Triumphant Return!

It has been established that I am really bad at keeping up on my blog....or that I have super-powered ADD sometimes...
So here I sit, in front of one amazing episode of Firefly, reliving the events of the past several months at school and realizing that I don't feel like I've even had a moment to sit down until right this second...and even then, I am (very importantly) multi-tasking with Nathan Fillion.

In any case, we are sprinting head-on into the end of the school year (Literally...I'm the track coach), and I'm looking into carrying out some new traditions I've enjoyed seeing.  Last week, we had Open House...which occurred approximately 4 school days after state testing was completed. Needless to say, everything was pretty rushed; however, everything pulled together and went off without a hitch.
Waaaaay back on the first day of school, I had taken pictures of the chickadees in which they had told me what it was that they wanted to be when then grew up.

Being as sneaky as I could, I  hid these pictures away until last week...when I posted them on the wall with a caption "When We Grow Up...Class of 2023."
I had seen a similar idea on Pinterest last summer, but had to wait for ages to finally put it all together. For the end of the year, I plan on writing them little yearbook-esque notes on the back...but I am a procrastinator and still haven't gotten that far.

In addition to that whole Pinterest-y activity, I also decided to try a nice compilation picture where all of the kiddos made a heart out of their hands. This took quite a bit of hilarious orchestrating and me standing on a table...which was super fun when they were in the perfect position and then the classroom phone rang....But the result of all of the staging and squished bodies worked out really nicely, and I do believe that I will do this picture every year!

And I'll leave you with my final activity planned for the end of the year. This is something that I've seen all over Pinterest, and even in a few coworkers' classrooms as the year has gone on: a thumbprint tree. Should take a short period of time to paint the tree, but then I can use it for years to come. I love the idea of documenting each year of students with their thumbprints....my only sadness is that I didn't find this activity during my first year of teaching!

Anyway, as we move into summer, I will try very hard to be a better blogger....cross my heart!

Ewok-About

In my quest to become organized this year, to get to know my kids, to assess their needs, and to still be super-teacher....I have merely thought many times about blogging...rather than sitting in front of the computer and actually blogging. But! Here it is, as promised! A quick walk-about of my classroom (as it looks now, even with kids involved!) and all of its orange, polka-dotty goodness!

My wonderful friend picked me up an Ewok from Disneyland this summer, and it has a place of honor in my classroom...so he also got a place of honor in all of my pictures. We talk on the first day of school about ourselves and our procedures and all sorts of things, so I like to have a couple of pieces that represent "me" on my walls/desk/etc. Last year I printed a small photo-collage and put that with a picture of my family. This year I added a little Harry Potter and Firefly reference. I found frames at the dollar store and printed "posters" from my computer. I dug out my t-pins and used them to hang the frames on my wall. Worked well with bulletin board walls - questionable with hard walls, I'm sure.

Starting next week, we will finally begin classroom Boggle. The kiddos are super excited about it, which must mean that I am a great salesperson! It will be nice, as I have many high-achievers who are naturally very quick at certain activities. Boggle will not only give them something extra to think about when they're done, but it will also be a nice, "Hey, thanks for bearing with me while we slowly learn procedures" reward.

I had to laugh at Back to School Night this week! A few parents asked if I got my ideas on Pinterest :) Must be that obvious! But these little dollar store objective frames have already been a wonderful piece in my classroom design. I change the objectives each day, and write the vocabulary up next to the frames for reference.

Covering my storage cabinet with paper was one of the best decisions this summer. It not only covers the off-colored cabinet (since everything has to match), but it also provided a nice place to do a magnetic job chart. I found my chart pictures at Teaching in Flip Flops.

Ahhh, the 9-hour birthday wreath! It currently hangs in a place of non-honor as it waits for Tuesday and the first student birthday of the year!

Last year, when I got my job, my parents brought bunches of things that were taking up space in the garage to my classroom. (not everything's out yet, sorry Dad.) This year, I spruced up some of those things. To make my drawers look a little more cohesive, I put scrapbook paper on the inside of them facing out. This way, you can't see what's in the drawers, and they look much more "together." Pardon the post-its...since I can't see into the drawers, I label them....but I haven't changed my summer post-its to the nice labels yet.

