Colorful Seating

You've probably seen this idea ALL over Pinterest.  I have too.  So I finally got together with a Crafty Chica (Hi Julie!) and we made these awesome little crate seats for around our reading tables.  Here's the link to some step-by-step instructions that we found very helpful.  A couple more suggestions:

a.  Find someone to fund your wood.  (Not gonna say it, Julie).  My Father-In-Law was kind enough to go to Lowes, buy the 3/4" sheet of plywood, and then have them cut it to size for me.  I don't know how much it cost (I didn't ask...) but they WILL cut it for free for you if you are a teacher.  He just told them it was for my classroom.  Thanks Dan!  BTW, one sheet of plywood gave us 21 squares!  Just remember to BRING YOUR CRATE WITH YOU when they cut the wood.  Otherwise they may not fit perfectly.

b.  Walmart had a 7-pack of "fat quarters" for around $10.  I LOATHE Walmart... but it was a good deal and  I was already there.  Take the time to iron your fabric before staple gunning it.  It looks so much nicer without the huge crease in it.

c.  Test out the height of your crates vs. the height of your reading table before your kids come in.  I didn't and my kids all ended up at eyebrow level with the edge of my table... cute, yes.  Practical, no.  Although they did LOVE kneeling on them for the rest of the day.  Point:  Lower your table.  =)

My first crate seat!

Julie did animal print to match her classroom decor.  Sassy!

My rainbow seats.

Colorful Adjectives

I don't know about you but my kiddos have a pretty hard time with adjectives.  "I see a tree."  Oh really?  What does it look like?  "I see a big tree."  ohman.  So I saw this RADICAL idea on Pinterest so I had to try it out in my class.  

sooooo... I really should have read through the whole link before actually trying the project in my class.  Her version:  Super prepared and awesome.  My version:  Ummmm.... what should I do after Math today?...  do we have yellow butcher paper?...

Obviously Babbling Abby at The Inspired Apple is more prepared with worksheets and planning.  I get it.  That's not me though.  And it actually was a very cool activity for my kids.  They were stoked to find crayons called "Purple Mountains Majesty" and "Cerulean".  How do you even pronounce that??  Wing it and then tell the kids you're right.

No, David!

I LOVE the character David from No, David, by David Shannon.  I mean I really LOOOOOVE him.  He's so adorable and awful and the illustrations are SO RAD.  ilovehim.  Anyway, at our school all students are expected to R.O.A.R. which means they are Ready to Learn, they know that Our Safety Matters, we are Always Caring and Respectful, and we are Reaching and Exceeding Our Goals.  So I stole this idea from The First Grade Parade and modified it to say that we are "Caring and Respectful".

Our Davids turned out pretty cute, huh?  Obviously some kiddos took a few liberties with their markers...  And of course the kids think it's hilarious when David runs down the street with no pants.  =)

It's ON...

... like flippin' Donkey Kong.  I am sooooo deep into school already, it's almost sick.  I'm already at the point where I'm wavering between being "totally overwhelmed with assessments, grading, discipline, and oh yea... organizing my room" and "whew!  I think I'm on top of everything right now!"

Okay, I'm lying.  I'm still stuck in the first category but I'm trying to fight my way out, okay??

In the meantime, here's a couple things going on at my end of the school:

I stole/combined several ideas from Pinterest (I can quit anytime I want, okay?) and made this classroom pledge with my kids.  Everyone signed it and then added their hand to it (kind of like how people do at the end of a huddle right before you yell, "BREAK!")

I had a sub on Friday while I was out on our SST team.  I found this idea somewhere out there in blog land and it's FANTASTIC!  So if it was your idea, please pipe up and let me know...  The kids get to brainstorm where they think you are and then they write a quick story about your adventures there.  One story contained some unfortunate mis-spellings that had me liking "acid in the park"... I kid you not.

I've used these before but I'm bringing them back after an extended hiatus.  These are my "Listening Ears" to use during UA/Guided Reading groups.  My kids know that if I'm wearing them I'm listening to the group at my table and I should not be disturbed.  It's super cute to hear the kids say, "No!  Don't bother her!  See!  She's LISTENING!"

