Pumpkins Pumpkins Everywhere!

Wow! These few weeks have been very hectic. We have been working on apples, plants, Columbus's day, pumpkins, and we had to get ready for open house on top of that. It has been really hectic and I feel like I have neglected our poor little blog.

Well I wanted to share these really cute pumpkins my students did for open house. One of my teamates found a cute unit online where the students chose a favorite character and they transform their pumpkin into it. I am not going to lie I was a little worried at first because it was our first year doing it and I didn't know how many families would really get creative. I guess I was worried because all the first grade team was doing it and I was worried that my class would be looking like a hot mess. HA!

Well let me tell you I was pleasantly surprised. The students and parents did an awesome job. The pumpkins came out super cute and the students were able to write about their character so it was perfect for Open House. The whole first grade team had the pumpkins lining the hallway for Open House. It was a big hit with everyone. I do not know how many compliments we received from different families and teachers.

Here are a few pictures so that you can judge for yourself.

SkippyJonJones

Chicken Little

Fancy Nancy and Penguin (something? I forgot the title)

Thomas the Train, Oscar the Grouch and David

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

I'm back! Some polka dot sneak peeks!

Hi everyone, Angie here! It's been so long since I posted that I feel like I need to re-introduce myself! I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by. I've been so consumed with my two little guys at home these past few weeks and I just wasn't able to blog as much as I would like! I also found myself in a "creativity funk" for a few days, but I am glad to say that was just a phase because now I'm back! Huge thanks (and my apologies!) to Cindy for keeping this baby going!

I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of my classroom and although I've been going in to my room at least once a week, I didn't feel like I was getting anything done! With the help of a Starbucks coffee and my awesome friend Tracy, I can FINALLY say that my classroom is coming along nicely! Here are some sneak peeks into my room now. Obviously it's not done yet, but we're getting there. :-)

My Reading Spot... there are still a few things I need to put up here! (The posters underneath the title are from Teaching in Flip Flops' blog and they are Reading Genre posters!)

My Meeting Spot/Calendar Board!

My Word Wall

It's hard to see in this picture but I made clothespins with a little chalkboard on the front of them for the students to write their names on. This will be my "Spot-Tacular Work" board!

I had this little niche of a wall and couldn't decide on what to put on it, but my Reading Reminders worked perfectly here! It's right next to my Reading Table so it works great! The wall to the right will have my Reading Beanies on it!

My desk area. The blank blue boards will have all of my schedules/calendars/memos on them!

That's it for now...I'm going back in this week to hopefully finish more of it. I've learned that I'm more productive when I don't have my little guys in there with me, so that's the plan! Stay tuned for more updates!

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

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