What A Week!

Hello everyone!

Well its been one heck of a week. We started school last Monday here in Las Vegas and it was a doozie. I forget how much repetition and hands on teaching is needed at the beginning of the year and boy was I exhausted at the end of the week. Thank goodness for Labor Day!

My new first graders are great! We always have a few that we need to whip into shape! HaHaHa that sounds horrible. This is why it is so important to have great procedures and classroom management. By the end of the week they seem to be getting the hang of the rules and the classroom procedures. I have so many sweethearts that are ready and eager to learn. I really love my class this year!

Well like I promised before I wanted to show you my finished classroom and here it is!

This is my student work board. Underneath I have all of their book boxes they use during Daily 5.

This is my job chart. I have added all the boats and have all the students names on stars. All those baskets on the shelf are for homework, money and notes, spelling lists and the one closes to the door is for classwork. I don't use the hooks for their backpacks instead I have the students put them on their chair and use this to hang their coats during winter and hang my classroom mascot bag and the lost tooth bag that they get to take home.

This is my reading strategies above my reading group table. I cannot remember where I got the cards but I know I got them from some fabulous blogger.

This is my calendar area and where my group rug is.

I have 3 wonderful windows in my classroom which provide wonderful light but I run out of wall space fast. So I decided to put my birthday beach on my wardrobe and the one of the left is where I post all of my Daily 5 charts. It seems to be working for now since the students can refer to them when we are at the rug.

This is my word wall and my math wall. We didn't have any words up when this was taken but now I put all of the students names and the first 5 words on our list. The table is our writing center.

This is the view of my room from the door. All the rooms in our school are the same size so I have a pretty good size room with lots of windows so I am truly blessed.

This was my welcome board which I was inspired from one of my favorite sites. You guessed it Pinterest. The students loved finding their names on the surfboards during Meet the Teacher.

Well friends this is my classroom I hope you enjoy and it sparks some creativity like many of your rooms have inspired me. I am now off to enjoy what's left of my Labor Day weekend.

Cindy

VIP Student

So as I was reading the blog post by What the Teacher Wants the other day about her VIP procedures. I got to thinking or actually remembered that I have to redo my VIP. You can check her posts and her wonderful downloads by clicking on the link. Last year my theme was more of an ocean theme so I had The Whale of the Week and that special child got the whole week to themselves. Each day they would do something different.

Monday: They would bring in their Autobiography and baby pictures. I would hang this on a bulletin board I created especially for this. We would read the autobiography and ooh and ahh at all the adorable baby pictures. I also asked the parents to write a special letter to their child on why they are so special and put it in an envelope for us to share on Friday.

Tuesday: The students would write a note to The Whale of the Week telling them why they are special. The Whale of the Week would write about being the VIP and what they think they are really good at.

Wednesday: The students would bring in a "Show and Tell" item. (I had to be very specific to tell my parents no animals because my word these people want to bring everything in.)

Thursday: The student would bring in their favorite book and we would share it with the class.

Friday: The student was presented with a certificate for being the student of the week and a little book of all the letters their classmates wrote. I would also read the letter from the parent. After all this is done the VIP for the week would reach in a bag and choose the next VIP for the week.

This is when I would return all the baby pictures except for one. The student would chose their favorite one and they would go on our baby wall. It looks so cute when it is all filled with the students pictures and I even put my own baby picture. Of course I am the first VIP since I want them to get to know me first and learn the routine. I also hang onto the autobiography paper and bind them together to make a great book for our classroom library. The students love reading it.

Well this year I am doing more of a Beach theme than an Ocean theme so I decided to change things up a little and instead of Whale of the Week, I am doing Surfer of the Week. Yeah I know I am very creative. HA! I also changed some of the things I do during the week because sometimes we wouldn't have enough time for the students to write a letter to the VIP so I decided to skip that this year but I wanted to let you know about it in case you are interested. I loved the idea that Rachelle had from What the Teacher Wants of sending home a classroom mascot and having the student write about their adventure. So I am adding the mascot this year and since I was an Ocean theme last year and I had a dolphin in my classroom already "Flippy the Dolphin" was created.

This is what the VIP wall looks like. In the frame goes the students picture that I took at the beginning of the year and in all that blank space goes all the pictures that the parents send in. Some students have more than others but I have never had a student not bring any in but if I did then I would have to put my own pictures of the student, since I am always snapping pictures. This clip art is all included in the download as well as the things for the binder for Flippy the Dolphin. I don't know if you could use it but at least it might give you ideas so click on the link below and let me know what you think.

Surfer of the Week

Ok seriously I have 13 days before I have to be at work, where did this summer go? Must find my inner peace. Ha!!!

Cindy

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

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

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

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