Back to School Night Pics

 

So, I hope I don't bore you with these pictures. We had back to school night last night and as usual I was nervous. Not sure why since it's my 25 year teaching and I could probably do it in my sleep. I guess when you are used to little bodies staring up at you and now it's big bodies that's a different story. Needless to say I survived.

 

 

This pictures is from the back of the room. I only have 16, soon to be 17 students this year. The lowest I have ever had. As you can tell I don't have a smartboard YET. By the end of the month one will be installed in my room and I can't wait. I just have to decide where to put it, front or back of the room. I would hate to loose all my white board space but I would also hate to loose all my bulletin board space in the back of the room. Any suggestions?

 

Another pictures from the back of the room facing the door. Ignore all the junk on top along the wall. That is the only storage we have besides one small closet. 

 

Looking toward the back of the room from the door.

 

My favorite space in the room. I tried to model my library after Maria Manore's library over at Kinder-Kraze.  I just love her room, you need to check her blog out. She has so many amazing things going on.

 



 

Here is my guided reading table. I made the crate seats several years ago and just change out the coverings every summer. They are perfect for the room.

 

 

Don't you just love this. I saw this idea on Pinterest and had to have it. So I went straight to TPT and purchased it. It was made by Fredia Shumway over at Frogs in First blog. Love it!!

 

 

 

 

Lovin' my new easel. I always had a much smaller one that wouldn't even hold our big books from our reading series. So this year I thought I would just try asking for one and low and behold I got it. As a matter of fact our school ordered several of them and everyone who received it were thrilled.

 

 



 

First grade selfies were so cute. I found these from Jane Feener on TPT.

 

 

Well, that's  first grade in a nutshell. I have seen so many awesome rooms out there I am amazed. Keep up all the hard work, it's well worth it!! 

Bulletin Boards

 



 

When I saw this adorable bus bulletin board I knew I had to have my firsties do it. It's just so cute. I had all the pieces ready for the kids to put together. When we were just about done with it and ready to hang up one of my lovelies said, "Hey, where is the window? All buses have windows" Low and behold I completely forgot to give them the window piece and by now there was no room for it. Oh well, it turned out cute anyway. As a matter of fact our second grade class purchased it also and they did put the windows on their buses.  I found this over at  Firstgradeblueskies if you are interested in making it too.

 

 

This is one of the cutest back to school boards I have seen in a long time. Our wonderful second grade teacher has this outside her classroom.

 

Since our back to school theme is to be kind I decided to start the year off with a Kindness unit. I saw this poster on Pinterest . As we go along and make a few kindness projects I will staple them up on this board and fill it in.

So of course the heat is on here in Chicago. We have not had many warm days this summer and of course here it is now. Monday was in the high 90's and our classrooms were also in the 90's so we had to do the next best thing and spend the day in the air conditioned church. It's really interesting trying to teach in the pews of the church especially when many other classes are in there. Now every morning as my firsties say their prayer intentions there is always one of them who prays for winter to get here. I just pray for 60 degree weather (we all know how brutal Chicago winters can get). More pics to come soon.  Stay cool!!

Back to School Bulletin Boards

Here are two of the projects we have done so far this school year. We are getting ready for meet the teacher night next week. The heat is still on and the humidity is aweful. Every morning I walk into something that has fallen off the walls due to the humidity. We are still praying for cooler weather.

 

 After talking and making an anchor chart of what a reader does, reads, and looks like my firsties drew pictures of themselves as readers. If you look closely they are hysterical.

 

We read the book What I Did on My Summer Vacation and my firsties drew their favorite things they did during the summer. I was really pleased how they did a great job considering it was the first day of school. I'm not sure about you but I thought the enonomy was still not so great. You wouldn't believe the amount of kids who went on some really big trips ( Disney World and cruises). I guess my four day trip to Vegas doesn't even compare.

 

By the way, I want to thank all the awesome teachers out their who posted about their clip chart behavior system. I have been doing it for the first time in my many (many) years of teaching and it works GREAT!!!  The kids LOVE it. They are all trying to get their clip on pink so they can bling out their clip. I even have noticed the students who move their clips below the green really do shape up afterwards and are thrilled when their clips get moved back up. Many of the firsties run out after school all excited to tell their parents what color they ended up on. Even many parents have commented on it. Whoever came up with this system is genius. THANKS again!!

Now back to the oven tomorrow and no school (already) on Friday. Have a great weekend!!

Back to School Board and A Lonely Rose!

 

Here is another back to school board in our hallway at school. We have this huge board at the end of our hallway and it was my turn to put something up. I saw this puzzle idea and thought it was perfect. I made the pennants from my cricut machine. The puzzle pieces have the names of the students in

k-2. It really doesn't look like a lot of kids but we really do about 140 students in our k-2nd grade.

 

This is the one and only rose my rosebush produced all summer. I have no idea why it does this every summer. One rose and then it's done. Kind of like the saguaro cactus, one flower a year and that's it. At least the color is beautiful!!

 

It's been a great week. My firsties are soooo cute!  My favorite comment this week was... I asked one little boy if he got new glasses this year and he said, "No, these are my handsome glasses. When I spike my hair up I wear these glasses and I look handsome!" That just made my day. What a cutie!!

