Taking Over.... Ain't for the Faint of Heart....

So - I've known for about two weeks now that I would be taking over a 2nd grade classroom for a teacher that had to leave early. I was overjoyed when my principal asked if I was interested.... 

Completely torn - but overjoyed...

I love teaching ESOL... but I love being in the regular classroom too...

Ultimately I wanted to be with my kids all day {my personal kids - in K and 4th} and not have to worry about schedule changes and driving between two or three schools...

So here is a sneak peak at my IN PROGRESS room redo. 

I was really lucky to walk into a completely decorated room - the teacher who was leaving was amazing enough to leave everything on the walls and tables [before anyone wonders - he bought almost everything himself]. 

So I have been able to go in and redo a little bit at a time. :) 

Here is my progress. 

FYI - I am using the World Traveler Kit from SchoolGirl Style [click here]

I already had these suitcases printed and laminated for my ESOL classroom - I repurposed them and added the luggage tags to use as my reading and math groups

My behavior board.... I had to add my Melonheadz Small World and World kids to the plain old color chart... 

I was SO excited about these editable pennants.... hung them up... and.... 

TOO BIG. 

Darn it!

So I ended up redoing the closet (pictured above)... wasn't planning on taking this on...

(In an 85 degree classroom where the air override button wouldn't work.) 

Can you say heat-stroke? Good Golly! But it fit PERFECTLY! 

Now I am waiting on my shop ticket holders to get here from amazon so that I can hang my standards :) Love it when a good plan comes together! :) 

Magnets, Magnets, Everywhere!

Wowza Friends! 

We have been making boo-coodles of magnets this week! 

Check out some of those really cute designs my partner Stacy - she's such a pro at designing super cute things.... 

Friday was my first day back at work. Waking up in the morning was NOT fun. I set about four alarms to make sure I was up on time....

And ended up waking up an hour BEFORE any of them went off. 

AWESOME-SAUCE

I spent most of last week working on my classroom (my kiddos were with their dad in the mountains....) 

I chose the World Traveler theme from School Girl Style. 

Here are a few pictures so you can see my progress. 

{I still have a LONG way to go....but it is getting there!!}

Day 1.... 

What have I done? 

  

 Day 2.....

Maybe I can do this...

Day 3....

I'm finally getting somewhere! :) 

Three days until open house. 

Think I can make it? 

:) 

What Does a Real Classroom Look Like?

I am linking up at Teaching with Grace today to show pictures of what a real classroom looks like. I know I post pictures at the beginning of the year, when everything is fresh and new.... but this is what my room looks like 52 days into the year. I am not, by any means, a neat freak....I do have OCD - but it's only with certain things...

I will go ahead a say this - I am only in this classroom from 7 am to 11 am - then I travel to two other schools, where I do not have my own classroom.... so this tends to be my dumping ground once I make it back to my home school....

{hanging head...onto pictures...}

BE KIND! :) 

My desk area is my home base. I have a kidney table for my small groups which usually stays pretty clear. When I was a regular ed. teacher the kids often sat at my desk (positive reward) and I never really used it... NOW... so many files and crazy amounts of paperwork....The black rolling file cabinet is where my case files are stored.. The ones on the top are ones that need attention. The colored bins are to help my sort and organize my activities for each grade level K-5... and there is my coffee pot - that has never brewed a pot of coffee... I use it to make tea. 

So - piles and stacks abound... one day it will be cleared off - but today isn't that day! :) I hope you enjoyed a peek into my mess - I will call this an 'action shot' :) Link up and show us your real classroom! :) 

That pin it to win it was fun! I might have to do another soon! :) 

Don't forget to check out the original link! :) 

Interactive Notebooks and Decorating Cookies...

So, as I have said before - my schedule seems to be forever changing...

A few weeks ago I started going to the middle school and pushing into a 7th grade life science class. 

Wow. 

I fully remember why I teach elementary...

:)

Cells - cytoplasm, nucleus, mitochondria, golgi complex... oy VAY!

They are working on an interactive notebook in the life science class - so I found some things for my beginning English speakers to add to their IN (Interactive Notebook) to help merge their ACCESS level with the classroom content.... They already did a great job of labeling the cell,  discussing the functions,  and coming up with some cute ways to remember the organelle's jobs.

 lysosome... like lysol for the cell...

pro - no (prokaryotic cell doesn't have a nucleus)...

Vacuole - vacuum - stores the extra food and water..

BUT - I downloaded this lovely poster set from Jennifer Findley. I didn't have anywhere to display my posters - so I got a little creative....

I changed my printer settings so that 6 printed to a page, and we used these inside our IN's!
We also studied the plant and animal cells... using her other plant and animal cell unit! :) 

As the culminating activity - the class made cell cookies! How cute are these? The green cookies are the plant cells and the red cookies are the animal cells! I had a great time helping and I loved watching the kids come up with different ways to represent the organelles! 

(But really - who doesn't like cookies!) 

 

<<< My classroom door.... :) I think I will put a new positive message every month. :) 

Classroom Library Organization....Time Savers!

