Classroom Pictures Part 1

I wanted to share a few picture of my classroom. I decided to do it in a couple of parts so that the post wasn't too long. Here we go....

small group meeting area

doorway and student cubbies

I use the hundreds chart as a way to reward whole class behavior. We draw numbers for compliments and one student turns over the number drawn on our hundreds chart. They are working towards getting a whole row of numbers! The green, yellow, and red pocket chart is my individual behavior management system. Students start off on green and move to yellow or red depending on their choices for the day.

bulletin board (Love, love my pinterest inspired border made from butcher paper!) I hung chart paper from book rings for each subject. It makes it so easy to display concepts that we are currently learning!

 I have five student tables. Each table has a bookcase along the back wall that holds ALL their journals, book baggies, workbooks, etc... One of the popcorn buckets on the top holds extra supplies. The other popcorn bucket is for their snacks. The Banker's Boxes hold incomplete work and spelling folders. Math vocabulary is placed next to the math chart paper.

This is how I organize and manage Daily Five. Each Daily Five rotation has a little bucket that is hung from the side of a cabinet. I place little "tickets" in each bucket for kids to place in the red pocket chart next to their number to show what Daily Five rotation they have chosen for the day. I got my Daily Five signs from Ladybug's Teacher Files. She is awesome!

Lastly, we made a edible map of Georgia today to wrap up our learning of Georgia's rivers and regions. My kiddos had a blast, but boy were they on a sugar high!! Here is the picture of the map I made as a model.

The blue gel icing represent the rivers we have studied. The M&Ms represent the Piedmont region. The chocolate chips represent the Appalachian Plateau, Valley and Ridge, and Blue Ridge Mountain Region. You can't really tell from this picture, but there is green coconut over the Coastal Plains.

I'll be back soon with more pictures. Sorry for the picture quality; my camera is not cooperating with me at the moment. 

TGI almost F y'all!

Hallway Display and a Freebie!

This year my classroom theme is Circus/Carnival. Think lots of red, white, yellow, popcorn, and stripes! I'm not crazy about clowns, but I do have a few here and there. You know all things circusy! Yep, I know, circusy isn't a word! :) 

I wanted to share my student work hallway display. I found the pennants at Target in the party supply aisle. I bought two so that it would be long enough to hang above my entire hallway display. I then took foam sheets, legal size, and taped them to the wall alternating between red and white so that it would look like a circus tent. The longer red and white pieces on both sides of the foam sheets are long strips of butcher paper that I cut to make the size I wanted. Student work is hung by clothes pins that I hot glued to the foam sheets.

and... A close up

The small popcorn piece accents are from the teacher supply store (here it's called The Schoolbox). This little craft we made is from Abby over at The Inspired Apple. I just love her! It's part of her Super in Second unit. Totally adorabs! I'm so excited to be in primary this year so that I can incorporate some of her fabulous ideas into my classroom!

Now for the freebie. My kiddos have been studying place value. More specifically, ways to write a number. I made this kite to use as a quick assessment. This is TOTALLY not my idea. One of my sweet teamies gave me hers, but I changed it up a little to suit my needs. I completely forgot to take the pics of my kids work. Darn! Anyways, I hope y'all can use it!

Click here to download from Google Docs.

Happy almost hump day friends! I'll be back soon with more classroom pictures. I'm finally starting to get my groove back. SLOWLY, but surely!

Happy Labor Day!

Happy Labor Day and happy long weekend friends! These past three weeks of school have just flown by. I can't believe I'm approaching a whole month with my sweet second graders! I've been busy creating lessons to implement the Common Core into my classroom. Thank goodness for all of the wonderful resources available on Teachers Pay Teachers, Teachers Notebook, and on all the amazing teacher blogs out there. Without the help from my teamies and my teacher blogger friends, I would not of been able to make it through these past three weeks.

I wanted to share with y'all that I finally created a shop on Teachers Pay Teachers. I have posted a button on the side of my blog that links to my little shop. I have also created a new mini unit that I'm in love with! I couldn't wait to share it!

Click here to link to my Teachers Pay Teachers shop! This mini unit includes many reading response activities for A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead (I love, love that book!!), narrative writing prompts, and a "ick"/"uck" word family sort. I'm using it during our Fudge-a-mania by Judy Blume novel study and narrative writing unit.

Next week I will upload pictures of my classroom. I think I just about have everything where I want it! I hope! Who am I kidding, I'm never completely satisfied with ANYTHING! Stay tuned!

Pinspired

This post is totally non-teacher related, but I thought I'd share my latest Pinterest inspired crafts for the 4th of July.
Here is my complete 4th of July display...

These are individual pictures of my crafts that I found from this wonderful, creative blog http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/.

This fun little craft can be found at http://www.brownpaper--packages.com/.

Finally, my adorable wreath on my front door that was inspired by http://ssbuffat.blogspot.com/.

I hope this helps you to become even more "pinspired" than you already are!!

New unit and a freebie!

It has been FOREVER since I've posted. I'm determined to not make that a trend. I have created a new noun mini unit for sale on my Teachers Notebook shop. I'm super excited about it! I've been working on it for quite awhile now and I am so glad it's finally ready! You can find it here!

Does anyone know how to take a screen shot on a mac in Adobe without the black background?

I have also uploaded a noun sort freebie! You can get that at my Teachers Notebook shop here!

I will be back soon to share a couple of Pinterest projects I've been working on!

Wrapping up the end of year

Phew, our state standardized testing has FINALLY come to an end. Now it is coming to that time of the year when we start to wrap everything up. I wanted to share a couple of things we have been working on including how I have set up math tubs for a little end of the year review.

I only have 8 kiddos in my small group math class, so I decided to break them up into groups of two and have them rotate through 4 math stations. They spend about 15 minutes at each stations and my parapro and myself float around to assist when needed. My stations include a math game, computer, word problem practice, and computation practice. Besides reviewing concepts we have learned throughout the year, these stations will double up as a way for me to collect data on key math skills for end of the year progress reports. Here are a couple of pictures of my math stations.

Stations listed for each day and the names of who starts at what station.

4 math tubs with ALL the supplies they need for each rotation. I wanted to prevent them from wasting time trying to find a pencil or a piece of scrap paper or manipulatives.

My fifth graders began a response to literature unit today. I am doing a Judi Barrett mini author study that I picked up from Jessica Winston's class website. Love it!! We started with talking about vocabulary words found in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I wrote each word on a half sheet of paper and had the students brainstorm what they thought each word meant. Then, we looked up each word in the dictionary and I wrote the actual definition on each sheet. The words are currently hanging on my whiteboard for my students to refer to when we read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tomorrow (which I won't be there for because I have 2nd grade common core planning).

Off to watch last week's episode of Revenge on the DVR. Obsessed! Happy Wednesday friends!

Missing in Action and Exciting News

Oh my word! I kinda just realized that I hadn't posted in a looong time. This was our first week back since Spring Break and we are gearing up to take our state assessments that begin next Wednesday! EEKK! Next Wednesday! So, my kiddos have been reviewing, reviewing, reviewing all the concepts we have learned throughout the year. They are truly in CRCT boot camp because I have been pushing them this week (and giving them some motivational words of encouragement)! My third grade small group writing students have been working on persuasive writing and after A LOT of modeling... we are finally writing our own persuasive pieces that were Pinterest inspired of course! I hope to share those pictures soon!

Now for exciting news... I was told this week that I will be moving from special education into general education!!! Next year I will be a second grade teacher!!! I'm all kinds of excited!!

Now off to work on master's work and get ready for our first kitchen/couples wedding shower tonight!