Classroom Reveal

Oh my, the past couple weeks have been so busy!
My hunky husband was selected as a Chief Select (yay!). In addition to his crazy schedule, I have somewhat adopted the men in his group, so I am cooking for 5 grown men every night.
I officially started PD on the 8th, though I was unofficially working on transforming our school hallways into a rain forest. I will have to get pictures of all that goodness on Monday.

In between meetings and all the other good stuff, I have snuck in a few minutes to work in my room. While it is not finished, I have to say that I am very happy with how it has turned out!

Starting from the beginning, this is the door to my room. I know the polka dots don't match, but that is some insight for the craziness on the inside! (: Everyone has to have something representing their college on their door, and that was the first wreath I ever made. Go Titans!

Here is the finished product that I posted about awhile ago. My momma shipped me the wood and I painted it. There is a pass for boys, girls, office, nurse and water. Jesus help the child who loses one of these passes!

Here is my desk area. I don't ever sit here during the day, but it is a great reprieve in the afternoons. Would you believe that that desk was salvaged from the dumpster? Last year my husband refurbished it for me with duct tape and some fabric. (: The "gum ball machine" is made out of a glass bowl and a flower pot. It hold our warm fuzzies!

Wonderful Writers! I love displaying my students' writing as the year progresses. We will do a free write at the beginning of each month, and it will be placed on top of the student's previous work. Anyone who comes into the class can easily see how our writing is progressing. I put them on binder rings so I can easily take it with me to meetings as well.

The book shelf at the bottom of the photo will house our class library and student manipulatives.

 Last year, this was a chalkboard that I attempted to repurpose. The white board laminate I bought fell off before school even started, so it stayed covered with butcher paper all year. Now it is magnetic and the same color as the rest of my room so it really opens things up. The right side will be my reading focus wall and the left will be my math focus wall. I have some heavy duty magnets to hold up anchor charts and essential questions.

 My calendar area. We don't go over it extensively, but it is at the front of my room so I prefer if it stays cute. (:

The back of my room. The left side of the picture is our reading area and student supplies are housed in the cabinet. I am lucky enough to have 4 student computers in my room. They are sitting on a shelving unit, so I am able to hide things behind the fabric.

We are not supposed to open our blinds (and I wish I could because the court yard is right outside. It is always green and plush, and last year we planted our garden there), so I have used it for my word wall. I think I may go back to print the word cards larger though. 

My room had minimal storage last year, so when the opportunity to take 2 large filing cabinets arose, I jumped. I knew I could easily repurpose them. A little contact paper and duct tape! For our birthday presentation, I have each student's name and birthday written on a candle shape that will go into the appropriate cupcake.

And this is my pride and joy! My class family tree. Students are invited to bring pictures to add to the circles, and I will add pictures from school as well. It only took about an hour (minus cutting out the circles), and I know that it is really going to bring everything together!

I have put so much hard work into my room. That is the joy that comes from staying in the same room two years in a row. I was able to build upon what I started last year. I hope my students love it as much as I do!

Weekly Highs and Lows

I had lots of highs this week, or at least that is how I try to look at. 

I'm not officially back to work, but there have meetings and prep going on, so I was at school Monday through Thursday. I felt so awful about leaving the pups home alone all day, every day, somewhat "unnecessarily". On Thursday, my teammate and I brought our dogs to work with us. We were able to work guilt free in our rooms all day! Granted, my principal wasn't too keen on the idea, but easier to ask for forgiveness than permission sometimes. (:

I also got to share my back to school flipbook at our K-1-2 meeting. It is such an easy and cute way to present a lot of information, without it appearing overwhelming.

In regards to a low, I am a battling to save my behavior clip chart. I know it is a hot topic in education right now, but I love mine! When I first started teaching, I was against the idea. I had memories from elementary school about moving cards, and there was no coming back from a poor choice and no positives. My first principal insisted that I have one, so I found a way to tweak it into something more meaningful. Keep in mind that every student is held to their own standards and isn't black and white. What is clip change for one student isn't the same for another. You have to reward the student who has self control issues for remaining on task for longer than usual.

My clip chart technically has 9 levels, but only 7 are visible. Everyone starts the day on green.

Clips are moved down if a student receives redirection for a behavior, and continues to do that behavior anyway. Students can move down to yellow (warning), orange (loss of privileges) or red (parent contact). Last year, I also implemented "the write up cup"--if a student was on red and needed to move their clip down again, it would go into the write up cup and they would receive an office referral regardless of what the behavior was. 

On the flip side, clips can be moved up for making positive choices. Students can move up to blue, purple, rainbow and off-the-charts. If a student is off-the-charts, I wear their clip on my shirt for the rest of the day so that everyone on campus can see how awesome they were. The positive aspect is the reason why I love my clip chart. Students would strive to get to rainbow and off-the-charts. My class last year would often tell me that I needed to wear a scarf the next day because everyone was going to make it off-the-charts. 

My school began implementing Conscious Discipline last year. I love the idea, and I feel that if properly implemented, a clip chart doesn't have to go against their principles. The battle continues. I just hope I can convince my principal next week.

Almost August?

Wow, time is really flying by! I feel like I was just thinking about how long I had until school starts, now it is almost August!

