BEST YEAR EVER

If you have followed my blog for awhile, you probably know the story that happened to me last year.  If not, in a nutshell, two days before school started I was moved to a new building.  I was rushed to get my classroom up and going and it made me feel like my entire year was off.

This year I have had an amazing summer and spent some time really working on organization in my room (as I didn't have time to do this last year).  I have vowed that this will be the BEST YEAR EVER!

On my Instagram page yesterday, I asked my followers what they planned to do to make this the best year ever.  I wanted to share with you some of the things they said:

• Be organized
• Consistency in classroom management
• Stay positive
• Work with my team
• Relationships (with students, other teachers, blogging friends, etc.)
• Less stress
• Focus on the students and not on all the other "stuff" that goes with teaching
• Create a classroom community

I really loved the list and it made me think about how I plan to make this my best year ever.  Here is what I am planning on doing:

I am going to introduce alternative seating which I am so excited about.  I am excited about school and ready to try some new things like STEAM.  I plan to keep a positive attitude all year long and keep myself organized.  I am beyond excited to use ESGI to help me save time on my assessments.  I am going to continue to collaborate with my PLC and build strong relationships with my students.  Most of all, I want to engage my students in fun, rigorous lessons.  We love to have fun in my classroom and we love to LAUGH!  Isn't laughter the best medicine?

I would love to hear how you plan to make this the best year ever.  Sound off in the comments below!

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Classroom Reveal 2015

I am a firm believer in the fact that everything happens for a reason.  We may not always understand it or like it at the time, but it is for a reason!

7 days before the school year started I was officially informed that I would not be teaching kindergarten and instead teaching a 4th & 5th grade combination class.  I was also informed that there is a good possibility I will have to move to a different school in our district AFTER school has started.  Talk about shock!

3 days before the school year started I was officially informed that I would be switching schools.  (I found out at 3:45 on Friday and school started Monday)  The best part about it was that I would get to continue to teach kindergarten and I was being moved to the school that my students attend.  (All of these changes had to do with our school district redoing the boundary lines for the elementary schools.  My previous building had about 100 less students than the previous year so they needed to move some teachers around.)

With being who I am, I was having a panic attack about the fact that my room wouldn't be "ready" for the first day of school.  I read this post by Maria over at Kinder-Craze and it made me feel a bit better, but this is a picture of my classroom on the first day of school.

The afternoon of the first day of school the maintenance guys brought over all my boxes and things.  Thankfully, HR realized that there was no way I would be able to teach the first couple days of school.  We kept all the kindergarten students in the other teacher's classroom and I was able to work in my room.  It was very odd.  It was the first day of school and I wasn't really with students.  I am very thankful for that time, but it was just a very different start of the school year for me.

Fast forward now to two weeks into the year, I am finally feeling like I have my classroom somewhat where I want it to be.  It is definitely still a work in progress for sure and I am still waiting for some items like an easel and a whiteboard (the room doesn't even have a chalkboard or whiteboard at the moment).  I *think* I have finally settled on a room arrangement, but it could also change again.

Without further ado, here is my classroom for this school year:

 View from the door

View of the front

View of the back

Now let's take a closer look at some of the areas:

This is my reading area.  I still need to get a rug, but I am loving having a space devoted just to reading.  I am going to IKEA this weekend and will pick up a rug then.

Above my reading area is my new word wall.  It was definitely a pain in my behind getting it all even and straight, but the finished product was so worth it!

I am going to have a pocket chart center for word work and poetry this year.  I am super excited about this.  Currently, the pocket chart is easel because I am still waiting for one of those.  We have been reviewing our good listener chart quite frequently.

The rainbow cart will be used for word work activities during literacy centers.  The cubbies house the work that students will take home.  Right now there are book baskets on top that my students are using instead of having their own bag of books.  They are getting their own "bags" this week so then I can add these books back into my library.

