Once again I am late to the Five for Friday party.  It is amazing how exhausting the first week of school is.  Getting back into the swing of things is an adjustment!

 1. New Wreath!  Isn't is BEAUTIFUL!?!?!?!  My dear friend, and a parent of mine this year, had this gorgeous wreath made for my classroom door.  Seriously, the picture does not do it justice.  It is large and super colorful!  I LOVE IT!!

2. Interactive Notebooks. This was our first week back in school and I have already started my students on interactive notebooks.  So far they seem to love them.  The best part...this group is awesome at following directions! Can I get an Amen!!!

3. SLANT BOX!  I signed up to participate in Lessons with Coffee's August SLANT Box.  I recieved my box this week from Karyn over at A is for Apple B is for Blog.  She did a great job finding some of my favorite things!  I love arts and crafts and she sent me some cute things to use with my boys, who by the way have been bugging me for the Crayola dry erase color pencils.  She made me a cute post-it-note holder, which happens to match my classroom beautifully!  A handmade braclet in our school colors, gold and green.

 4. First Grader!  I cannot believe my oldest is in FIRST GRADE!  Where does the time go!?!

5. Vinyl!  My son's first grade classroom theme is dinosaurs.  I decorated the handsanitizer bottle that was on his supply list to match his class' theme.

6. School Wide Monster Math.  Our school Math vertical team has adopted my Monster Math Spiral Review for the entire school!  I am excited that they saw how effective it was and decided to adopt it for every grade level.  It is also a great compliment :)

Two of my INCREDIBLE best blogging buddies are hosting an awesome giveaway and blog hop tomorrow....be sure to stop by and check it out!

    

Read more »

Anonymous

Yesterday was the first day of school with kids!  I am SUPER excited for this group of kids!  They are sweet and eager to get started!

I am trying my Back to School plans, as are several other teachers I work with, and so far they have been perfect!  You never know how your class with handle certain activities or lessons until you get a good feel for them.

Yesterday as they came into the room they found their name posters on their desk ready for them to color them in.

They really enjoyed this and it was a fun activity, and one that didn't require too much thinking on the first day back.  {Original idea came from Lessons With Laughter.}

I introduced how to play "Scoot" using Teaching With a Mountain View's Back to School Scoot. The kids loved it!  We also played Scoot for my 4th grade PreAssessment Cards.  The kids did really well and enjoyed the questions.

I introduced our class "Memory Jar", by Aimee at Pencils, Books, and Dirty Looks.  I am having one student each day write a memory for the day. So that I can keep track student number 1 filled it out yesterday, number 2 today, and so on. I also read aloud the memory to the class before placing it in the jar. I can't wait to read all the memories at the end of the year!

We have done several Cooperative Learning activities so far to help students get to know each other and overcome their shyness.  Well, only a few are still shy, they do like to visit with one another :)

Finally, I printed out a "First Day of Fourth Grade" picture for my students to hold up for their picture.  I am using the pictures for our AR board, and to send home to their parents on Friday.  Here is a pic of my friends son, isn't he a cutie!?!

I absolutely am in love with this class, and it's only been TWO days!  I have taught the EC inclusion class for several years and this is the first year in a long time that I have a traditional class...I LOVE IT! I am looking forward to seeing how much they grow over the year, as well as my teaching.  

I can't wait to share with you how the rest of my plans went.  Would love to know if any of you have used anything from my back to school plans and how it went!

Read more »

Anonymous

Every fall our students participate in a Student Council campaign.  Each class will vote on a class president, class vice president, and secretary.  Our students are not required to run, but are required to write a speech.  This year I plan to use If I Ran for President by Catherine Stier as a resource for vocabulary.

I am sure many of you have seen it, read it, or even own it.  It is a cute book, and one that explains the presidential process.  I think my favorite part of the book is that the main character, Ben, doesn't win the election.  It demonstrates for students that just because you run does not necessarily mean you will win.

I have created a vocabulary flip book for this book and it is available HERE.

Read more »

Anonymous

WOW!  This has been a crazy week!  Finally, getting back to a routine and able to blog...yay!

1. MIA
I was MIA all week due to being back to work and hubby being out of town.  I give a lot of credit to all the single parents out there...it is exhausting! Since I was gone I wanted to make sure I had a fun blog post for you :)

2. Classroom
I finished my classroom!  I am so excited for how it looks!  I call it Dr. Seuss for big kids :)

3. Birthday!
My birthday was yesterday and it was absolutely wonderful!  My coworkers all sang Happy Birthday to me in our meeting, a few of us went to lunch and I was serenaded my the waiters at the Mexican restaurant, my dear friend brought me chocolate covered strawberries from edible arrangements, and my BFF endure my birthday workout at Cross Fit with me.  My hubby asked me what I wanted and I asked for him to go out of his comfort zone and help the boys make me something.  He did a fabulous job with them in just one day, see below to see what I received!

4. Cross Fit
I am proud of myself, and my BFF, for keeping up with our workouts now that school has started back.  Everyday we remind ourselves we have a 4:15 appointment with our friend and coach.  Just looking at going to workout as a personal appointment has made a huge impact on ensuring we workout everyday.

5. Reading Response Notebooks
Each night my students are to read 30 minutes and write a response to their reading.  I usually use a large paper cutter to cut spiral notebooks in half for these response journals, however this year I am trying composition notebooks.  I had my hubby cut them in half with a saw, apparently a table saw would work better...note from hubby :). I glued a small piece a of ribbon to the back cover so students can mark the page they are on, and then glued the weekly assignments on the front inside cover.

Here is a FREEBIE for you!  If you like the Reading Response Journals I have posted the link to my weekly assignment page for you.  Note: I did change "is" to "are" in the direction sentence :)  Please leave feedback if you download it...THANK YOU!

Read more »

Anonymous

I know Tara has gone back to monthly Monday Made It post, but I didn't get a chance to link up last week because I couldn't find the USB cord for the camera.  :(

Today is my first official day back to work...bye bye Summer Break!  I have been working in my room and will post pictures soon...still a mess in some corners!  For today's Monday Made It I wanted to share with you my new small group classroom management tool.

Don't you hate it when you are working with a student or small group and interrupted by other students, or even other teachers?  I recently saw a pin where a teacher used a touch lamp and wrote "Busy!" around the base.  I decided to make one for myself and add a color and vinyl to mine!

This was a SUPER easy and cheap project to make!  Speaking of saving money what have you picked up so far during the TpT Back to School Sale?  I have been happily surprised to see that my new Science Interactive Notebooks for Magnets and Electrical Charges are flying off the virtual shelves!

Read more »

Anonymous