I think this may be my favorite thing going on in my room right now.  Have you heard of this guy?  His name is Oscar Pistorius.  Basically, in a nutshell, he was born with no legs and now he's qualifying for the 100m dash in the Olympics.  The OLYMPICS, people!!  Not the Special Olympics.  The Big 'Ol Real Deal Coming Up This Summer In London Olympics.  So anytime I hear my kids say, "This is too hard!", I just point to the wall in the back of the room and they shut their mouths real quick.  I love it.  I hear them tell each other all the time, "Don't you remember?  We can do hard things."  And I got that quote off of Pinterest too.  =)

OH!  Also.  I just bought this RAD file from Lesson Plan S.O.S.  It's all about how to be a Guided Reading Guru and in my quest to become Teacher Extraordinaire I thought that $9 for an 80 page document  that will change. my. life.  was worth it.  So far, I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to get started with my reading groups and try out some new things!

aaaaaaaaaaaannnnd.... I love links.  =)

One Week Down...

quite a few left to go.... I'm not very good with dates and such but I figure about 34???  What day is it?  October??   Anyhoo, just a quick post.  I've been working hard at school (as all teachers do) every day until well past the last bell and then on the weekends too.  Although it's harder to get things done when there's a little person yelling at you every 2 1/2 to 3 hours that they want to be fed.  But Back to School Night is Wed. and I hope to come back with a vengeance and lots of pictures of the cool things I picked up from Pinterest for my class!  As my boy would say (while giving me the "stop in the name of love" hand)...

"be back".

Crafty Teachers

So Pinterest made me think about all the good ideas that other teachers have but never get to share or even create because we're soooo busy!!  So, I invited a couple Crafty Chicas (who also happen to be teachers) over to share good ideas and work on a project.  First, I had to get them all hooked on Pinterest... trust me, it's not hard to do.  Then, one of my fave crafty teachers, (my work wifey) JWade, and I worked on creating THIS PROJECT.  Here's how ours turned out....

JWade 

Me

Not too bad, right?   Actually, JWade changed hers up a bit in the end... I personally think she should've kept the Lima Bean nose and sassy eyebrows.  And I'm BUMMED because those were the only pictures I took!  But I promise there were more sassy ladies there and we had SO. MUCH. FUN.  Thanks girls for the great day!  Let's plan the next Crafty Teacher Chica Day soon!  =)

Math Warmup

Okay, so last night I apparently drowned myself in Coca Cola at dinner and paid the price with the inability to go to sleep (I saw 3am how about you?).  So this is the math warmup I made at 1:45am. My hope is that the kiddos will fill this out every day when they get started on math (ideally after recess or lunch so it's waiting on their desks for them). I'll give them like 5 minutes to complete, pick one or two of the things to go over whole group and then they will put it in their Bobcat Binders under the Math section to keep. When we start doing test prep, I plan on copying the math questions for the day onto the back of this paper so then the activity time would be more like 10 minutes so they can fill out both sides. What do you think?  I plan on changing up the calendar each month and the calendar question daily.  Also, I am totally freaking out and can't figure out FOR THE LIFE OF ME how to save this as a jpeg or how to embed in my blog... any help would be GREATLY appreciated!  So for now I tried just taking a screenshot and embedding the picture....  AMATEUR!  =)

Terrific Transitions

I originally heard about using a music box for behavior management from a friend when I was in the credential program.  The idea was to wind the music box every morning.  When you needed the kids' attention or they were being too loud you opened the box.  The music would play and children would magically pay attention... I'm only being half-sarcastic.  If there was music left in the box at the end of the day the kids would get a letter for a secret message (think Wheel of Fortune).  Once they solved the puzzle, they would get the prize that the puzzle spelled (extra recess, popsicle party...).  If they ran out of music during the day they lost their letter.  Also, I would rewind the box during the day if they ran out of music and that was their music for the rest of the day AND the next day!  Bummer for them...  I used it for a couple years and then it kind of went by the wayside when my music box bit the dust.  =(  sad day.

Since then, I've tried clapping patterns, counting down, "One, Two, Three, Eyes on me...", "Class, Class?", ... you name it, I've tried it.

Anyway, I'm thinking of bringing the whole thing back.  But I think I like how Kris at I {Heart} Teaching does it better....  At any rate, she does a much better job of explaining her way.  =)  What do you think?  What transition tactic works best for you?

Busy, busy, busy...

So I've been super busy trying to be a teacher extraordinaire and super mommy at the same time but I actually accomplished a few things!  First, I went to Target and got these things:

I'm mostly excited about the letter magnets to make this for my class.  SUPER CUTE, right?!  Then I went crazy over at Pinterest and started making a bunch of things:

A new clipchart to hopefully do this.  I found the original idea over at Clutter Free Classroom.

Hands On Math Center with added CMO's on the back to make it work for my school.  I downloaded these for free from Denise at Sunny Days in Second Grade! 

My attempt at organization like this.

BEST idea EVER for keeping track of Reading Levels... This was just my attempt.  I tweeked it to work for the HM Reading Levels and AR colors that my school uses and then added DRA and Rigby equivalents.  I still need to add the velcro, too.

So, hopefully with a few (or a lot) more hours of classroom work, I will be set for an awesome year!!  =)

Possibly OCD??

