September Currently!

For the first time I am linking up with Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade for September's currently. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday weekend!!

Room reveal & Five for Friday!

Today I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a Five for Friday! My five things today will all be about new classroom!

1. I am finally done! I probably shouldn't say done though, because there are still so many things I need to do/get. But the class is ready for next week when my kiddos finally come! As a new teacher it is practically impossible to make the perfect classroom. There are so many things I still want or need, but that requires time and money, both of which I do not have much of! Hopefully by the end of the year, my classroom will be perfect! Here are some before and after pictures...

2. This is my morning meeting area. My behavior clip chart will go to the right of my calendar in that space. The apple all the way to the right was just something I had and hung up to get out of the way. I will most likely hand anchor charts there after we complete them throughout the year. The black cabinet to the left near the door will be my prayer table (not yet complete). I also need to get a little shelf or storage box to put calendar items and other things near my morning meeting area, and I also want to get an easel, eventually. 

3. This wall is where I will hang student work. I hate the way the wall came out. But it was too much to take it all down and redo it, not to mention I had no more blue paper. I like where my alphabet wall is to the right. My library was on the other side of the classroom, but I decided to move it here with the ABC wall. I wish it was a little more "nook"ish, but it will do for now.  The table under the bravo board will be used for learning centers or listening center. The orange bucket to the right of the library has big books in it.

4. The shelf all the way to the left is where the block/manipulatives are. The big space in the middle under the flower will be my dramatic play area once I can go out and get stuff. I think the kids will survive a few weeks without that. It will also be nice when I put it together for them to have something new! The white shelf to the left of my desk is where all supplies are like crayons, scissors, glue, etc. I hate that it is a high shelf, but the kiddos won't really be getting anything of that shelf so it's not a big deal I guess.

5. This is my classroom! There are still so many things I want to do, but it takes time I guess! The kiddos come in for a meet and great on friday with their parents! They are split into 2 groups, one hour each. I only have 16 students (as of now). I was thinking about having them come in and do a scavenger hunt, finding items like their name tag, their clip for their behavior chart, their folder, a piece of candy, and a book of their choice. Then we would all sit and watch "The Kissing Hand". After this, I will have them sit with their parents and draw a picture of their first day with their parents! This is the time where I could walk around to each table and have parents ask questions while they students are coloring. I like this idea, and I think I will talk it over with the other Pre-K and K teacher, since they have the same schedule as I do on Friday. I am so excited for the first day!!!

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Five for Friday

I have decided to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a Five for Friday linky party!

1. I am finally in my classroom! I went to my classroom for the first time since I was hired back in May yesterday! I was there from 9 am until 3 pm.... and feel like I got nothing accomplished! This is what my room looked like when I went in. When I walked into the clutter and mess, I had no idea where to begin. I felt like my whole game plan of the day had to change. So I decided to just cover the chalkboards and put up borders as my first step while I thought about what to do with this mess of a room.

2. At the end of the day, I did feel a little bit better. My room had definitley trasnformed in the 5 hours I worked, and I am ready to keep going next week! Here are a few before and after pics, and I can't wait to see the final product!

3. Within my district, I have this great merit program called Make and Take. You can go and laminate anything you want, for free! It is completely funded by... I'm not sure who it is funded by, but all I know is that it is great and I spent 3 hours in there today! Along with lamination they have endless supplies of construction paper and card stock, you can create letters with the letter presses ( I forget what they are called) and you can print pictures onto poster paper to make posters for your classroom! I am in love! After laminating and creating, I really didn't want to stay there and cut everything up, so I decided to just bring it home to my kitchen table!

4. I have come to the conclusion I need an SUV. This is what my car looked like yesterday when lugging all my stuff to school..

5. I am very proud of myself that I am currently staying in on this lovely friday night to finish up my first month of lesson plans! I am almost finished, minus this little break to blog :)

Change of plans...

Soo I received a phone call the other day from my principal explaining that I would be bumped to Pre-k :( I am definitely sad about this change, but I was originally hired for the pre-k position back in May. They were trying to add an additional Kindergarten classroom, but it fell through. Of course now I am stressed because I have been planning around a kindergarten schedule and curriculum, but the two ages are pretty similar so I just have to tweak what I have done so far. I am still very fortunate to have a job in a great school with some great people!!

Great Giveaway!

