Classroom Pictures!

I am linkin' up with Blog Hoppin today to show you WHERE I teach!

My classroom walls are a bit bare now since I save a LOT of my wall space for student work and anchor charts we make together, but I can show you how it all begins!

I am SO lucky to have a large classroom. If you have followed my blog for the past few years, you will see that I used to have a teeny-tiny room in Last Vegas. I am spoiled here!

This is the view from my exterior door.
Reading posters: Free from Teacher Wife

Directly to the right of when you walk in is my half set-up math station. Each tub holds our math centers. The top is not finished yet!

Walk past the bookshelves and you see the second half of the room!

My word wall will take over the cabinets.

 Look left to see computers, windows, and our writing station!
Alphabet: My Primary Decor Pack

 But if you kept walking straight you would see this little hallway which leads to the main building (door on the right) and a big ole storage closet (door on the left)

 Close up on our word work station!

Boggle:  Free from Teacher Wears Prada

Display bulletin board with binder clips to easily switch out papers AND not put holes in them!

 Now, let's turn back around and look at that writing center!

Inside the tubs are prompts from my Write From the Start pack and will be replaced throughout the year with my Writing Through the Seasons prompts.
Sight word practice: Free from Kindergarten Smiles

Look to the left and you see our bathroom, small whiteboard and cubby area.

  Now look back towards the exterior door! More windows, behavior chart, and my "turn it in" bin (the stinkin' poster fell behind the cabinets) and folders/take home bin.
Behavior chart: Primary Decor Pack

Meeting area and calendar space! I use lots of that wall space above the boards for anchor charts and student work!

My teacher space. Needs some sprucin' up, but that is the last things I tackle.
Notice my owl painting that a STUDENT made for me my last year in Vegas! I love, love, love it and display it every year!

Well that is all I have for now and as we work in the classroom over the next month, my room will look a lot more DONE! Hopefully I will remember to share the updated pics with you.

Now hop over to Blog Hoppin' and check out everyone else's digs!

Oh.... are you STILL with me?!

One last thing...

There is a QUICK, ONE DAY ONLY, BOOST sale going on tomorrow (8/20) on Teachers Pay Teachers and my whole entire store will be on sale! If you enter the promo code, you can get 28% off!

[My Store]

Happy shopping :)

4

Life as of late!

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for a little 5 for Friday action! It has been quite awhile since I've blogged here at TGIF because.... well... life is life... and life can just be busy! Here is a little peek into my life as of late:

1.

Being pregnant! This journey sure has its ups and downs, but I am enjoying almost every minute of it. I can tell you my belly is way bigger already than it was above and I know I will just be getting larger and larger and LARGER! Yikes.

2.

Field trip!! I am so happy to be back living on the East Coast... right on the water. Granted the water is always cold and it's not like we go IN the ocean ever, but it sure is beautiful. We had a FUN field trip to Odiorne State Park where there are a bunch of tidepools for my kids to explore and search for tidepool animals and sealife. I was lucky enough to have my mom, my sister, and my husband chaperone this field trip. The kids were in heaven to meet these special people in my life and they thought this day was "THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!" I agreed.

3.

School is O-V-E-R! I had such a great class this year and I am going to miss them so much! My summer will be jam-packed with packing and moving into my mom's house with husband and baby-to-be, but it will be nice to know that my classroom will be waiting for me in August. The top picture is an adorable gift one of my students gave me for Theo. He was so proud to give me those onesies and they sparked some tears in my eyes for sure! The second picture is our annual last day breakfast! We all sat around our big family table and ate breakfast, shared memories, and drew pictures/wrote notes on our butcher paper tablecloths! It was a great way to end our year together.

4.

That last picture above is depressing! It is so bare in my classroom and I was ready for some new classroom decor, so oddly enough, only a day out of school, I created a classroom decor set that I will be using in my room. It is simple and bright and primary and I love it. Here is what's inside:

I am really excited about this set and I will be sure to take lots of pictures in August when I can set up my room!

5.

Last but not least, a few weeks ago, I was getting prepared for those first weeks of school in August and our first math unit is Numbers to 120. I love the unit I made 2 years ago, but it was in need of some major updating. So that's just what I did. I added a few new activities, updated the clipart and look of the pack!

These activities are some tried and true favorites from the pack, but with a little updated look:

Spin & Graph - number recognition and graphing (6 differentiated games)

10s and 20s frames - cards for matching and memory games

120 charts - for student reference as well as 4 different games to be played with the chart

Read the Room - activity for identifying number words

Number cards 1-120 - cards as well as 3 different games to play with the cards

120 chart puzzles - 7 different chart puzzles with varying degrees of difficulty

Assessment - 3 page assessment to check the Common Core Standard: 1.NBT.1

I also added a center game: before, after, & in between with recording sheets as well as 4 different practice pages to help students reinforce skills learned in this pack. My favorite is the number detective one!

