I went shopping...

...and now my dining room table looks like this:

I found these cute chalkboard label buckets in the Target dollar spot. Right now I have pencils and glue sticks in them...I'm not sure what I will use them for yet.  

While at Target, I got these pencil pouches for .49 each.  I plan on using these for my kids supplies.  The boxes drive me nuts...they always fall and open and crayons go everywhere.  I know that these will get picked up while they aren't zipped closed and the same thing will happen but I still like them better.  I plan on having the kids bring their bags with them to different stations so they aren't walking around when they need something.  

And I bought these box sets for $5...Target had blue, pink, and this dark gray.  I figured dark gray would go with any color scheme I do in the future so I bought all of them (Sorry if you wanted this color and live by me!).

Then I went to Kohl's and bought some Skippyjon Jones things.  I have plans for Skippy that I'll post about later.  

After Kohl's, I went to Staples to get the 1 cent folders.  I asked about their new teacher rules and they let me get 10 folders for 1 cent and I paid the .20 for the next 15 of them but I will get a full refund (in the form of a credit) on the ones I paid full price for meaning they are free.  We will see if it works! 

I also needed spray paint for some projects...the buckets I wanted to paint were sold out :(

 ...and $1 stamps form Michaels for another project that I will be sharing soon! 

Now it's time to clean the house and start some of these projects!!

Monday Made It

I absolutely LOVE Monday Made It (Thanks Tara!) because even if I have done nothing all week, I always feel like I have to have something to share on Monday.  This week has not been a do-nothing week and this is what I've been doing: 

This is my Where Am I? board.  I only have 7 students (so far) but there will be times when 4 of them are in 4 different locations.  I printed out a whale for each kid and a bunch of different locations, laminated them, and stuck magnets to the back.  The Where Am I? sign covers the dry erase marker at the top.  I grabbed the pink dry erase board from Target (it's a little small though...I also need spots for adaptive P.E., nurse, bathroom...).  I plan on having 2 little baskets (or a magnetic ribbon on the wall) for Home and Bathroom.  Every morning when the kids come in, they put their whale in the classroom spot.  If they go somewhere, they move their whale.  When we have fire drills, I can quickly see where my students are (so can a substitute).  

Here are the Home and Bathroom signs.  

My next project was my Sub Binder.  You can see more pictureshere and grab your free copy here.  

 Cover

 A few of the sheets included

The section dividers

Last night, I started making my lesson plan binder when I saw Kimberlee's post on Two Fulbright Hugs.  She made a free, editable teacher binder for you to download.  I made my own cover but most of my binder came from her resource.  If you haven't started yours yet, definitely go grab hers! 

Cover

My divider tabs

I would share more pictures but most of the sections can't be filled in until I have my schedule.  Once it is more complete, I will do a more detailed post and share some of the sheets I use.  

*Hopefully* next week I will post pictures of my guided math set up.  I'd rather have it set up in my classroom before sharing it here but I have to wait for some bookshelves and cabinets to be moved into my room so I can put all of this away: 

I can't wait to see what all of you have made this week!  

Sub Binder *Freebie*

I'm feeling a bit lost as far as what I should be doing to prep for September.  As a resource room teacher, I didn't have a lot to do over the summer but now I know that there is a TON to do and I'm not sure where to start!  I know that I'm taking my *LAST* grad class in September on top of managing a self contained classroom for the first time so I'm trying to get as much done in the summer as possible.  (Please feel free to leave any suggestions!)

Today I decided to make my Sub Binder.  As you know, I'm doing a whale/blue-green-pink theme so I wanted my sub binder to match.  Here's how it turned out: 

Cover

Section One - Essential Info

These are the other 2 section cover...I don't have a schedule yet so these two sections are empty right now but it's a start! 

I'm uploading this into my Teachers Notebook store...grab your FREE copy here! It will only be free for a limited time! 

Monday Made It

I'm linking up with Tara again for Monday Made It!  I am so glad she is doing this linky party because it pushes me to get at least 1 project done a week.  

This week has been busy...last weekend I was on Long Island, this weekend I was in New Hampshire...I haven't had a ton of time to work on projects.  Anyways, this week I made mail boxes.  I already had these half done when I thought I could just do file folders so for this year at lease we will use mail boxes.  

Front view

Side View

Top View 

I used Priority Mail Boxes and taped them together.  Then I hot glued fabric around them and added ribbon to cover the cut edges.  

I also made Writing Leads posters for fiction writing.  I've wanted to do this for a while and just never got around to it.  I think they came out cute: 

There are 8 different leads (each one is one page).  They have a short description of the lead and an example of that type taken from a children's book.  If you are interested in this, you can get it at my Teachers Notebook Store. 

I stopped at Michael's Today and grabbed these cute name plates (I know I'm not doing an owl theme this year but these were too cute to not buy). 

I also bought this cute alphabet puzzle...

...and these sentence strip dry erase boards...

Now I'm off to spend some time looking at everything you guys made this week!  

Monday Made It! & Behavior Management

I'm linking up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It! 

Click the picture to join in! 

This week I worked on my whole class behavior management plan and it's still a work in progress.  Here is what I have so far: 

I'm using a clip chart next year, like many of you.  My levels are: 

Incredible choices

Ready to learn (where everyone will start)

First warning

Second warning (My students will need more than 1 warning)

Lose 1/2 your free time (we will have 10 minutes of free time at the end of each day)

Lose your free time

I am considering adding another "clip up" section but I want to keep it manageable.  I also made a mini clip-chart that can go to with them to specials (music, PE, art) if the kids are having a rough day.  