My Twitter wall! The kiddos are LOVING tweeting so far! As we get into more stories, I have ideas floating around in my head...but for now, it has been pretty subdued. They had a blast leaving tweets for their parents to read at Back to School Night though.

It has been nice having the kids highlight their name as they turn in papers. While it hasn't cut back on unfinished work, it has cut down on nameless work. Since we did a lot of text highlighting in second grade, I didn't anticipate having any trouble with name highlighting in third grade...which means that I have now had to backtrack a smidge and teach the class that "highlight your name" does not mean "trace every letter with a highlighter."

Over at Clutter Free Classroom I found the idea of putting up student work with a scrapbook paper backing. Last year, I had to measure and level everything I put up. This year, I already have a place of honor for each student's writing, and will never have to level anything! Plus, it leaves a nice space for a name label and a picture.

Right now, we have first day of school pictures up :)

As I mentioned before, I have the 4 C's of common core posted in my room. Collaborators, Communicators, Creators, and Critical Thinkers. These are the four things that we should be teaching our students to be by the time they are out of school. On top of that, I am in love with my orange polka-dot ribbon that I used to make the frames! So much fun! The only ribbon I bought this summer that was not from the dollar bin...and totally was worth it!

Finally, my wonderful and amazing new backpack racks! I am in love with these things! They have made my life easier on so many levels and I get a smile on my face every time I look at them! Last year, we kept backpacks on a bookshelf at the back of the room, and later on the backs of chairs. In the shelf, they were more often on the floor than put away; and on the chairs, I was more often tripping over them than anything. This year, I was given these beautiful racks and the organization factor is huge!

So that seems to be it for the classroom walk-about. Probably there is more...I know that I am always adding more...but for now, it still looks like it did before school started (a feat which I am proud of now that kiddos are in the picture). With luck, things will stay nice and organized all year...cross your fingers!

Orange Polka Dot Love

Many, many apologies, Blogging world! My absence has no excuse...except, wait...I redesigned my whole classroom.

I think I have mentioned before that we turn in our keys in June and don't get them back until the end of August. This means that all of the 150 hours I did over the summer for my class work was in no way actually about putting my room together.

It probably isn't an exaggeration to say that I spent like 120 hours in my room when I got my keys...

But it worked out! I did this:

I marked everything that was from Pinterest....There will be a whole tour of the room coming soon, but above is only pieces.

Over at Clutter-Free Classroom there is a wonderful post from the summertime that inspired classroom jealousy in my heart. Because of that post, I spent an entire eight hours stapling sheets to my walls! And man, oh, man...am I happy with my sheets! As you can see from the photo above, the sheets go precisely from ceiling to floor. Anyone who has their classroom in a portable understands how difficult (and annoying, and time-consuming, and patience testing...I could go on) it can be to "define" your bulletin board space. If anyone is as OCD as I am, then they likely have a leveling app on their phone or perhaps an actual level in their classroom handy to do boards....the sheets took all of that away!
Following her directions though, I did let the sheets go through the dryer first to get the wrinkles out. My sheets were so successful that they seem to have inspired sheet-usage in friends' classrooms :) To additional great successes!

At the moment, the front of my classroom is my favorite thing to look at! I borrowed the idea for a homework hotline (under the whiteboard) for this year. In the new world of Thirdgradia that I have entered, we collect homework most days. This is different from Second Grade Land where it was only on Fridays, so checking things in was not a difficult task. In order to keep up with the homework papers, I have the kids clip their work to their number on the ribbon (another OCD moment where a ruler and a level were involved), which allows me to immediately check and see who did their homework and who did not.

Note: If one of my lovelies did not turn in their homework, they take a little field trip to the back of my room and write to me why it isn't at school in my "No Homework Folder." I foresee this being a valuable asset at conferences next month.

