Story Map Poster

I came across this amazing blog, Mrs. Gilchrists class. Many of you may have already heard of it but I just happened to stumble across it today. Well my word she has some really good resources that you have to check out.

I really loved her story map poster and wanted it for my classroom. I am not doing a pirate theme or I would have used hers since it was free. I am telling you she is very generous so if you are doing a pirate theme just head on over to her site and you can find it. I decided to make one that would fit my classroom and here it is. It is exactly the same as the one she did but with little hula dancers. You can turn it into a poster like she did and either laminate it so you can write with a dry erase marker or you can use sticky notes. I just thought it was a great visual to use when you are doing reading groups or whole group reading.

Story Map Poster

Hope you enjoy friends.

Cindy

Reading Log

Hello everyone!

I was looking at my reading log from last year and it was very basic. (Code word for BOOORING!) I decided to spruce it up a little and share with you if you would like. Comments would be greatly appreciated.Just click on the picture!
Cindy

Back to School Bonanza

Erica Bohrer's First Grade is having an amazing giveaway. You have to check it out!

12 ladies have teamed up and are giving away everything you will need for back to school.

I hope I win

Cindy

P.S. I was one of the winners of the Oceans of First Grade Fun giveaway. Yay!

A Camping We Will Go!!!

I know its the beginning but as I have been blog stalking I noticed that a lot of people were doing a camp theme in their classroom. So I wanted to share our camp activities we did with our class last year. We did "Camp Learned-A-Lot" at the end of the year last year. It was so much fun!!! We set up tents in our classroom and made fire pits out of butcher paper and some big roll my husband brought from work. It was a week long camp and we did everything you would do at camp. Including friendship bracelets, singing camp songs, making popsicle stick frames, and even eating s'mores. I realize that we did our camp unit at the end of the year but I do not see why you could use it if you had a camp themed room. I have just uploaded the entire unit on TPT so go check it out. (I am in the process of setting up a teacher notebook account so you can find our products there too but for now just use TPT.)

Camp Unit

You wouldn't think I would give our lovely followers a freebie! What! I love freebies so here you go friends. Just click on the picture.

Cindy

Classroom Pics! (Work In Progress)

I am going to my classroom today and get some work done! OK so that was my mind set when I woke up, I was determined to start putting things up on the wall and get my desks set up. So I packed up my son and drove down to my school and was overwhelmed by how much needs to be done. YIKES!!!

As many of you know I am doing a Beach theme in my room so I decided to take some pics so that I can share my classroom with you. Of course my camera was out of battery when I got there so I had to use my phone so excuse the quality.

TIKI Library

This is my classroom library. I had my wonderful husband hang my tiki roof from my ceiling. I have had him move it twice now because it was way too high and I know he is going to kill me but I think it is too low now. I still haven't put out the cute mat and the chairs but there will be more pictures since it is still a work in progress.

"A SEA OF HELPERS"

OK so don't mind all of the stacked books in the picture but here is my helper board. I made the boats using my Cricut machine and just cut up some water background you find at party city. I still have to put up a cute border and the title.

This is one of my bulletin boards that usually holds the thematic project we are doing. The shelves are just those storage things for the garage sitting side by side. I hot glued a grass skirt on the edge to hide any centers we are not using. The numbers cards above my bulletin board are from Oceans of First Grade Fun. She is truly amazing and she just made a second set of number cards 11-20 so I have to print those of too. My desk is on the left but it is a mess right now because one of my fellow teachers retired and blessed me with a lot of her teaching materials.

The last picture I have is my Birthday wall. I got this from Miss Kindergarten. It is a BIRTHDAY BEACH. The months are on sandcastles and you write the students names on red pennants. It was just too cute so I had to do it in my classroom.

This is just the beginning of my classroom. I still have a lot to do but I think I got a pretty good start. My son was actually a great help this time around. Usually there are toys and manipulatives all over the floor but this time he was busy writing on my white boards and dancing to the wiggles courtesy of my smart board and the cable in the classroom. Oh yes, I am blessed in my classroom. So stay tuned because I brought a lot to do at home and will be making another trip to my classroom next week.

Cindy

Oceans of First Grade Fun is having a giveaway!

One of my favorite blogs is having a giveaway. She has finally reached 1000 followers and is celebrating with a giveaway. She always has great resources so go check out her blog and enter her giveaway.


http://oceansoffirstgradefun.blogspot.com.


Cindy

I am SO indecisive... and another freebie!

I am so indecisive! After getting ready to laminate my behavior chart so it's ready to go in a few weeks, I decided that it was too plain looking. So I've re-vamped it and now I am finally satisfied! I cannot even begin to tell you how much time I spend making something and then re-making it again! Oh well, such is the mind of a teacher, right? :-) I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!!


https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B2nInYNLioktZDQxMDRkMmUtMjZhYS00NzZkLWEwZmMtYjdlZTE3ZGQ3Nzdl&hl=en_US

Grade Level Linky Party

Kim over at The Teachers Lane is having a grade level linky party. It is a great way to find other blogs by grade levels. We are on the 1st and 2nd grade because we teach both. Ha!

Calendar Kit! (Beach theme)

As you can see we are focusing (as most of you are) on getting our classrooms ready for the upcoming school year. It's 19 pages and includes the months of the year in a beautiful Hawaiian print and the calendar numbers in fun flip-flop numbers. It also includes "Today is, Tomorrow will be, and Yesterday was..." wall signs with the days of the week. Here is a little sneak peak but if you want the whole kit just head on over to our TPT.

