Currently...and Hurricane Sandy!

I have finally found some time to finish my October Currently. I see these on all the blogs that I follow and think it is a really cute idea and a great way for our blogs to get new traffic. So here it is...

Currently is brought to you by Farley at:



With one day in October to spare! I will have to do better for November. Speaking of November...I only have 14 days of school! Only one week of full school days and that is the last week of the month. We have had the past two days off from school due to Hurricane Sandy (thankfully we didn't get hit too bad and we never lost power). Next week is Election Day on Tuesday and I have teacher workdays on both Monday and Wednesday, no school Tuesday because our school is a polling place. The week after we have Monday off for Veteran's Day and we have our field trip on the 14th to Washington, D.C. And finally we have Thanksgiving week! Only two days of school for me, two and a half for the kiddos, but I used one of my earned release days so that my family can drive home for the holidays in NY. Quite the month, but I am looking forward to it so much.

For those that did get hit by Hurricane Sandy, I hope that you get your power back and that your belongings and homes are not ruined. This storm was a big one, that's for sure.

Decorations and Activities

This has been quite the hectic week! But, today is Friday, and school is out and I am looking forward to the weekend (well not my class tomorrow, but the rest). In school today, I finally got some things hung up in the room that I have had laminated and moved around my desk and some tables to make the room more workable. We FINALLY got our students computers today, as well. Our old ones were taken out over the summer and then when the new ones came in, they didn't have Windows 7, so they were shipped back. It has been crazy without them. I like to use them for listening to reading, spellingcity during word work and they are needed for the students to take their Accelerated Reader tests. What else do you use your students computers for? I would love to know!

Now on to why I named this blog post decorations and activities! I have been so down about not being able to do much season/holiday related activities, and I finally realized that I just need to get more creative. There are tons of halloween/fall themed activities out there on Pinterest and TpT, and I found some great ones that I want to share with you.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Costumes-Character-Traits

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Packet-Sample-Freebie

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-ABC-Order-Center-Activity

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Halloween-Verb-Action

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Fall-Synonym-Match-Up-FREEBIE

I also got creative today and decided to decorate my door in a fall theme...check it out!

Then this afternoon, my colleague and I put together our 3rd grade classes and had a blast doing a  food chain activity called Food Chain Hospital, which I got from this life science packet that is WONDERFUL: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Ultimate-Life-Science-Unit/. The kids had a lot of fun and did a great job with the challenge of putting together the puzzle pieces and then putting the food chain in order.

Have a great weekend!! Remember, the people that comment on my blog previous to this one, get a free Daily 5 rotation Powerpoint!

A Ha! Moment

Today was the 30th day of school, and it finally happened... my language arts block went almost as planned! It felt pretty amazing. All the students were working, either with me in guided reading or in their Daily 5 round. We were all so busy working that we ran 5 minutes into recess and no one even noticed!

A few things contributed to my successful language arts block and of course I want to share them with you. The first thing is that I am taking a guided reading course this fall that gives teachers amazing resources for implementing guided reading. Unfortunately, my school didn't have the funds to buy both my colleague and I the newest guided reading class set books, but we did get a set of the older ones. Which, it is nice to have 30-40 titles in my room to choose from when creating my lesson plans, and then we have a guided reading rooms with tons of leveled books. Our school was able to purchase the book baskets, reading notebooks, and some other small group necessities like dry erase markers, mini erasers, etc. Anyways, our class meets once a month (and we met for a whole week 3 weeks before school started this summer) and we talk about how to properly implement small group reading and the Daily 5. Our two bibles: Jan Richardson's The Next Steps to Guided Reading and the two sisters Daily 5 book. If you haven't read the Jan Richardson book, check it out: http://www.janrichardsonguidedreading.com/services. The ideas and procedures in this book helped me as a new teacher really understand what guided reading is all about. 

The other amazing thing, an idea that I heard about at my guided reading class, is a Daily 5 PowerPoint with slides that keep track of where the kids are and the timing of each rotation. It was so helpful that I wanted to share it with the world of teaching. You can find it here: Daily 5 Rotation PowerPoint at TeachersPayTeachers. But, just for my followers and maybe some others that might stop by, comment on this blog post and pin my blog on Pinterest and I will email it to you for FREE! 

