you don't want to drink the water at my school :p)!!

http://www.fabulous4thgradefroggies.com/2012/07/to-do-or-not-to-do-so-many-things-on-my.html

School's Coming Back

Well, I have spent my summer doing absolutely nothing!! There was the occasional reading of professional development books and planning for the next year, but I really did nothing. This makes me SO glad that I am able to get back into my classroom to start setting up for next year!! Wahoo!!

The first order of business was to set up the desks. With our new math program it is essential that my students are able to work in pairs or in groups from the moment they walk into my door. Usually I have my kids in rows and slowly move them into groups once they have the procedures down pact. However, I am going to start off in pairs. This seems like the best way to have control but allow the kiddos their group math time.

The next project was/is the biggest of all....my classroom library. I am always trying the think of ways to organize my library and have a good checkout system that would prevent the "misplacement" of books over the year. After lots of blog stalking, I found a great solution. It's a internet based library catalog system. The kiddos checkout their books from the website anytime they find the perfect book for themselves. The best part is, I get to control the number of books they checkout and how long they can keep them! It gives email notifications when books are overdue. Now, I will ALWAYS know who has what and am able to write notes home for those little ones that are forgetful. (You all need to check it out....www.classroom.booksource.com) It took me 3 days to get all my books in the system (732 books to be exact, what?!?!), but I got it done and I know that it's going to be worth it.

Now the only thing left to do is to categorize these books into genre basics and label the books themselves. This might take a while, but I am hoping to get it done in a couple of days (This might mean a little help from friends and family, hehehe). I will post a picture once I am done.

These projects are only the beginning of what I have to do to be ready for my students. You all know. Putting things up in the classroom, going to MANY stores to get what I need, finishing the class blog, and LOTS of planning. This means lots of late hours at the school to be ready. Thankfully I work with a great team when it comes to planning and being ready with the math curriculum.

 I am very excited about the new group of students that I am going to get. I can't wait to find out who they are!! I am ready to put to use all those great things that I have about to better impact my students and to give them a better education. Nothing is better when I am able to see growth in a student (well rounded growth to be precise).

I would love to know what the first thing you are going to do to get ready for this coming school year!

Journaling Expectations and Newsletters

It's the middle of my summer and I have to tell ya, that I am READY to go back to work!! To most people that have lives, it sounds crazy. But I am one of those people that doesn't have a life and gets bored after a few days of vacation. I have been trying to do some recreational reading; however, it doesn't sooth the thoughts of all the things that I have to do before school starts. Even though I have a huge list of things still yet to do, it doesn't replace my desire to go back to work to teach some kiddos.

I figured that I would share with you some of the things that I worked on yesterday. I am a journalling freak! My kids need to have a journal for everything. Last year, we talked about our expectations for each on, but it they didn't always abide by those. Therefore, I came up with a new plan to glue the expectations inside their journals. Maybe this will help them remember what kind of work they are supposed to do.

(The pictures will take you to the files)

Morning Journal Expectations

Each morning we have RTI time and the kiddos are working at stations (mainly reading stations)

Writing Journals Expectations

My kiddos use a journal to go through the stages of writing until they get to their final drafts. They write their final drafts on pieces of loose leaf paper.

 Reading Journal Expectations

During our reading block the kids go stations so I can pull small groups

Math Journal Expectations

 During our math block the kiddos have math workshop time

Last year I put all of the newsletters on the class blog, but I don't think as many parents visited the blog to get the newsletter as I had hoped. To try to keep that from happening again, I created an introduction newsletter that shows the parents what to expect on the newsletter and where they can find it. Also, I tried to make it clear that they can request a hard copy since I know not all homes have internet. 

If you want the DOC file, just leave your email address. Otherwise, the picture is to a PDF.

My list continues to get smaller, but it still a long one. I have other things that I will share latter, but I figured this could be a start. I really need to slow down my pace since we don't go back until middle of August.