Classroom Tour {A Classy Cruise}

I'm linking up with the great blog, A Class*y Collaboration, for A Class*y Cruise Around the Classroom. Head on over to check out all the great pics of everyone's classroom set ups!

Here is a shot of the front of my room. Pretty standard stuff. I'll add my student names to the wall all the way over on the right once we get our class numbers given out. 

We use the space in the front of the room for our read aloud area. I still don't have a rug because I can't find one I like!! Yikes! 

Here is a view of the window side of the room. I pretty much kept the same decorations I had going from last year. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! 

The back of my room. This is how much I love you all....I am willing to post picture of all that "junk" on top of my cabinets!! One day I will tackle that stuff! For now, it's mostly out of sight and out of mind. 

Finally, the best part - our library. We've got the tree waiting for leaves and the curtain rods waiting for anchor charts. 

I always hit my head a million times on that gigantic TV on the wall!! 

Have you finished your classroom? Care to give us a peek? Head on over and link up!

Back to School Edition {Five for Friday}

I've survived the first two days of school and made it to another Five for Friday linky with Doodle Bugs Teaching.

1. I'm pretty sure this says it all. How can back to school make me so tired!!

2. Have you tried Discovery School Puzzlemaker? I got a great tip about it from my teaching partner and used it to create a word search using all of my kiddos first and last names! It made a great activity for morning work on that first day! Click the picture below to check it out.

3. I finally got all the labels on my bookshelves. I've tried book bins before and they just weren't for me. My students had a difficult time choosing books and I felt like the books weren't used as often as they should be. Now I just use a sticker to label all of my books by genre and I used some vinyl to label the shelves. 

4. I love trees, so I was excited when I saw this pin that used leaves on the tree to document the books read together as a class. I knew I had to do this in my room, so my tree is up and ready to go! 

5. If you teach multiple classes how do you display anchor charts? I saw this post about using magnetic curtain rods on a chalkboard, so I got 3 rods and used command strips to stick them to my block wall. I'm just not sure if this will be a good system for me. What have you tried? 

4th Grade Back to School Plans {Tried it Tuesday}

Good morning everyone! I meet my students at our orientation today and I'm so excited to see them all! I wanted to link up with Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper to share all my "tried" and true back to school plans as well as a few new ones I plan on using this year! 

I think the first day is so important to set the tone of the class for the rest of the year! I make sure I spend this time working on getting to know my students and sharing my expectations with them. Starting the year out right can make such a big difference!

Warm Up

As students come in they find their seats and have a warm up waiting on their desks. This is usually a back to school themed word search. I want to make sure this first activity is something ALL of my learners can be successful at and enjoy!

First Read Aloud

Read early and often! My first read aloud this year will be First Day Jitters! I'm always excited to share this with my students.

During the big teacher appreciation sale at TPT I purchased this Fabulous Back to School Fun pack from Fourth and Ten. It is 50 pages of really AMAZING back to school activities! I was so pleased with this purchase and I plan on using several of the activities on the first few days of school. Here is what I've chosen to use on the first day of school: 

All About Me Tees

Top Ten Things About Me

Time Capsule 

These will be great independent activities for my students to work on while I catch my breath take care of supplies, housekeeping, and paperwork that seems to take forever on those first few days! 

Community Building Graffiti 

During our rules review I will jot down some words and key phrases the kids usually use. You know, the words kids have heard their whole school career - responsible, respect, manners, kindness. Maybe you would choose different words - it just needs to be something you want to focus in on. 

I write these words on letter size paper and put students in as many groups as I have words. I give each group a certain color marker and one paper. Groups write down what being responsible would look like, sound like, etc. Each group takes 3-5 minutes with each sheet to write down as many new ideas as they can. 

When we get finished with the activity I read aloud all of our ideas and then I post them in our room. It is a great way to build community and have students actively talk about what THEY can do to meet my expectations. Best part - it's fun! 

Friend Venn

This one is one of my all time favorite activities! I randomly pair students and have them talk to each other and use a venn diagram to record their findings. I model this activity with my special ed. teacher and I usually provide some question prompts. I learned from experience that if I don't model this students can get waayy off target with this one! 

