Spotlight Saturday

Phew! I don't know about any of you other teachers out there but I'm EXHAUSTED!  I have really challenged myself this year by revamping my whole curriculum to incorporate more play and sensory, new behavior management system, and new seating arrangement.  I went back to work after being on maternity leave for 6 wonderful months and trying to do it all is very tiring (especially getting a 2 year old and 6 month old ready each morning and out the door by 7:15) BUT I'm loving it!

That being said, I've taken a break from blogging for a few weeks but I'm back at it and glad to be linking up with Erin at Kindergarten Dragons for Spotlight Saturday! This week I'm spotlighting Pocket of Preschool's Question of the Day/Week.

I knew I was wanting to start doing a different way of taking attendance.  In the past I had a student be the attendance helper and they went around to check if everyone was there.  It just ended up being a social time for them, and not what I wanted.  So I put everyone's name on a label, girls went on pink paper and boys on blue, and they were then laminated.  I attached a magnet to the back and placed them in the bottom box on my chalkboard.  I made the boxes from Washi Tape.  Each question is placed in the top portion of the box and there are yes and no boxes as well.  As soon as students enter the classroom in the morning they put their bags up, grab their crayons and go straight to the board to answer the daily question.  Students have a different question each day.  We started the first couple of days doing color words and students caught on REALLY quickly! I even stopped answering the "What's the question today?" question, other students would pipe up and tell the answer!

I have bought all of the sets so if my calculations are correct I have 214 options for the year.  Since we go to school for 180 days I have more than enough options! 

Included in each purchase is a label for the bags/boxes you keep all of the pieces in.  You can also see on the top bags I have used small magnets on the back so they are ready to go.  I prefer the Lakeshore peel and stick magnets.  

Here is what my question of the day looks like.  Students come in and grab their crayon box and head up to the chalkboard.  Student names are kept in the bottom box (moved back to the bottom every day by my attendance helper), The question is housed in the top box and the yes/no boxes are in the middle. 

Most students don't have to be reminded to answer the question and often times it isn't me that does the reminding.  I was worried about having to read the question to each student but that hasn't happened.  I read it a handful of times as students are entering the room and those students that have answered then relay the message to students coming in later.  Since this particular question has dealt with counting I have had to help some students a little more than the previous colors question.  

All in all I'm loving this new portion of my day! It's a quick assessment too... I can tell who can count to 7, who needs assistance.... Who knows their colors, etc.  without it feeling like a test!

Winner Wednesday! Photo Album: Math and Alphabet

So excited to be linking up with A Dab of Glue will Do for Winner Wednesday.  I was thinking I wanted to giveaway some of my new products but wasn't sure how I wanted to do it and this is the perfect way!  So without further-a-do here they are! 

I am SOOOOOO excited about these products!  I saw in a picture (probably from PINTEREST!) someone was using a small photo album as a dry erase pocket.... and I thought GENIUS! So that is how these products were born.  Independent activities that students can do that can be reused.  Print multiple copies for small group use, individual copies for one student or have different books for different activities. I am already starting on my next set! 

Students can fill in the missing letter for upper and lowercase letters (right now I only have D'Nealian because that's what I use, but I'm working on Zaner-Bloser!) 

There are also 4 sets of alphabet pictures! Students can write the beginning letter for each picture.  I am planning on mixing up the pictures so students aren't just writing the letters in order! 

I also have Math Skills for the photo albums too!  These work on skills with numbers to 20. Except the 10 frame addition, that only works to 10. 

Fill in the number cards. 

Fill in the number of candies.

Draw the number of candies.

How many in the 10 frame.

Fill in the 10 Frame.

How many more to make 10? Addition cards.

I hope you all enjoy these products as much as I do! I am so excited to implement them into my classroom and I think the kiddos will have lots of fun with them too!  They will be perfect for centers or word work!

I will be giving away one of EACH product! So by entering your name once you have two chances to win! Good luck!!!

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Back to School Must Haves

 When I go shopping for back to school items there are certain things that are always on my list.  Here is my MUST HAVE list and how I use them in my classroom!

1. Post-its: This was the year of the post it in my room. I bought large lined Post-its, a 10 pack of regular size and two packs of the small! At first I thought I was going to use them in my planner (but I ended up with an AWESOME Erin Condren one!) So I think I'm going to have to come up with some activities that require the use of Post-its!  I'm also working on getting my principal to let me buy some large chart size ones! PLEASE!!! When I started this post I thought I was going to either have to beg or pay an arm and a leg for large Post-its for chart paper... Turns out WE HAD SOME IN A CLOSET!! NO ONE was using them so I get to! YAY! 

2. Sharpie Markers: I think this is probably a staple on EVERYONE'S list.  Nothing is better than writing student names with a fresh, pointy, black Sharpie. One of life's simple pleasures.

3. Crayon Boxes.  I started last year buying the smaller pencil boxes.  They take up less room in cubbies but still fit pencils and 24 crayons.  I like the smaller size this year because they are going to be in these boxes with scissors and glue as community supplies.

ugh... I know this is upside down but I tried like 7 times and it won't turn around! 

4. Folders: This year I decided I was going to have activities for students to follow along with during our calendar time.  (If you have suggestions leave them in the comments!!) I bought folders for that, sending homework back and forth and daily folder.  We were then informed that we are getting red Nicky folders this year! I've never used them, but I'm pretty excited to try them out! So I'm re-purposing my folders.  The ones I intended for calendar are going to be used to keep centers supplies if I want each group to do a different paper or activity.  Blue folders will now be our calendar folders and green will still be homework folders.

This one too!!! GRRRRRRRR.

5. Cardstock and Astrobrights: My brother (the tech guy at my school) could probably tell you exactly all the amounts of color ink I've used to print out awesome TPT products.  I love printing them on cardstock and laminating them to be used over and over!  Astrobrights are my new best friend.  I'm using them for my flip books at Back to School night and also for monthly newsletters (since I'm using my colored ink on all of my TPT products this makes them pop without using more colored ink!)

6. Ticonderoga Pencils: LOVE these pencils.  If you've never tried them... you MUST! I read in a Facebook group that someone was a pencil snob because they only allow these in their room ... me too! They sharpen sooooo much better than some pencils do.  The best part... I can spend a little more and buy them ALREADY SHARPENED!! No time spent fussing with the sharpener or blisters on your fingers to get 24 pencils ready for the first day. Yipee!

7. Erin Condren Planner:  Ok, this has never been on my list before but I can tell you this is most definitely going to be on there from now on (at least I think so).  This is my first year having my planner and just leading up to the school year I am loving it.  I have found a place to write in all of the important things I want to access while planning and I'm so excited to start using it for my daily plans.

8. Flair Pens: Confession.. These have never been on my list either, but (again) they will be on there from now on.  They write so nice! I love all of the colors and they look great too!

9. Washi Tape: I have fallen head-over-heels in love with Washi Tape. It has so many uses! I'm going to use it in my planner to separate months, planner to write down things that happen each week, on my chalkboard as a question of the day divider, and on my cabinet doors so I can easily direct someone where I want them to go. Pictures to come!

10. Color posters: These are new to my room this year and I love, love, love how they turned out! They are fairly low in the room so the kiddos can reference them in their writing! 

11. I know lots of teachers have these drawers in their classrooms.  I was always partially jealous and partially stupefied by these drawers.  I loved them but wasn't sure I had a place for them in my classroom.  However, this year I made a place! I got rid of my original word work space and these pretty drawers will be housing my word work options from now on! 

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love to hear all about your back to school must haves if it's not on my list! What should I look for? It's never too late (or early!) for back to school shopping!

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An InLinkz Link-up

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!