Job #1: GET ORGANIZED!

A couple of weeks ago when I started this blogging journey I wasn't sure exactly what to expect.  What I've come to find is that one thing it does is make me accountable.  I wrote a blog post about things new teachers should and shouldn't do.   One of the things I put on the list was be organized.... ummmm if you've met me you know I'm not the best at this. So how could I possibly be telling people to get organized if I wasn't myself! So this led to my first job in my classroom to get ready for back to school.  GET ORGANIZED! While I wasn't really excited about this, the more I did the more excited I got because I realized just how much easier things would be! The first step for me was my cabinets.  I needed to go through them and get rid of anything I hadn't used in the 3 years I have been in this classroom. When I first moved to this room I did a MAJOR purge to get rid of some of the cabinets that I didn't want, but I still had more I could get rid of. Some of those, oh that's cute... I'll use that, but never did, type of things.  

I have this GREAT wall of cabinets above my cubbies! I love them, but they needed some work! I also have three of these hideous lovely, orange cabinets.

Here are the before pictures of a few cabinets. 

EEEKKKK!!! I'm embarrassed for everyone to see those hideous things! 

There are four simple (but they'll take a while!) steps to get organized.  

1. Buy some sort of containers to put your junk supplies in.

The day I started working on organizing things my mom and I headed to Wal-Mart and Dollar Tree to find some boxes to help with the organization of these cabinets. I found some cute colored boxes and clear boxes at Dollar tree and some large crayon boxes at Wal-Mart. I had several baskets and such at school as well.  I knew I wanted mine to be able to stack so I bought ones with lids. 

2. Pull EVERYTHING out!  

In order to go through your cabinets and get rid of things and sort you have to know what is there.  I started with my art cabinet. I knew I wanted to use the colored boxes in this cabinet so I laid them out on the table and began to organize items into them as I was pulling them out of the cabinet and also making a trash pile and pile for other teachers to go through (we are big on digging through each others discarded things at my school. haha). Here is the finished cabinet! My new teaching partner with my mom and I was also the girl who covered my maternity leave and was very organized... she was impressed. :) She noticed the labels first thing! 

 Art supplies on the bottom, puzzles in the middle and yarn/balance/and screening materials on the top. Colored boxes are from Dollar Tree.


I continued this process for the rest of the cabinets I wanted to go through. Putting like games, and products together.  Games from TPT don't come neat and organized in a box (but I love them still!) so I needed to find better organization for them. I also had some things that could come out of the box, or be combined into another box. 

It gets worse before it gets better....

 

3. Throw out old junk!

Most of us aren't the first ones in our room going through only our things.  There have been SEVERAL people in this room before me. So not only am I going through junk I've accumulated, I'm going through theirs as well.  If i haven't used it in the past three years I've been in this room I threw it out (ok maybe not everything.. but lots!). Yes we have good intentions for the 80 baby food jars our cousin gave us, or the 32 egg cartons but really?! Are you going to use it!?

4. Put it alllllll back!

So after you have done 1-3 you're ready to put it all back.  Figure out how you want it put back.  I organized by cabinet; language arts, word work, books (not pictured) math, art supplies etc. I also added labels (also, not pictured!) so that I would know what was in each tub that I couldn't see directly into. 

The finished cabinets

 Puzzles and art supplies

 Word work cabinet

Language arts centers

Math centers (and a few language arts that didn't fit in the other cabinet!

More math centers/supplies. 

Games and individual CD players/ headphones.

Colors materials on top shelf, stamps/foam and Mailbox magazines in the middle, Whisper phones and crayons on the bottom.

This large shelf holds all of my math manipulatives so they are easily accessible for me and my class.  Clear boxes are all from Dollar Tree. 

I also took pictures of each cabinet and made a list to keep in my plan book so I can refer to what I have while I'm planning because it never fails... I always forget the perfect game that would have gone perfect with our topic! 

