Monday Made It {August 10}

Happy Monday, folks! I only had to work for a little while this morning, but tomorrow marks our first day of school with students! I'm looking forward to a fabulous day!

I am linking up with Tara to show you two projects I worked on this past week.

Last fall I went to a teacher yard sale and bought a straw dispenser. She had planned on using it for pencils and never got around to it.

I've had it in my garage this entire time and finally pulled it out. I used spray adhesive and this scrapbook paper to do a little make over on it.

This year I am teaching Literacy and Social Studies, which are my favorite two subjects. One of the things I am doing to merge the two is by keeping track of all the places we've "visited" while reading various stories. We'll keep track of this using one of our maps in the classroom. I created this picture, had it developed, and framed it. Love it!

Five for Friday {August 8th}

Hey guys! I'm joining in a day late for Five for Friday! I had a fabulous (but busy) week this week. Preplanning began for me this week at my new school and I had a GREAT week!

I loaded up my car on Monday with several new items to make my classroom more cozy! I am incorporating more black and white accents in my classroom. I LOVE the black and white rug I got at Wal-Mart. It looks so good in my classroom library!

Here is another new item to my room that I LOVE!

This week I worked to complete my yearly pacing guide for Literacy. What a chore that is! It's a work in progress and I am sure I'll tweak it throughout the year.

At home we are getting things ready for my son to begin KINDERGARTEN next week! Y'all, how do I have a Kindergartener?! In his room we have a bookshelf where I display books as décor. Usually I'll have seasonal books on it. This week I organized his bookshelf and added Kindergarten/school themed books! I love this little area to spotlight books for him!

I shared this on Instagram, but I just have to share it here. I was part of an AMAZING experience this week. After a school-wide meeting, everyone was given an area (office, classroom, etc) to pray for along with a person. After I prayed in my designated area, I went to my classroom to pray over my student desks. During that night, I witnessed someone praying for me by my desk, I witnessed teacher moms come into my classroom and pray over their child's desk, and I was able to go to my sons Kindergarten classroom to pray for him, his teachers, and his classmates. Y'all, it was an AMAZING experience that was humbling, overwhelming, and just incredible. I am SO incredibly thankful to be there. My heart was so touched and so full that day!



Last night we had Launch night at our school. This is similar to Open House/Meet the Teacher. It was SO GOOD! I met all 16 of my homeroom students and several others in the other 5th grade classroom. I am SO EXCITED for this year! 

Monday Made It {FMJ labels & Binder Organization}

Happy Monday! Two weeks from today I will be back in school. Ahhhh! It's so bittersweet. I have so much to do, but I am wanting to soak in every moment that is left of summertime. Today I am linking up with Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It. 

I am excited to incorporate Family Message Journals into my Writing curriculum this year. I have blogged about them before. You can read about them HERE. I created labels this week for the outside of each students FMJ.

Yesterday I blogged about how I organized my Social Studies binders. Part of that project was redoing the binder covers.

The second part of that project was creating a sheet for the inside of each binder that outlines topics to cover within the unit. At the bottom of the sheet, I listed books that could be read aloud during the unit.

I also created "Me Bag" labels to attach to a lunch bag. This is a getting to know you activity that I like to do at the beginning of the year. Each child brings in 4-5 items that represent themselves. We all share throughout the first week of school.



Social Studies Binder Organization

Some teachers prefer binders, some prefer file folder systems, and some prefer digital storage. I am a binder girl! I love a good organized binder.

One of my popular posts is about how I organize my Social Studies binders. You can read it HERE. Since then, I've moved states and have new standards to teach next year. Luckily, I was able to keep about 80% of it and just change covers and the information inside.

Here are my NEW Social Studies binders!

You can see my units of study are:

• Immigration
• World War I
• The Roaring Twenties
• The Great Depression
• World War II
• Decades - 50's and 60's
• Decades - 70's, 80's, and 90's

Inside each binder, I have a list of topics by unit that I need to cover within that unit. This helps me make sure I cover everything needed during the unit.

I also included books that correlate, which is an ongoing project. I'll just add books to my list as I discover them.

Social Studies is my FAVORITE subject to teach. I'm so glad that I re-organized my binders for this year! 

Monday Made It

Happy Monday! I was out of town most of last week so I only have two small projects to share today.

Over the years I've kept a back to school binder full of papers I use at the beginning of school and various other materials. I went through the binder and purged papers that I didn't think I'd use again. I also upgraded to a white binder and create a new cover.

Inside I organized everything in page protectors.

Next I created book labels for all of my books at school. I organize my classroom library by genre so these labels show various genres.

Have a good week! 

Classroom Decorating, Day 2

Last week I went back to my classroom for day 2 of decorating! I love this stage, but I will be so relieved when it's complete.

My first goal was to move my student cubbies from one wall to another. I moved them to the back wall near the door. Before when you entered my room, you can immediately see them. I know this area will look more cluttered as student supplies and backpacks are in them so I thought putting them on the back wall would eliminate the first glance being the cubbies.

Next I added bulletin board border around my dry erase board. This border was actually so wide that I decided to cut it in half to make a smaller border. It adds just a bit of a pop to my board.

My next goal was to work in my teacher corner. First, I took the remaining student cubby and turned it so that it was taller vs. being longer. This way I can utilize the shelves better.

I love the storage it now gives me. It holds my weekly bins, teacher toolbox, organizers, teacher books, mentor texts, student Social Studies books, a Writing crate, and student dictionaries. Our SS books are paperback and were brand new last year, but they are already looking a bit rough. By keeping them in bins rather than desks, I hope they will hold out for the next 5 years. I will probably still make some changes as I bring more supplies to school, but this was a great start.

Next, I took everything out of my teacher desk, reorganized, and put a few items on the top. I love they way it turned out.

Although I didn't plan on organizing books by genre, I started this HUGE task. The chapter books I brought with me were already labeled so I first separated those. Then, I organized the books that were left by genre and placed them in random baskets on several desks.

This took what felt like (and probably was) HOURS. Once I started it, I wanted to get it done.

I placed my personal chapter books in baskets by genre. Once I have the other labeled, can begin adding all of the books to baskets. Then I'll know how many basket labels I'll need to create before printing them.

My school is placing an order for more books and a couple of bookshelves so hopefully I'll find out more information about that soon. I have two more white bookshelves to bring to school and have plans to put them in the location shown in the photo below. I may end up getting another IKEA rug as well.

Speaking of rugs, I placed the polypropylene rug in front of my Promethean board.

This is the view of my room when I was finished for the day. It looks like an organized mess! The next step is to create book labels, label all of the books shown here, and then put them in book baskets.