Calendar-Kit-Beach-Theme

Thank You!!!! Back to School SALE?

Hi everyone!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that has joined our site and especially to those that took the time to leave such nice comments.  Its is so nice to join such an awesome blog family.  You guys are amazing!  Angie posted her calendar freebie and I will post some freebies soon just to say Thank you, so stay tuned.  

By the way I went to Staples today because they started their back to school sale yesterday and guess what they were out of almost everything in their $1 and 1cent bin!  What! The sale just started yesterday.  I am going to check back later but I guess you snooze your loose.  Hope you have better luck where you live.
Target has some good sales too but nothing can beat their dollar section.  I got some pocket charts and found some of those gems that I plan to use on my clip chart after they go to outstanding.  Have any of you found really good sales?

See ya later!
Cindy

D.O.T Book UPDATE!

After discovering an amazing sale on digital background paper and looking into the "Favorite Font" linky parties, I decided to update my D.O.T book to look a little cuter than my first one. I also added and removed some sections to better fit my needs. If you already purchased the first DOT book I made but you would like this one, please email me and I will gladly re-send the new one! Check the new one out at our TpT store!

Polka Dot Calendar Wall

Hi all! I'm working on re-vamping my Calendar bulletin board to fit my polka dot theme. My project today was to make some simple "Today is, Yesterday was, Tomorrow will be..." cards and I can safely say: Mission Accomplished! I am working on making some additional things to add to my calendar board but this is what I've done so far. Click the link below to snag my latest freebie!

Polka Dot Calendar Board Headers

Updated Beach Book

Hello everyone its Cindy,

As I was looking at my Beach Binder the other day I was a little bored by it.  I mean the graphics were really cute but I needed it to pop.  After talking to Angie I decided to add some Hawaiian print borders.  I also changed some of the binder index and added a behavior calendar to keep my parents posted on student behavior.  Last year I would send notes home but sometimes I wasn't even sure if they made it home.  This way they will all be kept in the binder and the students will be responsible for coloring in their circles at the end of the day as we are cleaning up.  I have also added a page to put in the ABC's of 1st grade or whatever grade you teach.  Hope you like my new change because I am really happy with it.  Go check it out on TPT just click on the link below.

                                                                           Beach Binder 2

Beach Book

Like many of you I need to work hard to stay organized.  I can't tell you how frustrated I got when I couldn't find a note from a parent because they wrote it on a little scrap piece of paper.  After blog stalking and seeing so many wonderful ideas I decided to make my own binder.  So this year I decided to do a Beach Book that will house all the notes, newsletters, reading logs, homework, and parent communication.  Of course I want it to fit my theme so I used Beach (Bring Everyday: Assignments, Communication and Homework).   So head on over to our TPT store and check it out.

Beach Binder TPT

Behavior Clip Chart "Beach Theme"

Hello everyone its Cindy! 

I am doing a Beach Theme again this year so I decided to cutesify some things that I used last year.  My clip chart last year worked pretty well it consisted of four fishes a Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red.  The students got to move up and down and they got sparkle notes sent home for being on blue and they got behavior notes for being on yellow or red.  Too many times on red and they lost privileges.  The problem with my clip chart was that all the fishes were the same die cut fish (so they were all smiling!)  One day one student pointed out towards the end of the year that he didn't understand why they red fish was smiling if it wasn't a good thing to be on red.  That is when I decided that I needed something different for next year.  After talking to Angie and learning about Rick Morris's clip chart I decided to try it out.  I still wanted it to fit my theme so I changed the colors a bit and added surfer terms.  Hope you can use it in your class!

Beach themed clip chart

Polka Dot Themed Behavior Chart FREEBIE!

My behavior management plan last year consisted of four options: Rainbow (for superior behavior), Sunny Day (where everyone started their day), Cloudy Day (a warning), and Stormy Day (parent contact). This system didn't really work well for me because although students could move up and down the behavior chart, it didn't seem like there were enough options and privileges and to be honest, I wasn't very consistent.  After doing lots of research on effective Behavior Management plans, I finally found one I was in love with! Rick Morris offers his entire Clip Chart e-book online. After reading it and making up my mind on it, I decided to make it my own by personalizing it with polka dots to match my classroom theme. I am posting it here as a freebie! Enjoy....and let me know how it works for you!

Dot themed Behavior Chart

D.O.T Book

Hi Everyone! As Cindy mentioned below, this year I am teaching 2nd grade for the first time! Several of my students are looping through with me so I wanted to change my classroom theme up a little this year. This year I'm going with everything polka dots! One of the first things I did to collaborate with this theme was create a D.O.T (Daily Organizational Tools) Binder for my kiddos. This will be the home for all school notes, newsletters, parent/teacher communication, reading logs, etc. Check it out on our TPT Store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dot-Book and let me know what you think!

Field Day

I know its a little late but we used this last year during Field Day and wanted to share with you all. Maybe you can use it this year so just click on the link and enjoy. Have a great summer and stay tuned for more freebies.


Field day fun

We Started a Blog!

Hello this is our first ever post on our blog.  We are two teachers from Las Vegas that decided to team up and share some of the resources we use in our classroom.  Angie now teaches 2nd grade and is very excited to start a new year in a new grade.  Cindy teaches first grade and it will be her second year teaching this grade.  They both love their jobs and wouldn't change it for anything in the world.  Hope you enjoy our little blog and get some things you can use for your classroom.