Any students who don't lose any free time during the week will get a prize on Friday.  The previous teacher left me a prize box so until the prize box items are gone, I'll mix the coupons and prizes.  

To minimize behavior problems, I plan on trying the CHAMP system.  CHAMP stands for: 

Communication - How can I communicate? (whisper, silence)

Help - How do I get help? (raise hand, ask 3 friends)

Activity - What activity are we doing? (centers, lesson, read aloud)

Movement - Can I move around the room? (pencil, bathroom)

Participation - How do I participate? (raise hand, cut, write, read)

I'm excited to go check out what everyone else made!  

Teaching Smart

I'm linking up with Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten to talk about Teaching Smart.

(Click the picture to join in!)

Here are my top 3 tips for teaching smart:

1. Use your summer!  As a new-ish teacher and a teacher switching positions, I know that if I don't spend a decent amount of time prepping and planning this summer, I will be totally overwhelmed in September.  There are going to be a lot of unexpected issues that come up next year so anything I can do this summer, the better!  Please also remember to take some time for yourself!

2.  Get Organized...you can not be too organized!  Organize your supplies, label everything, and create a system for all the paper you will deal with.  I am in the process of making my teacher binder, plan book, and communication books.  I will post about those in the next few weeks.

Love these binders from Target!

3.  Don't do it all yourself.  There are thousands of teacher bloggers who are making and sharing super cute units and centers.  On my to-do list for this summer was to make a math calendar/morning routine for our morning meeting.  Kathleen from Growing Kinders just finished an adorable math calendar system.  She included editable pages so I can adjust the calendar to meet the needs of my students.  I bought it and now I can just print it out and focus on another part of my to-do list!


I hope you found those helpful!  Don't forget to link up!

Word Wall

I have always had small or shared classrooms so I never had enough room for a word wall.  I also had a wide variety of students (K-5) so figuring out what kind of words to put up was a challenge.  Next year, however, I will have all 2nd and 3rd graders who are with me all day :D  A word wall is a must for next year so I made some word wall letters to go with my color scheme. 

I'm considering adding orange in there too.  I plan on starting the year with a few sight words and environmental print...we will see how it progresses as the year goes on!  

I thought these came out cute so I added Custom Word Wall Letters to my Teachers Notebook store.  You can choose your own colors and fonts all for $1.  Check it out if your interested! 

How do you guys use word walls in your room?  Do you have any special activities you use with your word wall?

Follow the Road to Freebies!

Happy International Blog Hopping day! I'm linking up with Kreative in Kinder to share some freebies with you (these are actually just old blog posts, visit my TN store for more freebies)!  Click the picture below to join in! 

I created a few forms that I wanted to update and I thought I'd share them with you.  The first one is a parent contact form.  

The second one is a problem solving sheet for students to reflect on their behavior.  

Click on the pictures to grab your copies.

Halfway through my first year, I was assigned a group of 1st grade girls.  Up to this point, I was used to working with 3rd-5th graders.  My plans for the girls were the same as my older kids - read a book and do some sort of writing with it plus a little word work.  The girls were done in about 10 minutes.   I still had 20 minutes to fill.  The girls needed to work on sight words so I decided to make a dolch kit and practice sight words during our sessions too.  Since I still had time left in my sessions, I made a simple sight word book template.  I had the girls choose one sight word from their list that they struggled with and write a predictable book using that word.  

Here is a  small picture of the cover.

Sorry that these pics are sideways - I can't figure out how to make them the correct way!  These are interior pages from a students book called "They had Animals".  Her pages say things like "They had an elephant."  "They had a cat."  The girls were able to recall & retain the sight words they made books with.  Within 2 months, they were discharged from AIS (academic intervention services).   You can grab your free copy of my book template at my Teachers Notebook store!  

Target Find

Yesterday, I was going through the 2nd & 3rd grade curriculum(s) and combining them into 1 document for myself since I'll be responsible for both next year.  Then I started looking through Teachers Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers and added a TON of products to my favorites (I would be purchasing but I need to see my students first - these may be way too hard for them).  Anyways, one of the products I added was Lemonade Economics from Amanda Nickerson (author of One Extra Degree):

I love the idea of teaching economics with a lemonade stand!  While shopping at Target, I saw this cute Lemonade banner in the dollar spot (I LOVE Target's dollar spot, don't you?).  

I grabbed one to use with the unit.  I figured I'd share with you in case you could use it too!  

Monday Made It

I'm so excited to join all of you for Monday made it! 

I know that summer is going to go by way to quickly. Hopefully, this will help me get my to do list done..or at least shorter (I'm realistic)!

I do not have a bulletin board outside my classroom but I want to display student work. Naturally I turned to pinterest for ideas and decided to make a duct tape quilt! It was surprisingly easy and the duct tape came off the bags when I made a mistake.

Sorry for the not-so-spectacular picture...I will take better pictures when everything is up in the classroom!  

Currently July

I am linking up with Farley for her July Currently Linky!  (Is it really July already?!)

Can you tell that I'm all over the place with my thoughts right now?!  My head is swirling with remodeling projects, getting ready for a new position that I am totally unprepared for, and lots of catching up on tv shows :) 

I just realized that I forgot to announce the winner of my giveaway!  (I did tell her and sent her the giftcard as soon as it ended)...so Congrats to Kelly, my giveaway winner! 

Stop back tomorrow to see some of the projects I have been working on!