A Jewel of An Author

Hello bloggy friends!
I owe all of you a sincere apology for not having yet posted pics of my bulletin boards. My luck with cameras and SD cards this year is God awful. First the grade level SD card was missing, then the camera, then the SD card with all of my pics on it...eh, what can you do? Guess I need to really invest a new personal camera....sigh!

So, yesterday morning I was flipping through channels and on CNN, I saw that Jewel (country music singer and mother extraordinaire), is now a children's book author. Her book That's What I'd Do is all about the love she has for her son and includes rhyming and rhythm, because she figured that through her book she could begin to teach her son those skills---that's one awesome mom I'll say! The book has also been turned into a song and the CD of the song comes with the book. I got to hear a snippet of the book/song and it seemed quite lovely. Definitely something to look into for all the bloggy/teacher moms out there.  I'm always amazed when I see celebrities crossing into the children's lit world! You can read more about it HERE !

Handouts!

Okay, so I missed posting yesterday for the week long Open House linky party, but it was my birthday and I was allowed to cry or not post on my blog if I wanted to, right??? Anyways, click HERE to get a copy of my parent volunteer sign up sheet. I pass this form out at Meet The Teacher night every year as a means of enlisting parent volunteers.

Onto what I'm really supposed to be posting today...bulletin board pics...about that...my camera is still stinking royally and I'm refusing to post icky pics.

Tuesday...Classroom Photos

I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the following photos...I'm not sure what's up with my camera lately. Maybe I should invest in a new one, this Kodak is about 6-7 years old. Ehhhh...

Outside my door! It's a tradition in our school to make a display with all student names outside of our doors. They stay up all year and match the building/school theme. For our construction theme this year I did "Miss White's Might Minions...Build a bright future." I made a unique minion for each student using an online minion maker and voila!

Facing the front of the room. My calendar board is on the right and my soon to be bucket filler board on the left. Hanging from the ceiling is my projector, and although you can't see it, I have a SOLO! It's like a smartboard that doesn't need the physical smartboard. My whiteboard actually gets turned into an interactive surface. Love my Epson SOLO. :)

Facing the back of the room. I have my CAFE board on the right and KIDSTRUCTION (great work board) on the left. In the middle is my Word Wall. I got the kids holding letters from Lakeshore and they happen to match my calendar decor. I also have 4 desktops this year! In the middle is my library. On the left is my small groups table that my aide works at. 

"Many Hands Make Light Work"-Job chart and student mailboxes.

Coat hooks and Part 2 of the library. My seasonal boxes are up these shelves. I take them down and add them to my regular library as the seasons/units of study change. Down really low by the coat hooks is my "little table." I took the legs off of a table last year and usually this is where you can find laptops...figured the closer they are to the ground, the better. The "little table" this year might also turn into the writing center.

Close up of my seasonal books and coat hooks.

 

Center Charts close up. I actually put the charts on or below the students' eye level this year. This should make choosing centers (Daily 5) a bit easier for them physically. I always try to make my group names stick with the theme. Construction was tough, but I enlarged some mini-accents that I bought for lunch count and now I have 4 animal themed/construction groups!

Close up of my library in the back of the room and my 3 year old goldfish Spike!

I think this is the AC unit, but this year I'm using it for my Fancy Nancy (vocabulary) words. Everything should be centered, but I think the custodians may have moved it over when opening/working on the unit. Oops! 

Clip chart! New this year and I'm loving it.

Okay, you can see the SOLO in this pic. It's right between "R" and "S" and kind of looks like an arm. I plug a cord into my USB slot and my regular whiteboard becomes interactive AND no big, bulky Smartboard/Promethean board to worry about. 

My desk/work area. Students do lunch count on the front of my desk with magnetic pieces. We have FIVE choices this year, that's about FOUR too many! You can also see my Star of the Week board. Students make posters that I hang here. 

Calendar, easel, comfy pink chair..

View from the door when you walk in. I have windows this year! For 3 years I was in the 1 window room. I lost my bathroom, but got a ton of windows. Fair trade I'd say :) My fav feature of my school is our loooong countertops. This year I have extra storage space, never thought I'd say that!