As a newbie to the world of blogging, I have been finding amazing blogs with incredible materials and clipart! I found this wonderful giveaway over at Collaboration Cuties! This is definitely something I wanna check out, and I suggest you do too!

Throwback Thursday!

Today I am linking up with The First Grade Parade for a Throwback Thursday!

Since this is a new blog, I decided to choose something from my Student Teaching Blog last year. The post I am sharing is a post about the setup of the 3rd grade classroom I student taught in. As I prepare to get into my first classroom this fall, looking back on this post helps me a lot. I HATED the setup of the classroom, and always found myself daydreaming of ways I would change it. Obviously as a student teacher I had no say in the arrangement or decor. The classroom was very cluttered and not at all organized, and I will definitely use this as a reminder of how I want my own classroom to be.

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Monday, March 5, 2012

Room 320

I finally got a chance to take a few pictures of the classroom without the students being in the room. The classroom is on the small side, but we make the best of it.

The front white board. There is a smart board being put up in the middle sometime in the next week.

23 desks for 23 lovely students :)

 Ms. M's desk.

 The students' cubbies, with their pictures on them! I thought this was so cute when I first saw it!

Computer station that needs some, um, organizing.

The way we do the lunch count. So cute!

 The back table. This is where we do one on one work, or students can sit back here if they want some space.

The job chart.

The white board in the back of the classroom. It doesn't get much use for writing on.

 Vocabulary words from Story Town. If a student finds a vocab word in something they're reading, they get to put their name on a sticky, and put the sticky next to the word.

The view from the back of the classroom. Again, not the biggest, but it works.

First Linky! Favorite Pins Friday!

I have decided to do my first Linky Party! I'm linking up with The First Grade Parade for her Favorite Pins Friday Linky! I absolutely love Pinterest and find myself pinning all day everyday! Here are some of my favorites this week!

1. DIY Puffy Paint!! As a new teacher, I'm obviously trying my best to save money yet still provide enough resources and materials for my classroom. I found this great pin from Delaware County Moms on how to make homemade puffy paint! All of the materials can be purchased at the Dollar Tree which is the best part! I will definitely be making loads of this throughout the year as I love art projects and can't wait to incorporate it into my classroom!

2.  Table covers as bulletin board paper. What a genius idea!! They are cheap and come in a variety of colors! I just worry about how durable they will be, thickness wise. But hey for a couple bucks it's worth a try! I found this pin through Scholastic.

3.  RIT Dyed Clothespins. So the plan was to sit and paint over 30 clothespins to display art work around the classroom. Luckily I stumbled upon this great pin! Just get some RIT dye from the fabric store and soak your clothespins in! Modern Kindergarten says she only used half the pack of dye, so I'm pretty excited to try this out! It will be such a time saver! (I can't believe I was going to sit there and paint each one!)

4. Chevron Maxi. I NEED THIS DRESS! I absolutely love it! I love chevron, I love maxis, and I love these colors. This would be the perfect first day of school dress since it matches my future classroom colors and chevron theme so well! Too bad it's sold out at The Dandy Lion Boutique :(

5. Before & After Bachelorette Party. One of my best friends is getting married next September, and I have been brainstorming all types of ideas for the bachelorette party! I found this awesome before/after picture idea for the night of! I can only imagine what we will look like! ( Do I even wanna know? And will I even remember?) Thanks Breezy Joy!

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Target & Walmart!

So this weekend I decided to do a little shopping! There are still lots of things I need for my new classroom, but I wanted to check out Walmart and Target after the 4th to see if back to school items were on sale yet. Well I found some great stuff!

First my favorite item was at walmart! I found magnetic letters and numbers, for one dollar!!!! I can never find these anywhere except Beckers or Oriental Trading, and they're so expensive there. Needless to say, I cleared the shelf, getting 4 packs of numbers and 4 packs of letters!

The target dollar bin was still pretty bare, I guess they haven't put up anything since the 4th. I did go to a different target than usual, and all of their dollar bin items were 50 percent off!! This target still had some great bins, so I stocked up! The square blue and pink containers were only 50 cents each, and the orange tubs were 1.50! I also got the green crates for 3.99! I plan on putting a seat on them eventually. I also found these keg tubs at Pathmark! They were 5.99 each. I plan on putting big toys in them and storing them in the closet since I will not have much room to keep toy centers out all the time.

