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??  =)