My helper board.  You may have seen the previous version (in my previous classroom) on IG.  I will be adding clothespins under the word champ so that I can change out student pictures for who my class champ of the day is.

My counter that runs along one whole side of my room.  The first section is going to end up being my writing center.  The back section will be where I house my math center materials.  The wall there was an ugly brown so I covered it with fadeless paper and some more of my favorite gray chevron border.  :)

My guided reading area with reading strategies and my drawers for each day of the week.

Two of my front bulletin boards.  I still need to add the headers for each subject area to my focus wall and then our smart goals will be added once we finish deciding what they should be.

Here is my birthday board and then my classroom doorway.  It was ugly and the paint was all chipped so I bought this adorable paint palette border and added some pizazz to the doorway.

I have a set of drawers for each table.  We have a new math series with huge student workbooks so I wanted a place to store those, planners, and the students' journals.

Like I said, it is definitely still a work in progress and I am sure by December many things will have changed.  I am just happy to finally feel like my classroom is home again.  Now I am off to finish prepping for my week.  Have a wonderful week everyone!

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Teaching Personal Space

Want a simple easy idea for teaching personal space in the primary grades?



I use colored electrical tape on tables to create each student's own "space."  They have to keep all their items within their space:  their crayon box, paper, chair, and body.

When they are crossing the tape line I just remind them to stay in their own space and they scoot right back or move their things.  Works like a charm!

The best part?  It is extremely easy for my students to distinguish which color table they are sitting at.  I use the tape to color code my tables.

If you would like to see more bright ideas like this, please follow me on Instagram or Facebook so you don't miss out any ideas!

Check out some of these other amazing bright ideas below.

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Procedure Fun!

Oh my word!  I completely forgot how exhausting the beginning of the year is.  I just sat down on the couch after dinner and almost fell asleep.  That was at 6:00.  Who else is having this same problem?

This week has been beyond full with teaching procedures.  My little pumpkins this year are needing a lot of extra practice with procedure practice.  We have been practicing walking through the hallways, holding the railing on the stairs, and sitting criss-cross applesauce.  I have not taught any "curriculum" yet and I am 100% ok with that.  I think it is so important to focus on teaching procedures and routines in the classroom until the students are so familiar with them that they are second nature.

Yes, you may lose a week or even two of "teaching time", but in the long run you will gain it all back.  Once my students have these procedures and routines down, I am able to teach for so much more time because I am not having to constantly remind them of these.

Now, throughout the year, you will need to go back and reteach those procedures from time to time.  It is important to do this especially after long breaks (like winter break, spring break, etc.).

What I love the most??  My new principal just said today in our staff meeting how important it is to just focus on procedures and routines.  She said when she taught 6th grade that she spent two weeks just teaching procedures and routines.  It made me realize how important this is not just in kindergarten, but in every grade.

I want to leave with you with something to ponder that my principal said.  She said that when she taught sixth grade she realized that her students knew how to walk in the hall, go through the lunch line, and play on the playground as fifth graders, but she needed to teach them how to do all these things as sixth graders because no one had done that yet.

Do you teach procedures and routines?  How long do you spend doing this?

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I survived my first week (barely)!

Oh my goodness....the first week is over.  I have never been so tired in my whole life.  On top of that both myself and my kiddos got sick this week.  Yuck!

We spent the first week assessing students so that we could split them into two classes.  Just imagine 48 kids in one classroom with two teachers.  That is what I experienced all week!

The first day we took this cute pictures with the students.

We split the kiddos last night and had the whole day today with our own class.  We were not able to accomplish much though because we had a early out because of the heat.

I am looking forward to next week where I will pretty much be teaching and practicing procedures all week long!

How soon do you start your curriculum?  I like to take at least a week to just teach and practice procedures.  After that I usually start on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Now I am off to take a nap.  Still exhausted!!

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Student Supplies Organization

In kindergarten, our students sit at tables (which I do love), but unfortunately every year I find myself in the predicament of "Where do I store all their supplies?"

