Welcome to Summer Edition {Five for Friday}

This was my first full week of summer!! I wanted to stop in with a few picture updates of what I've been doing this week! 

Head over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and join up! 

Just call me the bag lady. My cousin and I started up a Summer Food Program for our community last year and we kept it going this year. Churches from the area pick a week to sponsor and they provide nonperishable breakfast and lunch items for the week in these grocery bags. The bags are picked up at specific locations on Mondays. This past Monday was the first drop off of the summer! I'm so thankful God has blessed us to continue this ministry! 

Let the summer reading begin!! How could someone have been reading this series since the first book came out 20 years ago?!!? I would've gone crazy by now wanting to know what happened. Thankfully I just started reading a couple years ago, so the wait wasn't too bad. Any Outlander fans out there? 

I decided on a theme for my classroom next year! Aren't these crazy bug by From the Pond adorable??

I'd already been thinking theme and this was on sale Tuesday and I just couldn't pass it up. Good thing I've got a start on it now because I have plenty of work ahead of me with the grade change. 

I also made a little trip to the teacher store to pick out borders to match the bugs. I decided to go with a double border (the blue has polka dots). I plan to use purple, orange, yellow, and pink for accents. I already have a lot of blue and green in my classroom, so I thought it'd be easy to work these in. 

The bestie and I had a little shopping trip to kick off the summer. Isn't she just rockin' that hat?!

She helped me shop for the summer food program (my church sponsors next week). 

We went to Sam's Club, so I had to check out the school supplies. I got 200 laminating pouches for $20.98 and 200 sheet protectors for $9.98. Pretty good deals I thought and that'll get me started on a few other summer projects. 

Ever wonder about color printing at an office supply store? I had all this printed this week. Check back tomorrow for a post all about it! 

What have you been up to this week? 

What Worked and What Didn't... {End of the Year Reflections}

One of my favorite parts about the end of the year is getting the chance to look back and reflect on what activities and things I really liked and what didn't work as well as I'd hoped. It is a chance to get new ideas, adapt old ones, and start getting excited about next year!

I decided to join up with Teaching in Room 6 to share some things that worked and didn't work for me this year! 

What Worked....

Interactive Notebooks

Love, love, love these! I can't say enough good things about them. Since I taught 3 ELA classes I basically used these to replace my anchor charts and the kids referred to these more than they ever did anchor charts! And they love looking back through the books to remember everything we've 

learned. 

Scoreboard

My students and I love the Whole Brain Teaching Scoreboard. You can read more about how I use it in this post. 

What Didn't...

Vinyl Numbers on Desks

As you can see these were just too great a temptation to pick at. Besides looking back now, we just never really utilized them as a way to keep up with seating. Therefore, I don't think I'll use these again next year. 

Voice Level Chart

I love this concept, but I just couldn't remember to actually use the chart. About a month into school I overheard some students talking about how I never change it! LOL I took it down not long afterwards because they were certainly right! 

What worked for you this year? Anything you'll do differently next year? 

Big Changes are Coming!!

I'm going to be teaching first grade next year!!!! 

I'm so excited about the opportunity to teach a new grade level next year. I can hardly wait to start planning and decorating my classroom. 

I did ask to be moved, so it didn't come as a big surprise when I found out I would be switching grade levels. I have only ever taught 4-6, so this is going to be a big adventure for me!! 

First grade just adopted the Journeys reading series and we have a meeting on that tomorrow. I'm anxious to dive into that and see how it is going to work for us. Anyone use Journeys? What do you think? Do you have any favorite bloggers or TPT sellers that have good ideas to go along with Journeys?

I wanted to leave you with a few snapshots from the last week or so. We powered through two weeks of standardized testing and then one last week of fun in the classroom. All the while I was trying to wrap up the normal of the end of the school year stuff and try to pack my room for the big move. Needless to say summer break couldn't come fast enough!! 

On the first day of packing! I thought I would go crazy because I can't stand a mess or not knowing exactly where everything is! 