My desk/table area was next on the list.  I don't have a before picture because it all had to be shoved into a cabinet put away before summer break, but here it is ready for the upcoming school year! I bough the wire rack at a teacher sale, (each self is going to have days of the week binder clips, with the bottom being extra supplies or for the next week.) the silverware dividers at Shopko, and lamp at Dollar General. Be looking for a blog post around the first of September for a look at my WHOLE room and NEW blog design!! I cannot wait!

Must Read Monday: Rhyming

Linking up with Kindergarten Planet and The Kindergarten Connection to share my list of Must Read Monday books.  This week's category is rhyming.  I love rhyming! I sometimes struggle with how is the best way to teach rhyming, but I definitely love reading books about it.  I have picked 4 books that I enjoy reading that contain a rhyming aspect.  

1. Little Blue Truck

 This story could have also been on ,last week's link up for compassion. It is the story of a sweet little blue truck and his animal friends.  They help a dump truck even though he wasn't so polite. There is also a companion story: Little Blue Leads the Way.

2. Rhyming Dust Bunnies

  This story is just silly... and SO fun to read with a class. Dust bunnies are in a house filled with things that might get them, but one has some trouble with figuring out what it is.  Good story to make learning fun. 

3. Don't be Silly, Mrs. Millie! 

Mrs. Millie is the teacher we all wanted, and all want to be.  Her class loves her and she has a good time at school.  She says silly things like "Time to put on your goats and kittens!" To which her class responds with the correct "coats and mittens." Fun way to get students excited about rhyming.

4. Fox in Socks

I mean really, what kindergarten teacher doesn't love this book?! It's my all time favorite Dr. Seuss book and while it's definitely a tongue twister I always look forward to reading it. and did I mention it has rhymes. :) 

Join the link up next week! Here is a list of future Must Read Monday topics!

Spotlight Saturday: A Differentiated Kindergarten- Dramatic Play

 It's Saturday.... Spotlight Saturday with Erin from Kindergarten Dragons! So excited to do this post and really do some tpting and pinning research about Dramatic Play.  I'll be honest... I have a secret board on Pinterest board for Dramatic play I want to do in my classroom this year.  I know I won't be able to do all of them, but I can dream! I made it secret so that if I didn't manage to get it all done I would be the only one that knew... until now. So now I have people to keep me accountable (that's you!). In all my "research" I found a few pins that led back to Marsha at Differentiated Kindergarten.  Her philosophy is EXACTLY what I'm trying to do in my classroom: Create a fun, engaging, developmentally appropriate classroom.

My plan is to do around 10 different dramatic play spots. They will be put out at the beginning of a unit and will stay out until that unit is over (3 weeks).  There are a couple of ideas I have that will only be out 1 week because they go only with the topic of that week.  The play area will be used as a center 2 days per week for three weeks and also as a Friday Fun spot.  

So here are my projected Dramatic Play Areas: 

- Birthday Party

-Construction Site

-Travel Agency

-Entomologist Lab

-Pizza Parlor

-Flower Shop

-Farmer's Market

-News Room

-Pet Store

-Space

-Recycling Center

-Science Lab

-Bakery

I told you... Big ideas! However, I'd rather start with big ideas and not be able to accomplish them all than only have a few planned and wish I had done more.  I'll DEFINITELY be posting about how I'm using this in my classroom this year so stay tuned! 

Washi Tape Crayon Caddy

When you walk into a kindergarten classroom most of the time you'll see a theme of Dr. Seuss, monkeys, frogs, etc. to make it a kid friendly space.  However, in my classroom I hated doing a theme.  I got sick of it after a few years and had to buy EVERYTHING new.  After doing that a couple of times I decided I wanted my classroom to be a place students loved, but also a place I loved to spend time (since we all know we spend way more time than 8-3!) So I started doing a more mainstream look in my classroom.  I use black and primary colors.  this way if I want to throw in some fun things I can, but don't have to redesign my whole classroom. 

