A Glimpse Into My Mess!!!!

Oh my word friends!!!  I've bitten off more than I may be able to chew this summer.  Unfortunately, I haven't taken as many pics as I would have liked, but here's the run down.

I didn't exactly clean out my classroom on the last day of school.  I figured our wonderful custodians wouldn't get to my room until after July 4th because of summer school on my end of the building.  I went back to work on it about two weeks after school was out.  They had cleared my room!!!!  Stuff everywhere!  Floors ready to be waxed!  I had intended to throw out a TON of stuff.  It was time for a purge. Even though my room had been cleared, my son was doing the art class in summer school for three days, and I had planned on working, so I did.  

So far this summer I have:

tossed 6 bags of trash (those big black bags that fit in the cans at our kids bathrooms!)
taken out 8 boxes of recycling (paper and cardboard)
taken 30, 000 staples to the office for redistribution
Given the office probably 40 or more pens for redistribution (I may have an office supply problem!)
Packed 2 crates full of books into the back of my truck to take to McKay's tomorrow!

Who needs this many staples (and I found more after I took this pic!)

I kept looking around the room today wondering where to start.  I finally decided to start at the classroom door and work my way around the perimeter.  To help encourage me to keep going I took before and after pics of each area and sent them to my sister, who was working today.  Here is what I accomplished.

To the left of the white and clear drawers is my classroom door.  My wonderful husband came to the school with me a couple of weeks ago and helped me move the tables into place.  Since the alarm was on in the rest of the school, everything got shoved in front of the door to keep the kids from going into the hall. On the right is everything lined up in front of the cubbies.

What a difference a little motivation makes!  What you can't see is that believe it or not, I even organized the "storage" I utilize the top cubbies for.  I have 32 cubbies and I've never had more than 20 kids (yes, I know I am BLESSED!!!)

This is looking across the front of the room.  It's not too bad, but I had worked on this a lot a few weeks ago.  I even reorganized the blue drawers.

Wooohooo!  Looking better!  

My computer wires always end up looking like a rat's nest over the summer.  I even turned on the computers in the after pic to prove to my sis I din't just clean up, but I got them all set up!

This is where I ended.  This is a hot mess!  You can't see all the wonderfulness waiting for me inside the drawers and cabinets.  It's awful!  I's wrong.  No one should have this mess to contend with.  The pic doesn't even do it justice.  I don't have a desk.  My room just isn't big enough.  I used the counter as a landing place too much last school year and I'm determined to be more organized this year and not let that happen.  

There is so much more to do, but I feel good with today's start.  I'll be going back next week.  Only three weeks from tomorrow until I officially report.

I hope I haven't bored you.  Stay tuned for a classroom reveal next month!

Fun, Fun, Fun Summertime Blog Hop

Welcome to the Fun, Fun, Fun Summertime Blog Hop!  I know you are downloading a ton of great freebies to help with that summertime slide. I love to send a little booklet of things home with my kiddos that include fun and entertaining activities that will also keep those wheels turning all summer long.  I created a fun little packet of color by Dolch sight word that I'm sure you're kids will love, too. I even used this with my own son this summer to help combat the slide.

You can click on HERE to go straight to my TPT store and download it.

One of my best selling products, which would also be great practice for your kids is my Crack the Code Base Ten packet.  This has been a hit with every child that has used it in my class!  I love these pages for fun review throughout the year as well.  You can snatch it up at 40% off during the bloghop!! Just click HERE! 

I'm planning to use these base ten pool noodle manipulatives I made with the pages above this school year. 

 

 You can click HERE to find out how I made them.

I hope you love both of the above products! Don't forget to follow my TPT store, I have a ton of ideas and new things in the works.

You've probably noticed my blog is also pretty young, but I hope you've found something interesting, and if you did, please follow my blog!  You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook, just click on the buttons above.

I know you are finding a ton of great resources and I, too, can't wait to click through!!!!

Click HERE to hop on over to  StavroulaKampakou-PowerTeaching's Blog

Rewind and Retell Link Up

Today I am linking up with Allie at The Gypsy Teacher to Rewind and Retell about something we did in class this past year.

This rewind and retell goes alllllllll the way back to September of last year.  I remember it was cool enough that we wouldn't melt outside (finally) and we were all antsy during the Language Arts lesson.  I am blessed to have a door that leads from my classroom right outside to a decent sized grassy area so I opened the door and said "come on!"  We went outside and played a little game I made up on the spot.  If I said aloud a verb, students had to act it out while coming toward me.  If I said a word that was a noun, they had to freeze.  If they missed it they went back to the beginning.  It was kind of like Mother May I or Freeze with nouns and verbs.  It served two purposes, we moved and we learned.  It was also a lot of fun to laugh at the kids.

Be sure to check out The Gypsy Teacher for more fun link ups this summer.

It's been a while a long time since I linked up so I thought I would share what's been going on around here!

I LOVE my custodial staff!  Someone gave me this cork board and they figured out how to hang it on the cinder block wall without having to wait on maintenance to come in and do it.  They also got my room done early (they know I like to come in and get my room set up early!!!)  The board is now a part of my large group area. 

     

While cleaning my room last week I realized just how much I hoard school supplies!  I've gotta fix this problem (This is nothing compared to what else there is!)