First week pics...I broke out the watercolors early. We wrote "In first grade, I want to learn..."

We have bulletin boards that line the top of our ceilings. Since I need a ladder to change everything I put up there, they're not really practical. Here, I have my turtle months of the year and my Horton poster, he just makes me smile. :)

 Come back for close ups of my bulletin boards tomorrow!

Monday Meet the Teacher

Fun Facts About ME:

• This is my 4th year teaching. I don't know where the time has gone, the past 3 years have flown by! While I'm super happy to be an "experienced" and "permanent" professional employee, I'm starting to feel a bit old...I think I liked being the youngin'/new kid on the block. :)
• I have taught first grade all four years, but interned/student taught in 5th for an entire year. I sometimes miss the upper grades.
• Just finished my coursework from my ESL Specialist, wahoo!!!
• I've played the clarinet since 4th grade through college, and toured South Africa in a Philharmonic Orchestra a few years back. Safe to say, I LOVE music and I use it all the time to help with transitions between activities and to set the mood during Writing.  I'm also going to learn how to play the Ukele this year so that I can add some chords to a lot of the songs I sing daily. 
• I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology. I actually did a 5 year BA/M.Ed. program at Lehigh University (we beat you Duke haha). Being a child psychologist is my 2nd career choice, teaching would be the first. :)
• I'm a bit of a reality TV junkie. My favs include: The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Dance Moms (love me some Miss Abby), Dancing with the Stars, and Survivor! I feel like I could start a blog just writing about my reality TV lineup haha.

My Teaching Style: I believe that a little silliness and a lot of positivity can go a long way. It's not uncommon to find me singing and dancing to random songs I've made up in my classroom. I want my firsties to know that learning can be fun! I also believe that positive reinforcement is powerful, but consequences. boundaries, and expectations are necessary. Kids appreciate adults that are firm, fair, consistent, and loving. I try to be all of that every day and incorporate a lot of technology along the way. Inclusion is normalcy to me; I think that we're all citizens of the same community and thus, I support inclusion (in varying forms) of all students. To be concise, I make sure every student feels safe, loved, and successful.

Sneak Peak

So, it may seem like I've disappeared and truthfully, I have. I was traveling and milking every last bit out of summer that I possibly could have! I'm proud to say that I completed my summer bucket list. Some events might have been a little last minute, but I got em all in!

Anyways...so I was bummed about in-service last week and starting school on Monday. But I met my class at my class picnic this past Thursday, and I feel like it could be a really great year. New class, new room, new awesome schedule, new desktops in the classroom (well new to me anyways)...I don't know what else I could ask for! Does anyone else do any pre-school events like picnics or home visits? They're standard for 1st grade at my school and since home visits scare me a little, I do a picnic. It's always nice to have the kids and families come into the classroom, meet me, hear a read aloud (The Night Before First Grade), and then enjoy a brown bag picnic and our school playground. While the kids play, I get to meet and speak with parents. This is always a HUGE help! I also collect my forms I send home in the beginning of Aug. with my picnic invitations (student survey, parent survey, student info). I think the picnic helps with those first day jitters and my first day dismissal nightmares ha.

Here's a sneak peek of my new classroom. It's all done, but I forgot my camera. I'll post a more thorough tour soon! PS School theme is construction this year, hence the minions.

Right outside my classroom door! Pardon the lighting, my hallway is dark! It's tradition in our school to put a display outside the door welcoming the students. I made each student a custom minion this year. I think they ROCK! Stay tuned for better pics.

New Word Wall (yup, I used a whollle whiteboard because I don't have a big bulletin board anymore), and part of the library. Again pardon the pic quality, the Blackberry just doesn't speciaize in that. :)

Time for my back to school mani pedi! See ya!

New Years Resolutions

I came across another, wonderful blog this weekend. It's called The Teaching Reef. Shannon is the blogger over there and she's got tons of great ideas and resources. She's also currently hosting a New Years Resolution Linky Party...and this happens to be her FIRST linky party. So, link up, and show her some love! It's brave and bold to throw your own party, I'm not quite there yet, but I admire all of you wonderful bloggers who put yourself out there and in doing so, help and support all of us as teachers. Check out my resolutions below! (You may need to double click on this image to make it bigger).