I have been working in my classroom little by little, and helping out at school. We are decorating our first and second grade hallway in a rain forest theme. Bulletin boards need murals painted, paper trees need to be twisted and attached to the walls, and who could forget? We need 550 green tissue paper pom poms to give a canopy effect.. There is a lot of work to be done!

My goal for this upcoming year is to be an organization queen. My husband is an organization king, so hopefully he can help out. I'll be starting my Masters a couple weeks after school starts, I will be grade level chair and serving on a couple committees, working on my TPT store, plus teaching. I have no time to be unorganized!

Taking a look at my home computer's desktop nearly gave me heart attack this morning. After a few minutes, I came up with this. Hopefully it will be the start of more organization to come!

Back in My Room At Last

 We finished school the beginning of June, and my principal stated that teachers weren't allowed back in their rooms until after the 4th of July. This have custodians time to wax the floors and forced teachers to take some down time. I was itching to get back, and I continued to work from home. 

Most of the furniture is in place. I am up in the air about desk arrangement. We're rumored to max out this year (30 students), and I can't decide how I want it set up. I did move my kidney table and my library, and I love the new spots for those!

I also received 2 new pieces of furniture that I'm excited about. I only have 2 small cabinets in the front corner of my room, everything else was stored on book shelves. I felt like my room looked cluttered because you could always see everything. 

I now have 2 of these lovely extra large filing cabinets, with 3 drawers and 2 shelves. They need lots of TLC and will be my project for tomorrow. I'm thinking of all the possibilities that the drawers hold! I know that I want all my construction paper and colored paper stored in hanging folders for easy access--that alone will save my sanity daily. 

I spent today working on a couple crafty projects. 

I read a super easy tutorial on whisper phones on TeacherificFun (http://teacherificfun.blogspot.com/2013/02/diy-whisper-phones.html?m=1 I can't seem to add a hyperlink right now, but I'll edit ASAP to add) and figured I'd give it a shot.

A trip to Lowe's for:

10 foot 3/4" PVC cut into 4" pieces (the guy looked at me like I was crazy when I requested 3.5" so I settled for 4) - $1.69

60 3/4" PVC 90 degree elbows - $13.20

1 roll of cute duct tape - $3.00

$17.89 total, brought them to about 60 cents each. Much cheaper than if you bought premade. 

The tutorial mentioned it being difficult to put the elbows on the pipe, but I had no problems at all. They popped on quickly, and I simply gave them a good squeeze to make sure they won't pop off easily. Putting the duct tape on took the longest. All together, I spent about 45 minutes to make 30. Not too shabby if you do say!

I'm hoping that if I emphasize the title, WHISPER phones, that my new lovelies won't shout while independently reading like some of my students last year. 

Like most teachers, I'm excited to save money. When I first started teaching, I bought tons of new hardcover books from Barnes and Noble, new toys/manipulatives/supplies, new decor, everything full price etc. Now that I'm married, my husband would have a heart attack if I spent that much money on my classroom. I still want cute stuff though, which leads me to my new philosophy... If I can replicate it, or something close to it, I will. 

I saw a couple very cute hall pass holders on Etsy, but they were 50 and 60 dollars! Ouch!  I shared them with my wonderful momma, who is very crafty. She offered to cut the wood for me, so long as I decorated. Yay! 

Here are my inspiration photos. 

 

And here's what I've started. I'll post more photos as I finish them. Tomorrow I'll add painters tape to chevron the passes and start polka dots on the header. 

My First Mississippi Classroom

I was lucky enough to get a teaching position in Mississippi while still in California (thank goodness for technology!). Knowing that I had a job waiting for me made the transition a lot easier and less stressful.

Unfortunately, we didn't arrive in Mississippi until shortly before the school year started. Thank goodness I have such a wonderful husband who was willing to put in as much work as necessary to make my classroom ready.

Above is a picture of what my classroom looked like when I first saw it. The teal walls and windows were amazing, but there was a lot of work to be done. The walls needed to be spot painted, everything needed a good scrubbing, and I needed a teacher's desk! I've never been one to sit at my desk during the day, but I do like a little bit of reprieve after school.

We have a wonderful custodial team who found a desk by the dumpsters. After seeing all the sanding and painting my husband had done, they thought we could do some magic with this beauty. It had seen much better days!

Now, what could we do to really make it pop? We didn't have much time. I was already into professional development days and Nathan was getting ready to go back to work. I don't know where the idea came from, but then it hit me. I love fancy duct tape, and I had some funky fabric to match the teal in my room. With a few hours from my wonderful, amazing, fantastic husband... Ta da! He did such a wonderful job. This desk will go with me when we move.

With a whole lot of love, this was the final result.. (at least for the first couple days of school, when I started moving things around again).

It is lacking storage and a dry erase board, but it is so bright and colorful. There are some big changes in store for this upcoming year. Luckily, the school is closed to teachers for the entire month of June, but come July, I'll be working away at making an even more awesome room.

A Year Already?

My last day as a California teacher was 369 days ago. When I found out that we would be moving to Mississippi, I knew that I was in for a change, obviously. I didn't know how big of a change until the year really started rolling. I need to write a book with all the stories I have in my bag now!

This blog will be a mix of my teaching life and my dabbles in cooking and crafts. I can't wait to share our adventures with the world!