Have you ever been in same situation?  I am here to help. I am going to show you how I store and organize all my students supplies.

First of all, my students sit at tables so they do not have a desk that can easily store their supplies.  Each student brings their own crayon box, but they do not keep a lot of items in it.  Here is what the student crayon boxes look like.

At the end of the day, my students put their crayon boxes on their chair so that our custodian can clean the tables really well.

At each table I have a "table tub".  What is in our table tub?  I like to keep items that the students need throughout the day, but are too big for their crayon boxes.

Here you can see the supplies I keep in their tubs.

Since my students have three notebooks in the tubs.  I color code them so they can easily grab the one they need.  I have a table captain each day and that student gets all the notebooks for the table.  (For example:  I will tell the table captain to grab all the green science & social studies notebooks.  The captain grabs them and then passes them out to the table.  This also helps students learn each other's names.)

Some supplies are too large for our crayon boxes and we don't need as often so we keep them in our cubbies.  I like to keep the students' coloring books in their cubbies because we only use them during special times.  I also use the cubbies to pass back papers after I have checked them.

All of our other supplies (like markers and colored pencils) are community supplies.  Here is where I store them.

I have a bucket for each table.  When the students need something like markers, the table captain grabs a basket for their table to share.

I like having supplies that are not used often in a different place.  This helps to avoid students using items like markers when I want them to use crayons and so on.

How do you organize student supplies?  I would love to hear!

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Classroom Reveal......Finally!

Normally I work a little bit here and there throughout the summer in my classroom, but this summer was completely different.  I had an extremely busy summer and didn't really get a chance to get into my classroom until the end of July.

I feel like I crammed a lot of work into a little bit of time and I am proud of the final product!

(You might notice that some of my room did not change from last year.  I liked how my room was and just wanted to enhance what I already had going.)

Here is a picture of what you see when you walk in the room from the front door:

The students come in through the back door after hanging up their backpacks.  Here is what they see when they come in:

Now let's take a closer look at some of the areas.

On the left side is where I do my lunch count.  (Each student has a magnet with their name that they move to the appropriate choice).  In the middle, I use that space to put up vocabulary words we learn within our thematic unit.  On the right is my word wall.

Writing center:  As we learn about how to write, I will add charts and posters here on the board.  I don't like to overwhelm the students.  I prefer to add items to my boards as we learn them instead.

This is on the left of the writing center.  I use this board to put up a picture of each student and underneath their picture I put their name.  The students use this as a reference when writing.

This is my guided reading area.  See that blue flower painting?  Yep, I painted that.  (Just don't look too close ;)  I went to a Vino Van Gough type painting event.  It was a lot of fun!

Student Work Display

This is where I will post our decoding strategies as we learn them.

Next to all of that is my teacher "desk" area.  Each year I get rid of more stuff in this area and I love it.

Our carpet area:  I am loving that new chair I got.  It is from Walmart and the perfect pop of pink for me.  :)

Here is a close up of my curtains because I am beyond proud of them.  They only took me forever to make, but it is my first big sewing project.  On top of the shelf is finished early work and puzzles.

Next to the carpet, under the windows, is our reading area and classroom library.

Above the library is our focus wall.  I put our "I can" statements for the day under each subject.

Behind the carpet is our calendar area.  I have to admit that this area is not quite finished.  In the blank space on the right I plan on adding "Today is" and a weather chart.  I just forgot to bring them to school today.  Oops.

 Above the calendar are our ten frame number posters.

Above that the shapes and colors posters.  (Once again, that darn glare wasn't helping my picture taking skills)

I am pretty happy with the overall outcome of my room.  I love having all my bulletin boards the same background and border.  To me, it provides a calming effect not only for me, but also for my students.  Now I just need to finish up my lesson plans and I should be good to go for next week.

Teachers go back on Monday and then students start on Tuesday.  Are you back in school already?  If not, when do you start?

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