Five for Friday - August 14th

It has been so long since I linked up with Kacey over at Doodle Bugs Teaching for her weekly Five for Friday linky party! I had a bunch of random stuff to share with you today, so I thought this would be the perfect way to do it. I will be back this week for some more of my Daily Schedule posts--Guided Reading and Guided Math. What are the other students doing while I am with my small group? Check back for those posts!

I'm going to start with the most exciting news. Our house finally moved onto our property!! We are building a new house. Our builder built the house on his site and then once the basement was ready, it could move onto. We've been waiting for the house to come for three weeks now and it finally arrived on Wednesday! They still have to build the double attached garage, the entry way, and finish the inside (it's just drywalled right now), but it's so exciting to finally have it on site! :) If you have never watched a 1400 sq. ft. house being moved, it is pretty incredible!

My second set of news was not as fun. My principal called me this week to tell me that my room and the K room across the hall would be under construction starting September. This could last two months or it could last the whole year. The only spot available for me to move into is the Science Lab. I will have two weeks to move everything from old class into the Science Lab and get it all organized and set up. Luckily I have some amazing coworkers volunteer to help  already, so I'm sure it will all get done!

It just means that all my hard work planning out my organization and classroom layout is going out the window! I have never even stepped foot in the Science Lab, so I have no idea what the room looks like! The Science Lab is down the 6-8 wing, so I hope I don't lose any firsties in the hallway with all the big kids! lol. At least when my old room is done it will have nice new floors, a new ceiling, and hopefully new bookshelves!

Next up are my new crate seats! I only have one crate now--the rest are at my mom's. I don't have anywhere to store them right now. My awesome daddy cut out the boards for me. He's so great. I put some foam on top and stapled my awesome chevron fabric on top. I used regular milk crates because they are a lot sturdier than the ones you buy at Staples. Not sure what I will store inside--maybe extra tissue boxes?

Here are all six of the fabrics together. I love how they turned out. They match my pillows! I think I will use these as seats at my guided reading table. Or in my library. I guess it depends on how my new room will be set up.

Here are a few other things that I created for myself. First I have been putting together different pages to put in my day planner. I made these parent communication trackers. The first one is a goal I set for myself--it's a positive communication chart. My goal is to make at least three positive phone calls and and send home at least three positive notes home each month. I will keep track of which student's I called/wrote about and the positive thing they did. I will try to get around to all of my students at least a few times throughout the school year. The second page is just a communication log to document any other communication between myself and parents. You can download these pages {here}.

I also created a small back to school gift for my new students. I found these Scentos smelly bubbles at Dollarama for 4 for $1.25. I printed out some cute labels onto 1-1/2" round labels (Avery 8293) and stuck them on some coloured cardstock that I punched out using my fancy scalloped circle punch. Then I just tied the note onto the bubbles and curled the ribbon. Easy, cheap, and cute! You can download the stickers {here} or you can download larger tags {here} to print out on cardstock.

And lastly here are a couple things from other TpT sellers that I made. You might have seen these on Instagram. First up is my Back to School Flipbook. This is from Learning in Wonderland. She has such cute stuff! The template for this flipbook is totally editable so you can change the wording and add your own pictures. I put a section all about me, our class schedule, communication information, our rules and procedures, and our curriculum for the year. On the back is all the contact info for myself and the school. Love how they turned out and how easy they are to put together. Photocopy onto colourful paper, fold, and staple at the top. No cutting required!

Next up is this Classroom Songs booklet from Miss Kindergarten. There are songs for classroom management, calendar, learning songs, and attention getters. I printed each section onto different coloured cardstock. I love how it turned out!

That's it for now! Going to go spend some time with the family now on this beautiful evening. We will probably go sit in our empty, half-finished new house for awhile. lol. Have a great weekend!

I'm Back! Classroom Reveal and Freebies!!

Wow. I don't think I've ever been gone this long before. It's a combination of life is crazy, back to school is exhausting, and no internet at the new house. Boo it sucks. I've been using my phone as a hot spot and I think I hit my data limit by checking on the 300+ blog posts I missed on Blog Lovin' since about mid-August. I didn't even stop by for Farley's September Currently! Well, I am back for a bit. I have a few things in the works (ie. some Fall Word Work and Fall Math Centre packs) and have some freebies planned for ya as well. Stay tuned! For today though I am finally going to do my classroom reveal! I am at a new school but it is a PERMANENT job, which means that next June, I don't have to pack up all my stuff and move it out again. Woo hoo! I only had a short time before school started to get things set up, so I did a lot of hiding junk in drawers/cupboards so everything looked organized on the outside. As school has begun, I've been slowly tackling each project and I'm becoming happier and happier with my room. Everything is finding a spot and things are slowly falling into place. Here's a peak into my classroom...