I was so excited to get to stick my new room number on my furniture!

Jenga anyone? Throughout the packing process I learned that I love plastic storage containers!! I cannot buy more, I cannot buy more!

Happy Monday friends!

Student Grading Helpers {Tried it Tuesday}

This week I had one of those wish-I'd thought-of-this-earlier moments. With 13 days left I guess it's better late than never! 

I have one class in particular that is very talkative. There are also a lot of quick workers in this group, so that makes for a bad combo sometimes. 

Yesterday I wanted to do a cut and paste activity and give immediate feedback since we are reviewing for our SOL test. I used a highlighter to check the first finisher's paper and then gave them a highlighter and let that person check the next paper and so on. 

Everyone was busy, either working or checking, and only people who were quiet could check another paper. It was a win, win! 

That's what I tried this week. What have you tried? Head on over to link up with Holly.

Virginia Bloggers Appreciate Y-O-U!! Blog Hop

Welcome to Virginia!

Virginia Bloggers Appreciate Y-O-U!!

Thanks to Andrea from Reading Toward the Stars for the cute graphic! 

A lovely group of Virginia bloggers would like to show our appreciation of you by extending a bit of southern hospitality. You can follow along the blog hop to visit 15 Virginia teacher blogs for terrific teaching tips and fun freebies to help get through the last couple of weeks before summer break. 

I don't know about you, but this time of year I could always use a little extra motivation! I always try to post an inspiring quote on my door, so I thought make a set of inspirational posters for everyone! 

Click on the image below to download 7 printable posters.

I hope the posters bring you a smile in these last few weeks of school! 

Thanks for stopping by. The next stop on the hop is the fabulous Carla from Comprehension Connection. 

Happy Hopping!! 

May Monday Made It

First off, let me just say that I made it a whole week without a computer!! That was an accomplishment and turned out to be a nice break. Break time is over, the computer is fixed, and I'm back in the blogging world to link up with 4th Grade Frolics!!

Remember that fabulous trip to DC I took a few weeks ago? And I took a trip to the Container Store *angels sing* well I found this little tote/box thingy and it was just what I'd been looking for!!

If my kiddos don't do their homework they take it outside on a clipboard and finish it during recess. I needed a way to keep all those papers, pencils, and clipboards together and this fit the bill. I also use it for library books on Fridays! 

Gotta love a little vinyl from the Silhouette!! 

At home I've been working on painting and decorating the island from last month's MMI. 

I've been hoarding some of these treasure for years just waiting for the right place and I've finally found it!! Yay!! 

Thanks, Dad!! 

What have you been making this month? 

Don't forget about the big TPT sale happening May 6 & 7. Click the button below to shop my store!!

Thanks to Jen Jones for the adorable graphic! 

Five Favorite Test Prep Tools {Five for Friday}

Testing season is upon us. I don't give my test until May 27, but we've already started preparing. I thought I'd link up with Doodble Bugs Teaching to share 5 of my favorite test prep tools. 

Task cards are my favorite way to review. There are so many ways to change up the way you use them and it gets everyone involved!

I have found this workbook to be a very help tool. It has some great example questions that seem to really align with what our SOL test looks like. The lessons in this book are leveled, so each skill has three different lessons with varying abilities. 

White boards make anything better!! 

Have you heard about this great site called Starrmatica? It is a paid site, but it has some great practice. My school just purchased a license that runs all the way through next July and I'm so excited about getting to use this in the classroom. It's nice for the kids to be able to hear and experience the material in a new, fun way. 

Right now I am mainly using the site during after school tutoring. 

Some days there are no other ways around it. I have to stand in front of the class and discuss multiple choice questions. Boring. People are falling asleep. A few weeks ago I wrote about how using these answer cards made it a little more interactive for the kids. I decided it was time to jazz up the cards a little bit too. You can click here or on the picture above to download a set. They will be free until Monday morning!! 

What are some of your favorite test prep materials?