Anywho, I wanted something to house my crayons and found this project.  SUPER cute and I was very excited to try it since I was sick of having all of my crayons just dumped into a storage container for kids to sift through.  But the more I thought about it I just couldn't decide if that was the design I wanted.  Then, I was given 10 rolls of WASHI TAPE! The rest is history! 

The start of my project! I bought two different drawer sets because I knew I would be ok putting a few colors together. 

Above are the 10 Washi Tapes I was given.  I knew I wanted to use some of these but not all. So that called for a trip to Hobby Lobby!  Below are the items I got there: Washi tape (came with two rolls), labels, and paint pen. 

I just started at the top and worked my way down! I wasn't careful about the edges at this point.  Make sure when you're putting it across the little dip in the middle of the drawer you pull up the tape and press it down. Don't just pull it all the way across then press it.  I tried that and it kept popping up in spots. 

 My hubby was nice enough to cut the edges so they would look nice! 

Here's the finished product! I love, love, love it! Perfect for kiddos to access new crayons but pretty enough I want to look at it every day too! 

Shop til you drop!

One of my favorite back to school activities is shopping with my mom, who also happens to be my grade level partner.  We get along great and it gives us tons of time to collaborate out of school too.  For the past three years we have made a pilgrimage trip to Lakeshore. We were BEYOND excited to find out there would be one less than 2 hours away from where we live.  

Isn't it pretty!?

Here is part of my haul.... 

This year our trip had a couple other stops and my 4 month old was a real trooper! He was in a good mood the WHOLE day!  

Our first stop was Staples for some great deals on composition notebooks, crayons, folders, Post-its (all different sizes!!) and Sharpies. 

Next we headed to lunch at a local Pizza place and tried their bacon and Gouda  pizza, and Margherita pizza.  They were DELICIOUS! 

Next came the lovely Lakeshore store that is just so full of fun things and good deals.  I love going there because I can actually see what things look like instead of just looking at a catalog and having to guess. In my cart at Lakeshore was: All About Me charts (I'm planning on doing a student of the week with them), number line, Velcro tabs, Happy Birthday stickers and certificates, Holiday stickers I plan on using with my  new calendar folders (I'll blog about that later this year!) and money stickers, and 5 storage tubs (yellow, orange, red, blue, and green: I'll be using these for supplies) and to tie it all up they give away a free plan book with a 20 dollar purchase! 

Our next stop that day was a teacher sale. I found out about it through Facebook when the Here we Grow Again group had a kids sale this spring.  They then advertised that they were having a teacher sale (teachers can sell their things for profit!) and I won pre-sale tickets! Meaning my  mom and I got to go the night before it was open to the public.  Lots of stuff and lots of people in a small building (while carrying a baby in a pouch) made for a hard time looking through things but I still managed to come away with some great things for cheap: road rug ($9), metal shelf ($5), cash register ($7), clear binder sleeves ($2), and 4 paper punches ($8). 

We then headed to Target for our final stop that day. I came away with two pocket charts, a Crayola colors game and counting cards, Popsicle stick colors, Crayola colors book, Tropical Flair pens, and two sets of lights (don't ask me where I'm going to put those :) Wrapping up our day and getting us home at 10:00 when we left at 11:00. Needless to say we aren't fast shoppers. 

The following day I knew I wanted to work in my room and would need a few more things before I could get started (I know, I know, how could I possibly need more! but I did.) So we headed to Dollar Tree, and Wal-Mart.  

Dollar Tree Haul: 20 (or so) colored/clear shoe boxes for storage, 2 red and 2 orange tubs. 2 red/blue/green containers with lids, 1 lanyard, 1 teacher notebook, and 10 photo albums. I have ideas for all of these too!

At Wal-mart I got a crate to make a Sub Tub, 20 mini crayon boxes, 3 large crayon boxes, more crayons, green and blue plastic folders, Ticonderoga pencils (pre-sharpened) and Astrobrights paper for back to school flip books.

Overall I am VERY pleased with my purchases and writing this blog about what I bought reminds me of how much I have to do, and how much I have to share with everyone about my ideas! So stay tuned so you can see what I do with everything!