Here's my little bulletin board in the hallway. I love this colourful sock monkey accents! Too cute!!

This is the spot next to my door, near the front of the classroom. The white tubs are my students' cubbies. They keep their pencil boxes and belongings in there, seeing as we have tables. I like this system. No desks to keep clean. I numbered the tubs to match their book boxes. This works well. We also have our mailboxes on top.

This bulletin board houses our birthdays, tooth chart, and star of the day. The star gets to be line leader, teacher helper, and bring show and tell. Easy classrom job/show and tell schedule set up.

Next up is our carpet area. We're finding the carpet a bit small for our 23 buddies, so we can't do as much work at the carpet as I would like. We tend to do a bit more at our desks.

Here's our monthly calendar.

By the carpet I have our season and weather charts. I ended up moving that book shelf out of the way because we couldn't see the weather chart clearly.

This is my favourite spot. The classroom library! It has the only window in the classroom, my adorable pink ABC rug from Target, and my newest addition--end table and stools from IKEA. The kids love that spot! There is always someone sitting on the stools. I'm thinking of eventually setting up a few more of those tables around the room--great for math games or word work stations!

Here's a little spot to display our author of the month. I always start the year with Kevin Henkes. I find his stories a bit long and he has some very unique vocabulary, but it's a great way to build stamina and start book discussions with these youngins.

 
Here's our word wall. It's blank to start with, but we add words as the year goes on. On the counter are a few more library tubs and the students' book boxes.

This is a spot where I can display student work. These faces are something they did in June last year. They have a transition day where the Kindergartens go visit the Grade 1 teachers for an hour. I was lucky that I got a sub that day so I could go visit them as well. I had to add happy faces for some of my new students who weren't there in Kindergarten.

Here's my teacher corner. My desk, my computer, some storage shelves, my bulletin board of important documents. My little oasis. Granted I don't spend much time here after attendance is done, but it does house important things I need daily!

The grey plastic towers house different work books/journals. The colourful tubs are toys for indoor recess/free time. The blue tubs are our word work stations. There's the only view of my tables. I have four sets of tables--two trapezoid tables to make a hexagon.

Here's a close up of our classroom promise that we made on our first day of school. It's missing a few self-portrait signatures, but still looks good. I refer to this ALL THE TIME. We are having some difficulty with sitting quietly at carpet time. I may have to bring out my listening chart soon.

Here's a very packed corner. This is my guided reading table--love that I have a horseshoe table this year!!

Here's a close up. These shelves house math manipulatives, math centres, math books, and math games.

This section of shelves has my word work centres, word work manipulatives, binders for our portfolios, and levelled home reading books.

This is the side of the room where the students hang their jackets/backpacks. That bulletin board on top is SO TALL, I had to climb on top of the shoe rack. Definitely not safe. Definitely never changing that board. Those four seasons posters will stay there until I retire. lol.

We made these math people the first week of school. I had seen some cute "Math About Me" posters on Pinterest, but I felt the kid faces/shoes were a little our of date. I made some new ones with, of course, adorable Melonheadz clipart.

These people turned out so cute!! They had to write the numbers for their age, their grade, people in their house, pets, teeth lost, and their favourite number. You can download this freebie {here}. Clipart from Melonheadz and KPM Doodles.

Here's something else new I started this year. Monthly "Weekend Journals". Each Monday (or Tuesday after a holiday) we write about something we did on the weekend. These will be great for showing year-long writing progress. We will put these in our portfolios. (A post about our portfolios will be in the near future.)

You can download these weekend journals for free from {here}. They contain ten different monthly title pages and four different writing page options. I love the checklist I include on the bottom. We go over it each time and I have the students self-check their own writing to see if they have a capital, punctuation, spaces, and sight words spelled correctly. Such a great visual.

Well that's it for now! I have to finish watching the Big Brother finale, then head off to bed! I promise I will be back soon. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Back to School Word Work Centres

I have put together a few back to school word work centres. I liked using these centres in September because they are so hands on and very engaging for these young learners. Each of my word work packs have similar activities, so when I switch them out my students still know how to do them. Stamping is a centre I have all year round. This back to school centre has a mini booklet of ten school words for students to stamp and colour.