I must say that I am very excited about my purchases! Along with all the bins I have previously purchased ( I raided the dollar tree for great green bins for supplies and books!), I feel that I have enough storage for my new classroom. Of course I have no idea what is going in what yet, but that will be the fun part when I finally get to move in!

I also have been busy working on my shapes and colors wall. I bought some great graphics from Ashley Hughes over at The School Supply Addict and created these cute posters! I plan on laminating and cutting out the flowers and possibly making stems out of tissue paper!

Too Much Time On My Hands!

So I have decided that I want my classroom colors to be lime, pink, orange, and electric blue! Pink obviously because it's my favorite color, and I love the blue and lime combo. I added orange too just because I have a lot of orange bins, and I saw the cutest (and cheapest) orange rug from ikea that would look great as my morning meeting rug! It's polka dot, which kind of messes up the chevron theme, but it's way worth it because of how cheap it is! It's a 4x6 for 20 dollars! Definitely a steal!

Seeing as though I am just working summer camp, I have way too much time on my hands when I get home from work and just wanna lay around in the air. I decided to make my calendar and supply labels using my new colors!! I finally tried PowerPoint to make my items. OMGGGG I love it. Why have I been using word all this time. It's so much easier, and I love the way you can rearrange the order of items which is what killed me in word, trying to make the text be in front of the background without having to copy and paste a million times! Take a peak...

The chevron background is from Mel Stampz and the clipart is from My Cute Graphics!!

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Curriculum Planning

As I have been exploring the world of tpt and all different blogs, I have seen a lot of "Curriculum Calendars". I thought this was a great idea! The curriculum I was given for next year is very scattered, a different binder for each subject . I tried writing my first month of lessons and it was so annoying going from one binder to another just to find out what they wanted me to focus on for the same week! So I decided to make my own curriculum calendar! This way all the subjects goals and objectives are in one place for me when I write my plans. Here is an example of what I have done so far. I may change it up by adding some more information, like standards etc. But I think just having the focus in one location will help when I plan. If I put all the standards, goals, etc in the calendar then it will pretty much be me writing the lesson. If anyone has any ideas or tips let me know!

New Beginnings

I know it's only June and school doesn't start until September, but I am getting very excited and anxious for my new classroom! Today I was invited to my new school for a faculty lunch in. I thought this was so thoughtful! All the women are great and I know that I will have a lot of help in the months to come. I also got a chance to team up with the Pre-K teacher to talk about routines. The Pre-K and K Teacher really work together throughout the year,  so she wanted to make sure I was on the same page. I also had a chance to scope out my new classroom. Luckily, my classroom was the 2nd grade classroom, so I don't have to empty anything out myself haha. The classroom is already empty, but it needs a lot of work....

 The desks will be replaced with smaller group tables. I love that I have a smartboard and can't wait to implement it. I have a lot of ideas for my new room though! That ugly green cabinet is going to get spray painted probably a nice bright green. I want to do something with my desk, but just not sure what yet. All the chalkboards are getting covered with border paper, since I highly doubt I will use them. 

I plan on putting my morning meeting area right next to the smart board. I am going to need a big bright area rug for this space. I looked at some from ikea and target but they're very expensive. I am going to ask some friends if they have any of their old rugs from college that they would like to "donate" haha. I also want to get a cute teacher chair. I feel like something like that should be made for you, so I will probably just get a cute chair from ikea.

I also want to find out if I can change the curtains on the closet. I think some bright sheer curtains would look really cool. I also want to sand and paint the two little book shelves as well.







I plan on tackling those tissue paper pom poms to hang from the ceiling. I get really impatient with things like that and they never come out right, so I offered some wine to a friend who is really crafty to help me out with the pom poms. I know they will look great with her help. I am going for a bright theme. Lots of bright greens, blues, oranges and pinks!




I decided to try and make my own ABC and 123 posters. They actually came out good! I plan on printing them onto card stock and having them laminated. I am working for the archdiocese and they have a program called "make and take." You make an appointment and they laminate anything you want, for free!!! They can also blow up things to make big posters. I plan on visiting this place a lot over the summer!


The clip art is from Scrappin Doodles.. I will edit this after I find out how to give the proper credit to where I get clipart from!! Sorry, still learning!! :)

I cannot wait to get into my classroom over the summer and get to work! I already told my mom she better be ready for some long days helping me!

If anyone has any tips on money savers please let me know!!