I also am proud of my magnet board that I made by putting bulletin board paper over the ugly tealish-blue of my storage cabinet. This made a perfect wall for my job chart, since I made all of the pieces magnetic.

Finally, I am really proud of the common core C's up above the board. My wonderful coworker came up with the idea of listing out the over-arching concepts now (before we fully turn over to common core) to really ensure that we are leading our students to be communicators, critical thinkers, collaborators, and creators. Plus (even though you can't see from this picture), I found orange polka-dotted ribbons to use as boarders around the 4 C's! How could that ribbon not be purchased?

I will do detail pictures and a whole classroom tour next week, now that kiddos are coming in and getting settled.

After three days of school, I am so proud of my class that I am gushing about them all the time! This should be a wonderful year!

Oh, and a quick P.S.

If you're looking for a great blog to follow, check out my lovely friend over at Musings from the Foreign Teacher! An American teacher in England who is quite possibly the reason for my love of polka dots <3

Birthday Wreath-view

Wow vacation! The whole last month has been a whirlwind! I look up and it's August. Good grief, there is too much to do!

If you are like me, throughout this summer much of my to-do list has consisted of projects I discovered on Pinterest...trying them out, seeing if they work, wondering if they will fit the different aspects of my classroom. So far, all of those projects have been very successful (can't ask for more!), but I finally found one that I'm not so sure about.

Don't get me wrong, it is cute, it is exactly what I was trying to go for, but it took about 9 hours to complete....

The Birthday Wreath.

If you've seen the picture on Pinterest, it looks pretty easy to accomplish: foam circle wreath, curling ribbon, scissors...go team! Maybe I'm just slow, but curling that much ribbon was incredibly tedious.

Below is a tutorial of everything I did to make the adorable project. Let's just say, I am super glad that it turned out well, because otherwise I would be pretty upset with the amount of time spent sitting on the couch curling ribbon.


Start with your favorite colors of curling ribbon. I wanted to toss in a turquoise, but it wasn't available where I was shopping and I was really impatient. I also got a 6" styrofoam ring from Michaels for the foundation.

I chose to gather a length of each color, fold the cluster in half and tie it together with a shorter length of ribbon, then curl. This allowed me to tie the clusters of ribbon to the styrofoam ring. The tutorial that I read recommended using staples to attach the pieces of ribbon...again, impatient and I didn't have staples at home.

I think the tying worked better than staples would. Plus, the added benefit of not needing to hide anything. Just curl the length you used to tie, and it hides itself!

After a while, it starts to look like this:

Remember my mentioned impatience?
At this point, it was hard to see progress and that bored feeling started to kick in. In an effort to feel like more progress was made, I pulled some of the fluffy, curly ribbon further down the ring and tied it in.

While that made the wreath slightly less puffy, the effect wasn't lessened, so it was a process that continued throughout.

Flash forward, to completing the ribbon (as I have said the words "ribbon" and "curling" too much up until now)....I filled the final part with a cloth ribbon to create a hanger.
I plan on hanging this wreath on the front of the birthday-students' desks, so a hanger is perhaps important.

(This was the point where I accidentally broke the wreath and had to pin it together. Should you decide to be bold enough to create this time-consuming project, I recommend keeping some pins on hand. They also would help to pin down those annoying pieces that fall slightly out of line.)


The wreath was cute, but I wanted a little something more to complete it...I headed for the scrapbook paper and made a template for a birthday hat.

I rolled it up and used scrapbook adhesive to keep it together.

For the final touch, I added a little bobble at the top of the hat.
I tied together a little bunch of green ribbon and secured it with a long length of orange.

Just thread the ribbon through the top of the hat until that little bit of green sticks out the top.

Finally....finally, (this, I swear, was 9 hours later) use that length of ribbon to tie the hat onto the wreath.

The hat is not incredibly secure and may fall off at some point...I will be waiting with pins to attempt to reattach!
OR, I might just tie a big, big bow onto it for that "something more" and call it a day.

Like I said, cute project! Turned out nicely, fits the purpose....took far longer than I anticipated.
Make sure that you have tons of time on hand, and tons of patience.


