Back to School Flash: Decor & More!

This fall I'm not changing my room a whole lot because... come December we are moving to a brand new school!! I may change things up thing to really make it new. Here are a few quick peeks at my room the last year or two. {Sorry in advance that a couple of pictures aren't quite the best, but I haven't been in my room much yet to take a better one.}

My absolute favorite part of my room is my classroom library. I love children's literature and have over 1,000 books in my classroom library. Most are sorted by genres using Ladybugs Teacher Files library labels. I have a massive oak shelf currently housing most of them, not sure that this huge hunk of furniture will make it over to the new building, so I will have to see what to do with them all come December.

My classroom colors are currently greens, blues, grays, and black. This might change a bit come December with my brand-new-room, but I'll have to see how ambitious I am midyear.

 

This board becomes interactive throughout the year. Students have a goal for each writing piece focusing on one of the 6-Traits of writing. I have goal sheets that go along with them too. Kid-friendly language, gives us a topic of conversation during conferences, and makes grading a little easier having one major area of focus.  If you would like, you can see them here.

 

{Horrible picture} I love this board too, as do my students. At the top, I put the mentor sentence of the week, then as we get to editing and creating our own sentences I choose three students from each section to be on the board for the week. Instant motivation! For more on mentor sentences, click here! 

Thanks to Meg from The Teacher Studio, I have a new use for my cart. Read here to see how I'm using it this year!


I can't wait to bounce around to see all of the decor ideas. I have a feeling a classroom makeover will be happening after viewing all the inspiration! Link up your ideas as well!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Back to School Prep: 5 for Friday Edition

Fair started this week and for me that's the final sign that summer is over and back-to-school prep starts to kick into high gear. Today you'll find a mix of tried-and-true plus new ideas for the school year and I thought I would share with you too!

I found a WONDERFUL organizational tool from Meg at Fourth Grade Studio: Dry Erase Labels!! Last year, we started a math intervention time before lunch. This was a thirty minute block of additional math practice that included a spiral review then a time to practice and apply skills through math games and apps. I like to try and give students a variety to choose from as well as differentiate to the necessary skill level. Print-and-go games and card games are my favorite: this gives partners and groups a chance to work as well as a chance for me to work with students individually.

All of the choice and leveling is great, but it can get disorganized quickly. This is where the labels come in handy. Using my 10 drawer cart, I have enough room for all of the centers we are using + supplies needed. Then, when I switch to a new set of games I don't have to peel off the label, just wipe and write! Love it! Double plus, my hand-me-down drawers have two colors, so I can eventually have a red level and orange level for a visual reminder of which games to choose from.

These are the centers we will start the year off with!

As I'm making my annual pilgrimages for fun office supplies and materials I'm adding  index cards to the list thanks to a post from The Panicked Teacher. How fun is this all about me tower? Click the picture to see more from the original post on how to set things up + all the necessary labels.

I'm also picking up all of the necessary items for one of my favorite team activities: Save Fred. I've used it the last two years and each group of students have really enjoyed trying to save my poor friend. You can read more about how to the the activity here or by clicking on the picture.

I wanted to share the link to 50+ ideas submitted by readers a couple of years ago. So many wonderful--- oldie but goodie ideas, you don't want to miss out! That's one thing I love about blogging: the sharing of ideas and learning from others!

I've done a lot of planning this last spring and summer to gear up for the new year. We adopted the Journeys curriculum last year, and if you have this curriculum and missed yesterday's post, you may want to check it out here or by clicking the picture below for tips, tricks, and ideas for the coming school year. 

  Also, come back tomorrow... something BIG is going to happen!

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BTS Teacher Favs: Teacher Must Haves!

Less than a month until I'm back to school. One of my favorite parts of getting ready are all of the school and office supplies for me! My husband would say I have a problem, but I think most teachers would agree, there is just something about new supplies! It's the little things, I guess.

I'm linking up with some other fabulous bloggers to share our teacher favs. I cannot wait to see what everyone else has linked up, before I start my annual back to school pilgrimages to Target & Amazon!

I absolutely love Paper Mate pens for grading or as a special treat for students during writing time. Sharpie Pens hold a special place in my heart too, but for the day-to-day duties, Paper Mate is where it's at.

I may not have the Post-It obsession like my friend, Joanne, but I do use Post-It's daily. My teammate and I write out a general outline for the week, one writing for reading the other for communications. I take what's on there, and write a one liner or a quick check list for each day. Post-Its for an at a glance lesson plan, grouping, and just to jot down the things to do before I forget!.

This "supply" I might have taken from the hubs {sorry, dear!} My current building is a historical site, with nearly indestructible walls that nothing sticks to. Luckily, our new building will be complete in December! Last year, I struggled keeping up all of my posters that weren't on bulletin boards. Then, I found Gorilla duct tape in my husbands stash, and everything stayed up. It's not the prettiest, but rolled up behind a poster you can't see it anyway and it sticks! 