My kiddos were so good today during Daily 5 and I was super proud of my guided reading skills, which still need a lot of growth and work! I am a little sad that I will not be in school tomorrow morning to have Daily 5 (I am out for a Science Professional Development class for the morning). Speaking of professional development...this week has been CRAZY! Both last Saturday and this coming Saturday I am taking a Handle with Care class (a restraining course), Monday I had a half day math training for new to our county teachers, yesterday I had a half day training for Special Education in the General Education classroom in the morning and my guided reading class in the evening and tomorrow is the science one. Way, way, WAY too much for one week. And the icing on the cake is our annual goal setting conferences with parents that start tomorrow evening. Needless to say, I am completely looking forward to November (5th-workday, 6th-off for election day, 7th-workday, 12th- Veteran's Day and of course Thanksgiving mini break 21st-25th). 

Don't forget to leave a comment and pin my blog! I will be happy to send you my Daily 5 PPT for free for giving me the exposure. 

Beginning of the Year Blues!

It's been a while since I have posted a blog! Being a first year (well, first year beginning the year) teacher, I am having quite the time nailed down a schedule. If you have been on my blog before, you know that I am a looping teacher, 2nd to 3rd and then back again. This is my first time teaching the 3rd grade part of the loop. Major differences between 2nd and 3rd grade: SOL's and teaching all subkjects, every day. So instead of teaching a whole unit of science (3-4 weeks) giving the end of unit test and then moving on to a Social Studies unit. So, of course, the day didn't get any longer going from 2nd to 3rd grade, just more to teach!

Our Schedule:

8:45-9am- Students arrive, start working on Morning Work (Evan Moor Daily Oral Language and Morning Math that our Math Resource teacher makes, she is amazing!)
9-9:10am- School-wide announcements and Fitness 5 (a five minute exercise video that is played for the students to follow featuring teachers or students leading the exercise)
9:10-9:30am- Students line up to make their lunch choice using the Promethean Board, all other morning business like attendance, notes to office, checking of agendas
9:30-10:15am- Social Studies
10:15-11am- Specials
11-11:15am- Walking back from specials (always a traffic jam in hallways) and eating snack
11:15am-12:20pm- Language Arts, including minilesson and however many Daily 5 rounds we get to
12:20-12:40pm- Recess
12:40-1:10pm- Lunch
1:10-1:20pm- Walk About (a 5-10 minute walk around outside for extra exercise)
1:20-1:50pm- Science
1:50-3:00pm- Math
3:00-3:20pm- Core Extension which is used for intervention, pull out time for math and reading specialists
3:20pm- Afternoon announcements
3:35pm- Usually all kids are out the door

Looks like it is a schedule that flows...but it doesn't. Because of the extra exercise things put in the day, snack, and the hallway traffic, bathroom breaks, etc... I just don't get through it.

I have all these great plans, great ideas, FUN ideas and projects...but in all honesty, I am barely getting through the content that I need to cover. How do you do it? What is your schedule like?

Also, what do you have your students do when they first come in in the morning? Our morning work is expected to be gone over everyday as a class. It winds up taking around 20 minutes to go over the both of them (math and language).

Back to School!

Phew! Made it through our week of teacher work days. Lost of professional development, meetings, planning, and my favorite (!): decorating and setting up my room.

This is what my room looked like after my first day back...didn't get much done. But I had an excuse! The desks legs still had to be raised since my kiddos are 3rd graders, not 2nd graders anymore (if this is the first time you've been on my blog, I'll let you know that I loop with students 2nd to 3rd grade). The only things I got done were hanging my new calendar, moving my book shelves and putting the baskets in, and hanging up my WBT rules and schedule chart with my Polka Dot Schedule Cards.

On Friday, I was making some progress! Decided to make tissue paper poms, instead of buying chinese paper lanterns. I had to make like 100 of these one time for a wedding, so making six was a breeze. I sorted my library books and was able to label most of the chapter books with their DRA levels, which I have to do for a class I am taking. I cannot even imagine how long it will take to get them all leveled! Check out Stickers and Staples DRA Label Stickers...they were a time saver since I hadn't made my own. It you purchase these, make sure to change your printer settings to actual size and not shrink to fit. She got back to me right away after I printed them and they were not aligning with my labels. 