The second centre was a favourite among my kiddos. Who doesn't love to use bingo dabbers? This centre has two sets of cards--lowercase letters and uppercase letters. I put one set out at a time with a recording sheet. Students choose a card, find the matching letter, and dab it! There are two lowercase and two uppercase recording sheets. One is in ABC order and one is random. You could also use the cards to play concentration or as a pocket chart matching activity.

The third centre uses mangetic letters (or foam letters or glitter stickers or included letters). There are a bunch of different sequences that students need to find the missing letters for. There are two possible recording sheets to go with the centre too.

The next centre is a short A word family sorts. Students sort picture cards by the correct word family. There is a cut and paste recording sheet to go with it.

The last centre in this pack is to practice initial sounds. There are 26 picture cards. Students choose a card, draw the picture on their recording sheet, and write the letter of the first sound. I make the recording sheet double-sided, so students have more spaces to draw and write.

If you are interested, you can check out this pack at TpT by clicking {here} or the picture below.

Picture Book Linky Party #1

I am a little late to the party, but I just found DeAnne's *adorable* blog First Grade and Fabulous. She is having a weekly linky party to link up your favourite picture books, based on various topics. She is already on week three, so I am really behind! I'm going to do one a day for the next three days though, so I can catch up on the fun. If you have been following my blog for a while (or are related to me or live with me...) you know that I have an OBSESSION with picture books. My boyfriend tells me I could start my own public library. Hehe. So here we go with Picture Book Linky Party #1. The topic: Picture Books for the First Week of School. I'm going to do a Top Ten (in no particular order) so here we go!

Back-to-School Rules by Laurie Friedman

This book is new to me... I just purchased it from Really Good Stuff. It's a cute rhyming book that goes over some basic classroom rules (raising hand, not being late, etc.) A good introduction to talk about classroom/school rules.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books! by Lucille Colandro

I love reading these books each month. I think the author listened to teachers, because there is now a book for each month! I usually use some of the activities from the mini units from Castles & Crayons.

The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray

This is a great story for going on a walk around the school! The gingerbread man visits different locations in the school and would make a great scavenger hunt for the first day/week. Erin Eberhart has a cute pack to go with this book.

The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn

A classic story to ease those nerves of the first day. So many cute crafts to go with this book. Just Pinterest it! {Is that a verb now? Like Google? hehe}

First Day Jitters by Julie Danneburg

Such a cute story with a surprise ending! ;) Tells the students that *everybody* is a little bit nervous on the first day of school.

Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton

I love Splat and this book is another great read aloud to talk about our nerves. 

First Grade Jitters by Robert Quackenbush

This has become a yearly staple, especially is you use The Inspired Apple's recipe and poem for Jitter Juice!! It is something they will always remember from that first day.

David Goes to School by David Shannon

Another great book to discuss classic rules. Plus students just *love* the David books. They were a very popular choice during read to self time. We used The First Grade Parade's peacemaker/peacebreaker activity.

Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin

I love Pete. I think every K-2 teacher does by now. I always do the Pete books for my first author study. I am so excited about all the new books coming out! I already have Pete's Big Lunch, Pete at the Beach, Play Ball, and The Wheels on the Bus. Coming soon are Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses (Oct. 1), Pete the Cat: The First Thanksgiving (Oct. 1), Pete the Cat: Valentine's Day Is Cool (Nov. 26), Pete the Cat: Big Easter Adventure (Jan. 28), Pete the Cat: Old MacDonald Had a Farm (Feb. 18), and Pete the Cat: Cool for School (Feb. 25). Woo hoo! 

The Night Before First Grade by Natasha Wing

I think I have all of Natasha Wing's "The Night Before" books. There's one for every holiday! I love that! This is a great one to talk about what students did to get ready for school! 

Did I miss any of your back to school favourites? Go link up with First Grade and Fabulous so I can check them out!

I will leave you with a fun little activity I plan to do on the first day of school. I came across a cute Finding Nemo snippet on YouTube. I am going to show the video and talk about how Nemo felt on his first day of school and compare it to how we feel on our first day. I made this cute recording sheet for my students to draw pictures of how Nemo felt and how they feel on their first day of school. We will keep this in our portoflios (my new school does these... not quite sure how I am going to work them this year, but we will see!). Click the picture to download your copy. I made a vertical version and a horizontal version.