My sister and I have spent the summer introducing our boys to Tennessee history.  This week we went to James White's Fort and Blount Mansion.  I am really getting into history this summer and I highly recommend both tours if you are in East Tennessee.  I love it!  

I'm having a ball participating in Bloghoppin' 2015!  I didn't do it last year and by the end of the month I wished I had!

And last....my baby graduated to her big girl bed and loves it!  Momma wasn't really ready for it, but it had to be done!

Pool Noodle Base Ten

Hello friends,

I'm super bummed about not getting to go to Vegas this year, so I'm getting through the week by making some things for the classroom.  First up, pool noodle base ten.  This was super easy, and I made both of these sets in less than 20 minutes!  My own 6 year old has enjoyed exploring with them this afternoon.

First, I went to Dollar Tree and bought some pool noodles.  I have to admit, I have 2 Dollar Trees within 5 minutes of my house, and the first one only had 2 noodles left in the store.  I was afraid I had already missed out on them this season and would have to pay twice the price somewhere else, but the second store I went to still had a great selection.  

Next, I measured each noodle and marked at 40 inches.

And I cut off the last 7 inches.  I just used a kitchen knife to do this.

Next, I cut the 40 inch noodle in half so I had two 20 inch pieces.

My next step was to take the seven inch piece and measure and mark 2 inch sections, having an inch left.

When finished, I had cut 5 orange noodles into 10 tens and 15 ones.

I loved that I ended up with 15 ones.  Students can manipulate the ones to regroup.

I did the same with 5 blue noodles.

I love that when you stack up ten of the ones that they are the same size as the tens.

We had fun counting tens and ones this afternoon.

There are so many possibilities with our large tens and ones.  I plan to use them in whole group math so students can manipulate them.  I will also use them in small groups and centers.  

I had 10 one inch pieces left over.  I had planned on using them for some alphabet games, but someone else had different plans.

And that's it!  Easy peasy!

If you need some base ten activities, check out my Base Ten Crack the Code packet in my TPT store. 

Teaching With Intention Chapters 3 & 4

Ok, so I'm already behind.  Its been a crazy couple of weeks with our new math adoption training and then TNCORE Training.  Here goes:

I really loved this chapter.  I am all about rearranging, reorganizing, and redoing my classroom this summer.  Once school was out for the summer I stayed away intentionally for a couple of weeks.  I knew I needed that time to reflect.  

Here were a few of my thoughts:  I need a much better traffic flow around the room, what am I thinking not having a large group area, why didn't I get rid of those 8 foot long cubbies last year, what do I want morning message/calendar to look like, what areas do I want to ensure student work is displayed in (we have to be real careful because of the fire marshal)?

I needed this chapter at this point.  

I went in last week for a day, mostly because my son was participating in the art and tennis camp offered through our summer school program.  On this day (after I fed my need for adult socialization) I recycled.  And I recycled.  And I trashed.  And I recycled some more.  I'm nowhere near done, I just ran out of time.  I'm now waiting on my floors to be waxed so I can get in and get busy.  Here are some of my thoughts on what will be happening in my little ol' space that I've taken from the reading and my reflection:

1.  My classroom will be an inviting, welcoming place.  I've got a purple rug coming from a funded Donor's Choose project and I am going to paint a shelf I have.  I plan to make sure the room arrangement is comfortable and flowing.  

2.  I WILL have a large meeting area.  I think this is the area I'm most excited about.  My room is not very big.  In place of the unsightly 8 foot long shelf I will place my rug, and just this week the custodians hung my new 6x4 corkboard that someone gave me for FREE!!!!  That's where my calendar will be hung.  I didn't even have a wall in my room where I could hang the calendar (the aforementioned shelf was also almost 5 feet tall)!  In the meeting area I will make sure to have all the materials needed for our large group work.

3. Small group areas will be revamped to make sure that the materials we need can be kept easily accessible.  I didn't really have a good system for this last year.  I have 2 kidney shaped tables.  Basically those tables are where my assistant and I work if we are at tables with small groups.  I want to make sure the materials all have homes and aren't just scattered.

I loved the quote at the end of the chapter that says " Classroom environments are organic-they grow as we do."  I truly feel like my environment has grown with me as I've grown as a teacher and I plan for it to continue to grow with me over my years of teaching.

Onward to Chapter 4.  It's ironic that this is the chapter that hit for this week, while I've been in TNCORE Training with the state.  One of our modules covered thinking aloud in depth and a lot of what we went over was covered in the book.

Let me start by saying that I truly believe, and have believed for a long time, that modeling thinking aloud is very important in teaching our students to be independent, critical, and creative thinkers.  But I'm not very good at it.  I love how Ms. Miller gave us some think alouds to get us started.  Between reading this chapter this week and practicing in training, I'm feeling a bit more confident in this area.

I also asked myself "Why don't you make more comments on your students work?"  I don't have a good answer for this.  Laziness maybe.  Lack of time possibly.  Maybe I thought that the first graders wouldn't really read the comments or questions I posed.  Not anymore.  I think that I could really spark some great conversations this way, as well as encourage and promote the students in their own thinking and work.

There is so much more I could say about this chapter, but since I'm combining two weeks into one post, I will stop there.  I can't wait to write about and show off my classroom at the end of the summer.