Okey-Dokey peeps!

It's time to revive this blog!

It's hard, though!!!!  Oh my, being momma, teacher, TPTer, and blogger!  I know I'm preaching to the choir. Y'all get it.

I have to say, this has been an awesome year!  I feel I have grown so much as a teacher.  I have some ideas to put out here in my little piece of the interwebs, hopefully time won't get away from me.

I'm not going to take much time on this post, I'm just going to leave you with a couple of things we did a few weeks ago.

First, we use our desks as dry erase boards.  A lot.  The marker comes off with a Clorox/Lysol wipe.  The kids love it!  I can definitely keep their attention longer this way, plus it's bigger than their personal white boards kept in their desks.

And next, it's hard to see, but that's a die-in-a-die.  The kids rolled the die, used the top number as a 10 and the inside number as a one.  They wrote out the problem and then added.  You could also do this with two dice.  One die is the ten, the other the one, write the expanded problem, and add!

I hope you are all having a fabulous school year.

8 1/2 school days til spring break.  I think I can!  I think I can!  I think I can!!!

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.