Monday Made It

It's Monday and that means it's time to link up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!

This week I spent a LOT of time printing task cards, laminating, and cutting them out. I purchased all of my task cards from Mary at Teaching With a Mountain View. 

I shared my task card containers two weeks ago on Monday Made It. It's so nice to have them filled with these task cards now. The task card containers were inspired by Leslie at Life in Fifth Grade.

My second Monday Made It is one for my home. About a month ago we were at the beach and I saw this beautiful piece of driftwood. We are in the middle of redecorating things around my house and I thought this would be a neat addition. I let it dry out for weeks. This week I put a few coats of Shellac on it.

I'm not sure that I'll leave it on this table, but I do think it matches our new décor.

Have a great week! 

Classroom Decorating - Day 1



Last week I took a few materials to my school and met with my principal to get my pacing guides. I didn't move anything in my room or change things because I wanted to get everything (or close to everything) there first. You can see that post HERE if you missed it.

I took most of my materials there on Monday. Bringing all of this inside my room definitely counted as my workout of the day!

My first step was to move my student cubbies to the back wall and then start placing items that I brought with me. The picture above and below is the same spot. It shows a good before/after from day 1.

I have another bookshelf to add to this area and hopefully more that the school will supply, but it is the beginning of a classroom library. I will most likely need to get another IKEA rug, as well.

Originally, my desk was facing the window so that my back would be to the door and the students. Although I rarely sit at my desk, I didn't want to have my back to the students so I moved my desk to create a teacher area in that corner. I've went desk-less before, but I am going to keep this desk. It's not as bulky as a regular teacher desk and is very nice. 

I didn't touch this area where my dry erase board and desks were. 

Although it doesn't look like a LOT, I worked for 5 1/2 hours there. My 5 year old was with me so entertaining him took some time, but overall he did great!

I made a lot of progress on day 2. Stay tuned! 

First Day in the Classroom

Last week I was able to meet with the lower school principal at my new school. She gave me several things to go through and read. She also gave me keys to my classroom and took me over to see it. I brought a few materials with me, but didn't work in my room at all. I felt like I needed to get all of my materials there before I could begin to think about what would go where.

Without further ado, welcome to room 125! It is a blank slate so I can't wait to get in and start making it my own.

This is the view from my door as you walk in to my room.

The shelves you see are the cubbies that students store their materials and backpacks in. 

This is the view from my desk area to the back of the classroom.

This is the view from the student cubbies to the other side of the board. You can see here I have a dry erase board on one wall.

This view is from the front of the room looking to the back. 

I'll post more pictures soon. I took about 80% of my materials this week so the transformation is beginning! 

Monday Made It {June 28th}

Happy Monday! It's time to link up with Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics for Monday Made It.

This past week I focused on my classroom library. I went through every book I own and decided which ones I'd take with me, which ones I really wanted to keep (just in case I ever teach a lower grade, and which ones I'd donate to a friend of mine who is also a teacher.

After I organized my books, I created new labels and put a sticker inside every book I'll take with me to my new school.



I also have about 20 mentor texts that I will keep to the side to use to teach various strategies. I created labels for those as well and put them inside of the front of each book. 

It doesn't look like much, but it was a huge task! I am so glad to have matching labels in every book. 

Monday Made It {June 22}

Happy MOnday! I am linking up with Tara's Monday Made It over at 4th Grade Frolics. I love to see what other teachers create for Monday Made It and it always keeps me on my toes to complete my never ending to do list.

My first project was inspired by Leslie at Life in Fifth Grade. I love how she stores her task cards in these Dollar Tree containers. I have tons of task cards in my TPT wish list. I bought the containers and then used my Cricut machine to label them. I love how they turned out!

 

Now it's time to fill these containers with task cards!



We are in the process of redecorating some of the main areas of our home. Stay tuned for future Monday Made It's! I've been looking for a basket to put on my dining room table that was a distressed white or cream. I've looked everywhere. I have a vision of putting green moss balls in the basket. I found a basket that would work at TJ Maxx, but it was the wrong color. No problem! Spray paint to the rescue! It actually took coat after coat until I used an entire can of spray paint. It turned out nice, though. You can still see some dark spots, but it looks distressed so I'm good with it. Now to find green moss balls.

My final project for this week was a strange one. If you have followed my blog for the last couple of years, you'll know that I have a little classroom museum area with different finds of mine. Well, I was at the beach two weeks ago and found the shell of a horseshoe crab washed up on the beach (he was dead) with his tail still attached! I have one shell already that I found two years ago, but his tail was gone. I was SO excited to see that this crab A) had a tail and B) all of the meat/legs/etc. was already gone! So, I brought him/her home with me. I scrubbed and cleaned it and then used Shellac to preserve it! You just never know what neat things you'll find. I love finding things like this for my classroom. It makes me feel like a real life Ms. Frizzle! HA! 

I made two bingo games to play with my son who will be going into Kindergarten this coming year. One has sight words and the other has color words. I tried to remember as many sight words that was on his assessment for Kindergarten. I may have missed or have added a few, but it'll be a good start. He knows almost all of them, but we are still working on them and that. He LOVES to learn so we'll make these into a fun game to play this summer!

 

Have a great week, y'all!

Quill Easel

I was recently contacted by a representative from Quill about reviewing a product. I was more than HAPPY to do so because I have actually ordered through Quill before (I purchased colored paper for classroom newsletters) and had a good experience with them.

They were so kind to let me pick out an item and I chose this AWESOME easel! It's the Best-Rite Double Sided Easel. It is double sided and has tubs, which I love for storage.

I love how both sides can be used. One side has a wire book rack and a book ledge, which I LOVE. The book rack and ledge would be perfect for displaying the book to be read aloud that day or for storing other materials!

The other side is a full dry erase board, which is spacious and useful!

My FAVORITE thing about this easel is that it really makes use of the space, which is so helpful to teachers. We have so many things to store! Between the two boards, there is a shelf where you can store items. I envision this as a perfect area to store manipulatives or various items needed for a lesson at a classroom rug. 

There are 4 baskets at the bottom, making use of that space as well. It also came with two flip chart hooks, which you can see I have temporarily placed inside a basket.

We did have a little bit of trouble getting a few holes lined up, but we were able to fix that easily. Other than that, it put together nicely.

I am SO EXCITED about this easel and so THANKFUL to Quill for sending it to me! They were super easy to work with while I was choosing an item and definitely efficient with shipping it. It will be a perfect addition to my classroom!!

Click HERE to go to Quill's website to see what all they offer!