 Here are my BUILD math baskets! I am super excited about these. The idea has been floating around on Pinterest for a while and I decided to go with it. Here are some amazing math centers that I purchased on TpT: Easy as 1-2-3 Math Centers by Amy Lemons, Money Activities for any Money Unit by Jamie Rector, Telling Time to The Five Minute Activity Pack by Fourth and Ten, Math Place Value Go Fish Center by CTG, and Place Value Mystery Pictures by Cara Carroll. I also bought a bunch of flash cards, wipe off math bookets and flash cards from Target's $ Spot. I plan to find games to go with base ten blocks and connecting cubes for the Using Manipulatives basket.

 

These are the student cubbies. In each are their book baskets, which I bought from the Dollar Tree. Inside each book basket their is a reader's notebook that our county sells that includes a book log, want to read list, mini lesson notes, response pages, etc. Also on the cubbies are my Classroom Jobs- Polka Dots! My classroom polka dot jobs are my #1 selling TpT item. There are jobs for every student and after each week, I will rotate them. I have them on the cubbies with velcro.

And finally, my teaching cove. I tried to make this area as small as possible. I moved my mini fridge to a counter and decided to house some more of my classroom library by my desk. Not sure what I will use the bulletin board for yet. It is in the back of the room so I feel like it is a wasted feature of my room. I will probably put our Daily 5 anchor charts up on here since I cannot figure out how to adhere anything to my walls (tried masking tape, packing tape, tacky AND hot glue! but it is just so humid in there). I covered my teacher chair with pink polka dot fabric, which I love! And next to my desk will be my guided reading desk. I asked for a horse-shoe shaped table on my wish list at the end of last year and I got an email this past week saying it was ordered! I am super excited about it. I just realized I didn't take any pictures of my crate seats! I'll have to do that.

On Friday we had our school's Say Hello! New and old students come in to meet their teacher and tour the building. I have 5 new to our school students this year, 8-9 returning students from my 2nd grade class, and 6-7 students that were moved into my room from another class. I will be the LD/ED teacher for our 3rd grade team and I am excited to have support in my room. Looks like I am holding steady at 22 students, which is pretty low for our school (1st grade has 29-30!).

Well I hope you enjoy my classroom pictures and head over to my TpT store to check out my materials. One last and VERY important shout out to Ms. Durning from K-2 is Splendid, as I will be using her Daily 5/Cafe Launch schedule. Have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

Beach Time!

We're finally at the beach! Just about every year before school starts we make our way to Topsail Island off the coast of North Carolina. Each year a new member joins us, my own daughter, Addyson, and this year my niece, Lauren. It is the best feeling in the world to be surrounded by family and having a relaxing vacation at the same time.

 This morning I got up and took a nice 5K run and then went right into the water to cool down. Doesn't sound too bad, right? It was a little cloudy this morning, but the clouds are giving way to the sun right now.

Besides being at the beach and having to be back at school on Monday for a week of teacher work days, I am selling up a storm over at my TpT Store! Go and check out my schedule cards, calendar months, classroom jobs, and much more. But, with everything good, comes a little bad :-( My computer crashed on Monday while I was at a guided reading training. So unfortunately, I cannot create any requests for additional schedule cards or any other products right now. BUT, the good news that comes with the bad news...the computer shop was able to recover all my files and I will be able to get it next weekend. So I promise that if you have requested anything, I will get to it.

Okay...I love to blog...but I love the beach more! Have a great day everyone!

More Classroom Themes

It's been a week or so since the last time that I have posted! I have been quite busy; traveling from our new home in Virginia, to New York to visit our families for the last time this summer. It is hard to be away from our families, but it makes it easier when they are only 6.5 hours away. Next week I have a week long Guided Reading/SPOT class through my county and then it's off to the beach for a whole week before having to be back to school for teacher days.

I might have been absent from blogger, but I have been building up my TpT store for the past few weeks. I started off with my polka dot themed things and then decided that since they were getting pretty popular (sold over $140 in 3 weeks!) that I would make a few other themed items as well. Check them out!

And then for my own polka dot theme, I made name tags for my students desks incorporating the whole brain teaching rules and the hand signals that I will be using in my classroom this year.

To end my blog post today, I wanted to introduce my friend, Ivania, over at Confessions of a Teachaholic. We both teach 2nd/3rd at the same school; we even share a side of the hall and can open our wall partition to see each other! She has just started her blog and has some amazing Bee themed ideas over on her latest posts. Check them out and don't forget to follow her!