So my classroom is being used for summer school this year which means I can't really do anything in there until summer school is finished.  This normally wouldn't be a problem for me because I normally do not have a job at this point in the year (I'm usually the victim of budget cuts and RIF notices).  But since I FINALLY got to keep the same school, same room, same grade-level (oh my!) this year, I'm anxious to be all that I can be in the classroom.  Since I was pregnant this past year and wasn't supposed to move a lot of furniture around, I just made due with the way things were originally placed in my room.  So since I can't physically move furniture in my room right now because of summer school, I decided to go totally OCD and measure and map out my room, draw it to scale, and make little scale sized paper furniture to figure out how I want my room layout to be.  Does that make me CRAAAAAAZAAAAAYYYYY???  Probably.  =)

So, what do all of you (again, like two people) do to figure out the layout of your room?  What kind of furniture/spaces are "Must Haves" in your class?  Can you tell me the musical reference I made in this post?  Lemme know!

Cootie Catchers from Ms. Male

Ms. Male over at "A Day in the Life of a Second Grade Teacher" is having a very very cool first giveaway!  Remember those "cootie catchers" that you used to make back in the day?  Personally, I had no idea that they had an official name - I just called them "those super cool paper thingies that you move with your fingers".  Anyway, cruise over to her blog and enter to win some very cool Cootie Catcher Resource Books and Incentive Packs from her sponsor Creative Teaching Press!  Can I get another link up in here please??  =)

HUGE Giveaway!

Okay, like I've said, I'm new to the whole blog world so I'm not very good at things yet.  That being said, Denise over at "Sunny Days in Second Grade" is having a HUMONGOUS giveaway to celebrate 400 followers (WOW!).  If you are the lucky winner you will get not one, not two, but - wait for it...  TWENY EIGHT free items from twenty eight awesome TPT stores!  I'm serious.  That's one free item from each store.  So rad, right?!  When I figure out how to "grab buttons" (he he he) I'll make this look pretty but for now just head over to her blog and enter to win!

My Cool Header!

No... I don't play women's soccer....  But I did make a rad header for this blog all by myself!  I can't take credit for it though.  I got all my help from this blog Makin' Cute Blogs and this free website Piknik!  It was super easy to make (in my opinion) an awesome personalized header all by myself.  And I'm a total beginner so you advanced bloggers could do some rad things I'm sure.  Go check it out!

No Place for Coloring...

Hi Everyone!  Right... all one of you.  And by "one" I mean, me reading this post in a couple minutes...   =)  I'm Sam and I'm starting up this Teacher Blog right about.... now.  I've been blog stalking for a while now and I lurk all over the internet for awesome teacher blogs and classroom ideas.  I'm just starting to blog on a regular basis and I'm definitely a straight up beginner with fancy blog stuff.

My plan for this blog is to share cool ideas I find (giving credit where it is due, of course) or awesome ideas/strategies that I might have, and share the occasional "Tale From the Trenches".  I love telling stories about my class since I usually have some interesting characters in there.  Names are with-held and replaced with oh-so-clever nicknames to maintain anonymity.

Tonight I thought I would start this blog off with an explanation of it's title.  "Rigorous Coloring".  What does it all meeeeeeeeeaaaaan???  Well, I've been all over my district.  Lots of us have due to budget cuts in California and an especially cautious district.  In five years I've been at four schools, had five principals, and taught 1st, Kinder, 1st, K-1, and 2nd grade.  Whew!  Anyway, a couple years ago I was placed at a Reading First school to teach a K-1 Combo (criminal, I tell you).  My principal ran a tight ship and was very concerned about the "rigor" in our classrooms.  Having never taught at a Reading First school before, it was a rude awakening to say the least.  No - you may not use anything that isn't Houghton Mifflin.  No - you may not stray from the script in your T.E. No - you may not color in your classroom.  WHAT?!  Yup.  One day I was pulled into my principal's office to be told, "I had to physically remove myself from your classroom today because I was so angry.  You had Kinder students coloring."  Annnnddddd....????  I explained to him that my students were completing a Houghton Mifflin worksheet that asked them to color the vowel with the short u sound before they were using a yellow crayon to highlight sight words in their Phonics Library with a partner after Buddy Reading.  They were then allowed to color the pictures in their Phonics Library as a May Do.  "Well, next time tear up that page and think up another activity because there is no place for coloring at this school."  Oooookay.

I did my time there.  One.  Day.  At.  A.  Time.  So here it is.  My "take that" to the farr away place where coloring is frowned upon.  Let's do this then.  Gonna get some good ideas and fun stories flowing through here.  I hope you come back for more and see how this blog grows!  =)