So here are the drawers I bought with my budget, course this was inspired by Pinterest and this image is taken from pinterest.

They're colorful and cute. I used to organize my papers/handouts by academic subject rather than days of the week. Fire drills, assemblies, and whatnot sometimes change my weekly schedule and I worry that I'll be having to go to the Tuesday drawer for Wednesday papers...but it seems like that method works for many teachers. Maybe I'll try it, or I'll label my drawers: Center, Writing, Math like I've done in the past. Last year, my papers somehow were all over and I couldn't remember where I put them. I felt crazy, hopefully this will resolve the craziness lol. 

So Math centers...I have an hour to teach EnVision Math which, is A LOT! After I get done the modeling, Visual Learning Bridge, Guided Practice problems, and the kiddos do the Independent practice, problem solving, and journaling that hour is close to over! I'm not a fan of teaching 1st graders a new game every day. When I piloted the program, I found that 1 game a week/per topic worked best. But, I like this method above the best I think. I can leave the bins out, place activities in them, and then rotate which groups go to which centers daily. Here's what I'm thinking I can put into each bin:

Teacher's Choice: This will be the meet with teacher group either for enrichment or reteaching. So whatever materials I'm using will be in there.

Independent Work: Could be unfinished work, a review, a super neat Mailbox worksheet, Math craft, number scroll etc. **I think I'll have the hardest time filling this box

Math facts: Worksheets and maybe games to review math facts. Also, I think I'll put my timed math tests in here with a timer. Groups of students might take their timed math tests when at this station. Maybe my Star of the Week or Team Leader can be in charge of the timer??

Essential Review: EnVision Math games! Here's where I'll put various math games. They all review recently taught concepts, so I think they fit best in essential review. 

Anyone out there, if you have or you are doing math stations using a concept to this one, I'd LOVE to hear about it! I'm thinking that after our lesson, students will break into 3 or 4 groups and do 1 station a day. So between M-Th all students should get to do all stations. Seems simple right? If only...lol.

Some Lovely Blogs

So I just got back in town from spending a week at an overnight church camp, sleeping in a cabin with 12  nine and ten year old girls while counseling a small group during the day and can I tell you, I.had.a.BLAST! I've been volunteering as a counselor or CILT (back in my younger days), since I was 15 and I've only missed 2 summers due to grad school and low enrollment. Last year was one of the summers I missed and I was hesitant to go back this year because, I really felt like I needed a break from children this summer. An old friend texted and facebook messaged the daylights outta me till I agreed to go back and boy am I GLAD I DID! There's nothing like gettin out in the woods and reconnecting with nature, God, old friends, and children. :) I feel so refreshed and recharged which, is ironic considering that I didn't sleep more than 5 hours during any one night out at camp lol.

Anyways, right before I left for camp, when I was in the middle of coming up with a cabin thing, packing, and trying to finish the last Shades of Grey book (while savoring every second of it), I found out that Antoinette and Emily from 4321teach.blogspot.com and Dede over at 1stgradeevents.blogspot.com BOTH gave me the One Lovely Blog Award!!!! Teehehe, I'm so excited!  You know launching your own blog is kinda scary at first, because there are already soooo many other great bloggers and you just wonder if there's room for you. I'm so glad I made this blog and I love that I'm becoming a larger member of a wonderful, teaching community.

Here are the rules for receiving this award:
1. Pass this award on to 15 others
2. Follow the person that gave you the award :)
3. Link back to the person/people that gave you the award.

Here are 15 Lovely Blogs that you should definitely visit:
Mrs Terhunes First Grade Site
First Grade California Style
Teaching Little Apples
Finally in First
Ms Rachels Room
Swamp Frog First Graders
Curls and a Smile
Grade School Giggles
Be The Difference
The Sharpened Pencil
First Grade A La Carte
Heathers Heart
Tales of a Teacherista
The Bubble Blonde Teacher
Waiting On The Butterflies
First Grader At Last

Tata for now!