Oh, How Pinteresting!

It has been a very slow start to the year!  As I mentioned in a previous post, almost everything I created or planned over the summer doesn't work for my students needs this year so it's back to the drawing board!  I have to say that without all of you and your ideas, my room would not be running as smoothly as it is.  Today was day 14 of school but between 3 flood days, 5 RtI meets...

A glimpse inside my room

My classrooms will probably never be finished but I did recently take some updated pictures of room #1.   My room looks over the Courtyard.  This is my small group area and library.  On my table, I have a punk bucket fill of markers, pens, and a calculator (for running records).  I also have the easel next to the table.  Under the windows, I have Fountas and Pinnell leveled...

Michaels Clearance

I stopped by Michaels on the way home today to look at fall & Halloween decorations.  I looove decorating for fall.  My living room accent walls are a burnt orange color so fall decorations look great in my house.  Anyways, back to the point of this post...while in Michaels I saw that all of their teaching items are on clearance!   I grabbed this little organizer...

What's in my bag?!

Abby from The Inspired Apple had the brilliant idea to host a What's in your teacher bag linky party.  After looking through everyone's bags I'm seriously considering the Erin Condren life planner!  It's going to be a quick post tonight because it has been a looong week! This is my Vera bag.  I love it...it holds everything!  In front of it are my grad school books.    For...

Parent Teacher Nights & Freebie!

There's nothing like 2 parent teacher nights in a row!  Overall, everything went well.  One parent asked me to assign her child nightly reading.  Both of her kids are perfect angels in school but they really resist doing any extra work for their parents.  When I got home I quickly made a reading log so I thought I'd share it with all of you! It is supposed to be landscape and I'm...

My students & word detectives

It's only been 7 school days but I'm already exhausted and overwhelmed!  My students are quite needy this year.  I have one group in particular that is really troubling me.  There are only 4 students in the group so far.  Student A had a lot of regression over the summer and is now at the same reading level as last September.  Student B is working two grade levels below in...

At-A-Glance Sheets

I may have mentioned this before but every year after reading the IEPs I create at-a-glance sheets.  I basically summarize the IEP onto one page so I can quickly view important info at a glance.  Each year I seem to add more info to this sheet.  This year, I added the students birthday and the parents contact info.  Obviously because of confidentiality I can't show you my students...

Planbook.com

Are you tired of planning out an entire week and then you realize you forgot to include the assembly or you have a snow day?  Suddenly, all of your plans need to shift over.  You end up with so many arrows navigating your plan book is like navigating an airport.  As a resource room teacher, I often have teachers who change their plans which then forces me to change my plans.  It's...

Oh, hello fall!

I woke up today and discovered that fall was here.  All the leaves were starting to changing color and the temperature dropped.  Yesterday, I was sweating to death in  my classroom and today it's 50 degrees!  I'm very excited for pumpkin carving, apple picking, corn mazes, and pumpkin spice lattes!! This week has been crazy and it's only the 4th day!  The giant flood really...

A long 5 days...

It seems like months since last Wednesday when I posted about the first day of school.  Minutes after publishing that post, I lost power.  Our power just came back on an hour ago.  5 days with no power!  Wednesday night my area was hit by major flooding.  My hometown was completely under water.  The elementary school was almost completely submerged.  The teachers...

First Day of School

We are getting a TON of rain right now.  Roads are flooding and closing, stores and residential neighborhoods are evacuating, most schools in the area had early dismissal.  My school and 2 neighboring schools stayed open. My school had the buses run to take kids home...the other schools didn't.  The last thing I heard is that they were preparing for the possibility of spending the night...

Math Journals

I just found a blog that I LOVE!  Tales of Frogs and Cupcakes has a ton of great math ideas and resources.  It seems like most blogs focus on ELA activities which is great but I definitely need more math activities.  She uses the best math journals.  I'm going to try to incorporate math journals similar to hers in my room this year.  As a building(s) (both buildings...

Currently I am Linky

Farley over at Oh Boy 4th Grade is having a Currently I am linky party.  After spending the last week or so doing nothing but preparing for school to start, I thought it would be nice to blog about something other than teaching! (Sorry for the green lines...I didn't notice that until I posted it here)Go over to Oh Boy 4th Grade to join in!  -Beck...

More Projects!

I am so inspired by all of the blogs out there!  I have found such amazing activities on many teaching blogs.  Thanks to all of you, I really feel confident going into the start of the school year.  It's hard not knowing who my students are or what grade levels I'm working with because I can't plan anything yet. (Although I just found out what IEP students I'm working with at building...