So that is just a *little* bit of what I have been up to lately. Now that I am out of school, I will be sure to blog more often and keep up with everything else in the teaching/blogging world!

Happy Summertime :) :)

2

I GOT A JOB!!!

I am so excited to announce that I just recently got a teaching job here in Mass....

and...

it's in FIRST GRADE!!!!

Thank God! (ha ha ha ha ha...)

I got to see my classroom for the first time yesterday and it is HA-UGE!

It is honestly about 3-4 times the size of my old Vegas classroom.

Here is a look:

What you can't see is that I have a bathroom IN my classroom... repeat there is a bathroom IN my room - whhhaaaat?! There is also a big cubby area, tons of cabinets with a sink and a ginormous storage closet. I am in teacher heaven.

The only... slight downside to all this excitement is that school starts for me this coming Monday and I will have a classroom full of smiling little kids on Wednesday! Ahhhh... Oh, and I have my bridal shower and bachelorette party this weekend so I will not be able to come into school!

There are some crazy times in my world. This will also be the first year I get to go by "Mrs. Jones." I will have to get used to that!

Since I will be hustling and bustling to get my room and plans ready for the upcoming week, I wanted to share that there is a biggggggg SALE coming soon on TPT!

My entire store will be 20% off on Sunday and Monday! 

If you use the code: BTS13 Teachers Pay Teachers is throwing in another 10% off!

 

 ^^Click above to see my store!^^

Happy shopping and good luck to all the other teachers that are starting school soon!!

9

Finally DONE! & Word Wall Cards

TAAAA-DAHHHHHH!!!!!!

I have finally finished all that I can before I leave tomorrow for my much needed VAY-CAY-SHUN!

The before picture:

My teeny classroom looking all dark and dingy!

And after...

In all its glory:

  A couple different views!

My focus wall!

Marvelous Math!

I'm going to try out having 8 different math tubs and see how it goes this year.
I still need to buy 3 more tubs, but I figure I will rotate them in and out with different themed math games and skills.
Who else does this and how do you like it?!?

My labels for my class library.

I'm only starting year 3 as a teacher so I don't have THAT many books yet!
C'mon Scholastic Book Club!

Daily 5 board, thanks to Lindsey @ The Teacher Wife!

My area - completely blank... but I can work on that right when I get home from vacation. At least it's clean!

I also finished my First Week Fun! packet that I plan to do with my kids that first week of school.
Some highlights from the pack:

 Lots of easy-to-use printables to help students get familiar with the classroom and their new classmates!

We also read My Mouth is a Volcano at the beginning of the year and I made this little craft to go with the book!

Last but not least, my friend asked me to make her this printable word wall set for her classroom and it is now up on TPT!

Word Wall Cards and Activities {Primary Bunting & Polka Dots}

•  Alphabet headers
•  Dolch sight words (pre-primer, primer, and grade 1)
• 4 different *no-prep* word wall activities for your students

[click on the image to see a closer view]

Now, I am off to pack!!!
{Wedding dress shopping in T-minus 6 days, ahhhhhh!}

14

Currently! & Classroom Updates

First and foremost, I am linking up with the hilarious Farley, over at Oh Boy it's Fourth Grade for the August currently:

Not much explanation needed here, except that I am excited to try on wedding dresses too, don't get me wrong.... but in front of my friends and family.... everyone looking and giving me their opinion... mehhhhh... we'll see how it goes!

Go link up with Farley so I can read what YOU are doing!

Onto some classroom pics!

For those of you who saw my last post with pics, I was debating my little behavior owl... and rightfully so, because I walked into my classroom today and HATED him!

And ladies and gentlemen, hate, is a strong word.

So I changed it and I am SO much happier!

 I LOVE him now and love is stronger than hate.
[The actual behavior chart can be found HERE]

My whole reading area is now mostly complete!

 My reading corner! (Aka about 1/4th the size of my room)

My book stand for themed books. Right now it is filled with back to school books! My little green treasure chest was only $5 from Walmart & holds my big books just perfectly.

Other view, with my classroom library all organized, but still in need of labels!

The rugs are from Big Lots - $19 a pop, I bought 2!

My students' individual book bins from the Dollar Tree. 

On the mini-board will be student's recommendations of great books to read!

Oh, and the letters above are new letters I made with scrapbook paper.

I had previously painted other ones. but they didn't survive the first round of moving.

This is my awesome work area! I am kinda obsessed! 

I used square frames from Michaels and found some cuter than cute scrapbook paper to go inside each one. Once there is some AMAZING work - it will be featured beautifully!

I just need to make a header for this display... I'm still thinking of a good one.

The beginning of my word wall.

Still need to add header, days of the week & number words!

Andddd....

 This big empty wall is what I am tackling tomorrow!

Focus wall, maybe?!?!?

Whaddya think?!?

 

13