Early Start and 50 followers!

Okay, first of all, I am SOOOOO excited that I have 50 followers.  I started this blog as more of a journal and place to collect ideas.  Over the summer, I started reading some blogs and quickly became addicted!  That is when I started using this blog more as a place to share my ideas.  As a thank you to my 50 followers, I have a few freebies for you!  As 2011 comes to an...

2012 Resolutions

I'm linking up with  Tammy at Live, Laugh, Love  Everyday in Kindergarten to post my goals for next year.  I'll be honest, last year I had no resolutions because I have a hard time keeping them so I'm going to try to keep it attainable this year.  Maybe sharing them with my readers will push me to keep them :) Personal: 1.  Eat better than I did in 2011 2.  Exercise...

Autism Tip

Since this is a special ed blog, I figured I should probably post something special ed related every once in a while!  This year, one of my students with autism has been complaining about the lights bothering him.  Fluorescent lights can be very troublesome to students with autism and these lights are everywhere!  The lights hum and flicker all the time, not just when...

Ready for break!

I am so ready for Christmas break!  Unfortunately, my first day off is Friday.  I had my plans all set for this week - a week of gingerbread activities from Erica Bohrer's unit BUT I took home all the game pieces to cut and ended up getting sick & not going to school for 2 days.  My poor students have had NO holiday activities this week and my poor substitute has to deal with...

Magnetic letters

I'm a sucker for a good deal...who isn't?  A year ago, I found alphabet sets at a ridiculously cheap price (I don't remember what it was now but trust me, it was good).  I got carried away and long story short, I ended up with 20 alphabet sets in a big zip-lock bag.  No kid is going to dig through 520 letters to make words so this was obviously a terrible storage solution.  I finally...

Introducing New Reading Strategies

I was writing a post about how I am using my readers's notebooks and I started to explain how I introduce strategies but I think this deserves it's own post! I stick to the Modeling, Guided practice, Independent practice layout.  First, I tell the students the name of the strategy and a 1 or 2 sentence definition of it.  Next, I model how to use the strategy with a picture book & a...

Reader's Notebooks

A week or so ago, I posted about my new reader's notebooks.  I wanted to share with you how my students are using them.   First, I am introducing the notebooks slowly.  The first day we created Do's and Don'ts, took a tour of the notebook, and decorated the covers.  The next day, we read the Cafe menu and created reading goals.  Since I only have 5 students at a time, one...

Writing Center

Every year, I say that I am going to focus on one subject (reading, writing, or math) and perfect it as much as possible.  Apparently, that is impossible for me to do.  Two weeks ago I decided to focus on reading, then I switched to math for a few days and now I'm working on writing.   So here is a picture of my updated writing center - it's nothing fancy but it was completely empty...

12 Days of Christmas

Have you heard about the 12 Days of Christmas giveaways?  They sound AMAZING!  Head over to Oh' Boy 4th Grade to check it out!  Here is a list of the bloggers doing the giveaways: & Congratulations to both of my giveaway winners Gladys and Manda! &nb...

Pinterest Ideas

How did we ever live without pinterest?  I find so many great ideas there.  Seriously, pinterest and blogger have made me a MUCH better teacher! Here are my latest pinterest finds: Laminated envelopes to hold finished work, organized by assignment?  Genius!  I will be making one of these for each group I see.  These would be so easy to make and great for building number...

Reader's Notebook, Giveaway, & linky party

I've been searching for the perfect reader's notebook to use with my kids.  Everything that I'm finding is way to customized.  I want my students to write about the strategies they are using when they read but I don't want to use post-it notes with my students because I don't get to send home supply lists and I can't supply enough sticky-notes for 35 kids to use all year.  I...

The Resource(ful) Room!

Amy over at The Resource(ful) Room awarded me the Sunshine award!  I can't tell you how excited I am to receive this award!  If you haven't been to Amy's blog, make sure you check it out.  She is always sharing a ton of cute ideas/materials!  The "rules" for the Sunshine award are: 1. Thank the person who gave this award and write a post about it. 2. Answer the following...