Alright, I now have a date with my new pink/white polka dotted glue gun and some clothespins!

Happy summer projecting!

Pinterest Addict

Alright, I'll admit it:

I'm addicted to teaching blogs and pinterest.

Big time.

I think it has something to do with the fact that I have a lot of rearranging that I would love to be doing in my classroom, but my keys are turned in and locked away. Sigh.

As I've mentioned a million times before, I love, love, love Ladybug's Teacher Files; however, she is on vacation right about now. Her trip is perfectly timed with my mental obsession about my classroom reorganization...and now I am pouring over the Clutter Free Classroom !

The post that is linked is what has inspired a whole lot of online shopping: using sheets as bulletin board backgrounds.

Genius.

Ages ago, a former teacher of mine recommended using fabric to cover boards. While I also agreed that this was a fantastic idea, my OCD kicked in and I could see crooked edges...which would drive me nuts. So, I just finished a date with AnnasLinens.com that resulted in three brown sheets (to match my dots on chocolate colors) for $20! I shall report the results once I have returned to the land of the classroom.

Otherwise, I just finished today's Pinterest project of the day, and it worked out perfectly! With that Pinterest obsession I mentioned, I've seen a whole lot of pins where cheap frames are used to display lesson objectives. Seemed easy enough!

Math Teacher Friend and I took a trip to the Dollar Tree and Michael's today to buy scrapbook paper and frames.

Michael's was having a 50% off sale on their scrapbook paper (plus the teacher discount), so I got very adorable paper to frame! (Sadly no polka dots, but awesome orange patterns.)

After dismantling the frame, I traced the cardboard insert so the size would be marked properly.

In order to have sharp lines, and create enough layers so things wouldn't slip around, I opted to fold along my pencil lines rather than cut. It worked out really well, since the $1 frames needed a little extra help to make everything fit nicely.

And look! Cute little dry erase board! Perfect for writing eye-catching lesson objectives on and sticking on the white board! I do anticipate using black markers when they're actually displayed; however, blue is all I had on me.

Now all that is left is to figure out a nice configuration and to get them onto the white board! I'm also tossing some pink and blue in with my orange this year (again, to match the dots and chocolate), so I made sure to make the "objectives" sign in a different color.

And again, I leave you with the tease of my interactive notebooking research. I've been in the trenches looking, but I have not yet convinced myself that I want to implement it into my math program. We shall see!

Four Day Weekend!

Time to celebrate the conclusion to a much-needed and very relaxing four-day weekend!

For the amount that I have thought about my next post, I do hope that it is not underwhelming. I sat down to write it a couple of times and then scrapped everything because I was utterly unsatisfied. Let's try again.

So here it is:
Angry Birds!



Context: I painted Angry Birds to go on my bulletin boards. One day we had a rainy day schedule. That is what I got.

What did I do when I got the call that I would have a job? I painted birds.





and pigs....



But in all of that, I was missing one wonderful and idea-creating thing: Pinterest.

I saw a picture on Pinterest last week that caused a very massive face-palm moment. One of those, why-in-the-world-did-I-not-think-of-that moments. We studied verbs ages ago, and they illustrated their verbs so very nicely....but nothing would have been so wonderful as this:



ANGRY VERBS! This will certainly have to be re-created as a review day and whatnot. Write a sentence using an amazing verb on your bird or pig. The kids seriously are obsessed with Angry Birds. All sorts of hats, clothes, valentines, toys, etc. They would eat up the idea of Angry Verbs....Plus, I have been trying to think of a good open house board configuration....since I am being lazy and leaving up my fun Ancestor Board all the way until then.....because it is cute and it took a lot of effort to get things in the right place....and I would rather just do surgery on the pieces that fall off than recreate the whole thing in May....look at me justifying my laziness.



Pinterest will ultimately be the death of me. I find myself perusing whenever I have time and there are far too many lesson ideas to fit into just one school year. In addition to that, there are far too many options of everything to fit into one lifetime.

In conclusion: Angry Birds.
The end.