These are just a few of my favorites, I'm sure I'll find a few more must haves linked up. Be sure to check out other Teacher Faves and link up your favorites too!

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An InLinkz Link­up

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Organizing Curriculum Units

If I put something into a filing cabinet, even with all of the wonderful intentions of colorful folders and labels, the items housed there seem to fall into the "out of sight, out of mind" oblivion.  I just don't go back to see what I have often enough, sometimes even making another copy of an activity, just because I forget I already have it prepped and ready to go.  {Hopefully, I'm not the only one that has filing cabinet issues.}

I love to store digital files on the computer. It's easy to see what I have and access them, but that's all they are: digital. At some point they need printed and often laminated, and then I go back to the metal conundrum at the back of my classroom.

This year will be different.

We started the Journey's curriculum last year. It was a hard adjustment for me. I loved novel studies, creating curriculum and activities. It was a change. It's still different, but I'm adjusting.

There is a lot to Journey's. Some of my students catch on quick. Others struggle with the concepts. Although the program offers some centers and worksheets, I've found the program at times to be a little boring. So I did some creating, to make centers and activities {especially for when working with small groups}. I don't want to forget an activity in the great gray abyss this year.

Introducing my binder system.

I love binders. I love the ability to flip through and see everything with out having to open and close a gazillion folders. The whole unit is sorted. For my Journey's units there are sections for vocabulary, spelling, target skill, decoding, affixes, and grammar activities; quick and easy to find.

 

The binder is big. However, I have all of the centers prepped. I like to take a day before testing to run 4-5 different centers for students to practice. I also mirror my classroom, so two groups are working on an activity at a time.

I co-teach with the special education teacher, so I'm hoping that this system works out a little better with sharing resources. The binders will be right by my desk, organized, and it'll be easy to take out an activity or two as needed. At least that's the hope for now.

How do you organize big units? Have you tried a similar system? How did it work for you? I'm hoping I can make things a little easier on myself!

{If you are a 4th grade teacher and would like to take a look at the resources I have for Journey's please take a look here}

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Classroom "App"lications: Back to School Idea

July already! Once the 4th of July hits I start getting into full on back to school mode, so I thought I would share an activity I'm going to do at the start of the year for this month's link-up.

At the end of the school year, my communications classes had a challenge. They were to take a picture of the school and they could either use pic collage to add themselves in front of it, or just use the school. Then, they had to use Chatterpix to tell upcoming 4th graders the "top four things to know about 4th grade". The students were really into this last minute project and did a nice job. I'm including some of the videos that they created. Some chose to make our building "talk" others added an image of themselves.

 

 

 

I've found several new apps that I'm looking forward to trying out this coming year. Have you discovered any new apps or have any ideas you are looking forward to doing again? Be sure to link up all month long!

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

Also, be sure to check out my 1,000 Follower Giveaway! Lots of great prizes up for grabs! Click here or the picture below to enter!

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5 for Saturday : Back to School Edition

Hello again friends. I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her 5 for Friday. I know it's Saturday, but it has also been the first week of school. So I hope that's a good excuse for the delay. Lots of pictures and stories follow!

1.

I started my first week of school with the kiddos on Tuesday. After anxiously awaiting all summer to meet my homeroom students, the day finally arrived. The night before, I prepared a small gift. Unfortunately, I forgot to snap a picture at the start of the day.

The picture belongs to the wonderful Teri at a Cupcake for the Teacher. If you click the picture you can get the same freebie tag that I used!

2.

Thanks to my BBB, Jivey, my students had a fun time sporting some cool shades on our first day. We talked about our goals for the school year. What a great project from a fun freebie!

3.

My husband is the bomb.com! He sent these beauties to school and they've been smelling and looking good all week! Love the flowers and my hubby too :)

4.

Jivey, helped me out on day 3 as well. Our first two half-days were strictly homeroom. Thursday and Friday were devoted to homeroom switches. For my activity, I did "Saving Fred" an activity Jivey shared a couple of weeks ago. 

The kids LOVED it! It was a great teamwork activity. I heard from the other homeroom teachers that my activity took the tops with the students... so you know it has to be good.  Click here to get the PDF for the activity.

5.

We also talked a lot about expectations and rules this week. I took a few buzzwords (and a few of these key words are areas that this class really needs to work on--we are a very chatty crew.) I started each poster with a focus word and gave each table group a specific color. Students were to write down what the words looks and sounds like in the classroom/lunchroom/recess. After a couple of minutes, the poster was rotated to another table.

This display has been nice to point back to throughout the week, especially with our never ending chatter. Check out  the first line in orange :)

And because it's been forever... and my teaching friend across the hall had such a cute display, I thought I'd share a picture from her room as well. 

Students wrote about some of their goals for the upcoming year in a fun display!

It's been a fun, exhausting week. Chatter or not, I am truly excited for all that this school year will hold! 

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