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.