I am a hoarder. I will admit it. I hoard books. Children’s books. I have thousands of them. {Most are packed away in my garage right now since I don’t have a ‘homeroom’ and a place for a classroom library} BOO.

About 7 years ago I moved to a new school, new district, new grade… and I figured that was my chance to really work on having an organized classroom BEFORE the kids got there. My administration let us work in our rooms all summer {as long as we stayed away from the freshly waxed floors}. So I took that opportunity to sit and come up with a plan. I have followed Jessica Meacham’s blog for a very long time. I kinda adore her. <3 a="" in="" non-creepy="" span="" way="" weird="">…} Well, she had a post on her blog about organizing a classroom library that I really connected with. I would be teaching firsties again, so I wanted to make a system for the books to stay organized AND would be something I wasn’t constantly keeping up with – SO I took her ideas and made them work for me. Mrs. Meacham has these cute bins that she put on O-ring on with a badge protector, and put a label inside the badge protector. GENIUS!  This way my books weren’t ALL out at one time, they weren’t overwhelming, and I could somewhat keep track of them.

SO – I borrowed Mrs. Meacham’s idea of the book bins....

{If you haven't checked out her website.... DO IT!}

(I found all of mine at the Dollar Tree) and labels, O-rings, and badge protectors…. I set about sorting, labeling, and organizing all my books. Which was such a blessing – it started in my classroom library and moved onto my teacher library. I have hardback books of many paperback books that I use when I do book walks or whole group… So I organized the books the kids looked at and I organized my ‘teacher’ children’s books too. The funniest thing to me…. I actually contributed some of these labels to her site when I was working on my classroom library! {So – my name is on her page! Go ME!}

{screen shot of her book bin page... Yes, I am a DORK!}

Here is how I made this work for me… I put a label on the book bin AND I put one inside the front cover of the book. This way my littles only had to match a picture to put the book back into the proper bin… No more hours spent organizing! Voila! The kids did it for me and kept it up!

As I moved to different grades… I would change the system as needed. In second grade, the genre of the book was important – so I took out my bins and changed the labels around – all the green bins held my fiction books, that were also organized one theme per bin. The blue bins held my non-fiction books. The red bins held my author studies (all my Audrey Wood in one red book bin, Eric Carle in another…) All my series books would be in yellow bins – and so on.  When I moved back to first – I just put out a few book bins – maybe 10 – and I would change them every month – While I was back in first – I would have a special book bin dedicated to the ‘theme’ for that month {October – Halloween books, Pumpkin non-fiction…} After I completed a read-aloud – I would put that book in the special book bin for the kids to look at during the week, then I would remove it at the end of the week and add it back to MY teacher book bins. Making sense? I hope so! 

How do you organize your classroom library? Any tips? :) 

Fonts - Hello Handprint - Jen Jones, Hello Literacy, Hello Fonts

Graphics - Ms. Tiina

Cork me Crazy....

Sitting in Panera (bread, bread), breakfast finished... thinking about how I will spend my day. 

(there is a conversation about purgatory going on next to me... I'm trying to focus and not bust into someone's conversation, being raised Catholic and all...)

FOCUS:

I spent most of my weekend being crafty. 

I have furniture coming today for little man's room (aka g2).

I need to finish my mammals unit.

I got a little sidetracked this weekend with my craft. I went into Hobby Lobby yesterday and went into craft overload. I hate when my brain goes into this craft-mode. It is a blessing and a curse.

A blessing - I end up with some super cool ideas

A curse - I can't concentrate on things, get inspiration at every turn, and spend way too much money. :) The best part for me has been knowing that I can decorate my house how I'd like...hehe, no battles, no compromise... yeah - I'm a little selfish... and I'm working on it after I get more stuff done. ;)

So - here is my project in pictures. :)

And the font I used - KG Be Still and Know...
and Lego House...
:)

pinterest inspired....behavior board and lunch count

In the past I have blogged about my behavior board. I love this little thing, and I made it all myself! 

Click on the picture below to take you to the original post

Here's how I did it...

I was inspired to create this from pinterest - what did I do before pinterest???

I used numbers to give my kids a little anonymity - I knew their numbers, they knew their numbers, but someone walking in... wouldn't know what color they were on.

I grabbed everything from my local craft store - EXCEPT the sun and moon craft glue. I found this on etsy. (they also have glass tiles, but I like to use the cheap glass bubbles from the aquarium section or floral design area of the craft store. 

I tried to take pictures as I went along this time... :) 

If you'd like to try to make some on your own - it takes some practice... but it was worth it. I picked a cute frame and font to make my first set. I printed them out on my laser printer and went through these same steps. 

 Here is another picture of my lunch board... I used my smart board every morning for morning work - so I had to find another way to do my lunch count. 

These were just some cute extras I made to use on my metal desk... (You can see that a few of them I used a little too much craft glue on - and I did these on my inkjet printer... they look a little smudged...) Some of them turned out better than others, I would suggest that if you are using an inkjet printer, go easy on the craft glue. ;)

Suggestion - if you are using an inkjet printer... Sun and Moon also carries Micro Glaze. Put a little of this on your printed image before you adhere it to the glass! :)