Besides having wonderful firsties this year, the heat has been on. Middle 90's and high humidity. Yuck!! And next week is supposed to be worse.  I sure wish I could buy my own air conditioner and install it but we've all been told no so that means more hot sticky school days ahead of us.

Enjoy your weekend!!

Ready or Not, Here They Come

Finally my classroom is done and ready for a new batch of firsties. Tomorrow our first graders and kindergartners can come to school just to drop off their supplies, find their desks, and look around. We started this three years ago and what a differnce it makes on the first day of school. The kids aren't all asking what to do with their supplies and they know exactly where to go in the morning. If your school doesn't do this I highly recommend it. Anyway here are a few pics of my room. You will probably recognize quite a few things from blogs and pinterest. Let me know what you think!

 

Here is the bulletin board right outside my room. This idea came from one of my favorite blogs, Kacey over at Doodle bug teaching.

Here is a view from my doorway. Over the summer a group of moms and dads came in and painted all our walls. The walls were all white and now we love them. Each floor was painted different colors.

 

There is my small group area in the background . The sun can be a little blinding in our room.

This is opposite the classroom doorway. I have one of the oldest desks in the building and after they painted there was quite a bit of paint on the desk. So, I decided to cover it up with contact paper. What a difference it made.

 

 My Star of the Week board. I love how it looks. It looks better in person because I have star garland all around it and it's hard to notice in this pic.

 

Here is my new behavior chart. I searched all summer for a new plan and this is what I saw on most of the teachers blogs. Since they all swear by it I am going to give it a try.

 

My class library and meeting area.

 

The bare walls will soon be covered with student projects.

 

 It's hard to see but there are computers there too (a little blinding again)

This is the board across the hallway from my class. I just think it's so cute I had to share with you. So thanks for stopping by and checking out my room. Let me know what you think and I'd love to check out your room. 

Happy 1st Day!!

Bulletin Board Linky Party

If you are looking for back to school bulletin board ideas (which I am always looking for new ideas) hop on over to Becky's linky party at Teaching, Learning, and Loving. You might see something you like or be sure to join with your own boards. Who doesn't need more awesome ideas. Now, I just got into my classroom today (my school has been closed due to asbestos removal) so I posted the board I did several years ago. I am leaning toward doing the popcorn board again or the gumball board. I love both of them and can't decide which one.

This is my room as of today. I plan on being in the room all weekend because we start the 15th with meetings all day and the kids come on the 21st. There is sooooo much to do and lucky me, I have to use a personal day on the 15th already. I have take my son to college and move him into his dorm. Woo hoo! College already!

Now on to bed, busy day tomorrow. I'll post more as the room gets completed and be sure to stop by

 Teaching, Learning, and Loving to hook up with the bulletin board linky party!

Gettin' Ready

Thanks to Kacey at Doodlebug Teaching, I made these great birthday treats. Super cute and easy to make. Every year I give the kiddies a birthday bracelet from the magazine Really Good Stuff but I forgot to order them for this year and as soon as I saw these I got busy and here they are.

So this is where I've been the last several days. I called this my last hurrah before going back to school. I went with a wonderful friend of mine. After seeing so many pics from all the teachers who also just came back from their kindergarten blog meet up in Vegas I was so glad I was going. They look like they had an awesome time. It was really hot out there but if we weren't at the pool we were inside seeing shows (The Jersey Boys were wonderful and Terry Fator was just amazing!), eating, and of course gambling. What a great place to go to for a short visit and squeeze alot in.  Now back to getting reading for school, which starts on the 21st for the kiddies. By the way, our school has always had a half of day on the first day, 11:30 dismissal. Now I guess the state changed requirements and says we can't count a half day on the first day as a whole day so now we have the kiddies until 1:00. It's going to be a long first day with these kiddies and me, especially if the heat is on. If you have any suggestions for keeping their attention the last hour or so of school I would greatly appreciate it. I do have some ideas but can always use more.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Back to School Projects

 

 As many of you know (or may not know) we have been melting here in Chicago. The last few days has been in the high 90's with the heat index in the 100's. So I decided to use my indoor time wisely and get busy creating.  This upcoming school year is going to be a challenging one behavior wise for me. I have been scouring the blogs for classroom management ideas and wowie, wow, wow!! Everyone seems to be using the clip chart idea in their rooms. I have always used one very similar to this but the children only moved down and the well behaved kiddies weren't really acknowledged. This clipchart system sounds awesome and I am definitiely going to give it a try this year.

 

Here are two special banners I made for the room this year. The welcome banner was from Aimee over at Primarily Speaking and I used my cricut to create the other one. Our classrooms were painted this summer in this blue and yellow and I thought these would make a good color scheme for the year. I know the banner with my name and grade doesn't have a blue bow on the end, I ran out of ribbon and have to make another trip to Hobby Lobby, insn't that ashame!

 

After spending alot of time on Pinterest and seeing this picture frame I wanted to make one. Here is my frame I made using supplies from the Dollar Tree. It's amazing what they have for teachers. If you are in the market for baskets for your class they have an awesome selection of them. Now, if the heat continues I guess I will have to just make more for the room. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the weekend!