While students are working together I like to mingle, ask questions, and take pictures of the pairs working together. I always post the diagrams and pictures together for one of my first student work displays. 

I don't know about you but I always feel like there is so much to learn about my students in those first few days, but it is difficult to remember it all. Having a few tidbits written down and displayed on the wall makes it easier for me to go back and reference when I have a free minute. 

Find Someone Who

I love this activity because it gets kids up and moving! It is also a great way for me to get in and mingle with the students in a more informal way. If you missed my post with this freebie a while back you can click here to download it.

I also plan on doing this activity from Pinterest. 

What is your favorite back to school activity?

Sign, Restroom Passes, a Calendar, and a Freebie {Monday Made It}

Happy Monday! I'm back at work today, but I've decided to make it a happy Monday anyway! I've been very busy creating and making things to get ready for the start of the school year. I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It to showya what I've got! 

I couldn't get past this quote and I had an extra canvas in the craft closet AND I was procrastinating, so I made this sign! 

I think it fits perfect on the shelf right behind my desk! I used my Silhouette to cut out the vinyl letters, spray painted over them, and then peeled 'em back off! It was way easier than I thought! 

Used some more vinyl to make these restroom passes. Am I the only person who had trouble getting the label to come off the bottle? I finally had to soak it in OxiClean! 

I made this calendar for my BFF, who happens to be a guidance counselor. She just moved into a new office and had some extra wall space, so I thought this would be perfect! 

Last, but not least, I made these great bracelet tags to give out at our Open House night. I made tags for PreK-6 grade. 

Want a set for your class? Just click on the picture to head over to my post from yesterday's VA is for Bloggers Blog Hop. While you are there click around to meet some other great VA bloggers! 

I'm going to miss my usual Monday afternoon sitting on the porch reading Monday Made It posts in my pjs! At least I'll have something to look forward to after work today! What have you created this week? 

VA is for Bloggers - Southern Hospitality Freebie Blog Hop

Hi everyone! It is a very exciting day - I'm joining in on my very first blog hop! A lovely group of Virginia bloggers would like to help usher in the new school year by extending a bit of southern hospitality. You can follow along the blog hop to visit 20+ Virginia teacher blogs for terrific teaching tips and fun freebies to help get your new school year off to a great start.

I've created a great Back to School freebie for grades PreK-6. Just print the tag, punch two holes, slide it on a glow bracelet, and let the fun begin! 

I plan on giving these out to the kids who come for Open House a few days before school starts. I think it'll be a great way to get them excited about coming back to school and create some buzz about the new year. 

These were actually tested by a 4th grader and 1st grader and were deemed "cool", so that's a go in my book! The best part about these: the Dollar Tree sells packs of 5 and sometimes 7 glow bracelets! That makes this a very low cost B2S treat! 

Just click on the picture below to download the freebie! It contains tags for grades PreK-6, so just print what you need. I printed mine on neon colored cardstock to match the bracelets. 

Head on over to Teach Love for the next stop in the hop! 

Finally Five for Friday!!!!

It's baaacckk!!!! I'm so excited to be linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching's Five for Friday this week! I've really missed reading all the posts from this great linky party! 

Here is a little peek at what I've been doing while I frantically get ready for the school year. My students come back next Thursday!!  

1. Any fans of You've Got Mail out there? My favorite part from the movie is when Tom Hanks says fall makes him want to send a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils! Well, because I have an awesome sister I got a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils delivered to school back when I first started teaching! When I pulled it out to put it back up I just knew I had to share it with all my blogging friends! 

I think it looks good to be about 7 years old! 

2. Speaking of sisters, have you tried the new stickers on Facebook? My sister and I are obsessed. Sometimes we have whole conversation that are nothing but stickers and a little bit of commentary thrown in! 

This was our recent conversation when we discovered a long awaited book release has been pushed back yet again! There is nothing like laughing with my sister -we share a sense of humor all our own! 

3. Created this bulletin board/door decorating set for B2S. Really excited about having my students write about their favorite books on little caution signs! I plan on using this to decorate my door. 

You can click on the picture above to see this set in my TPT store! 

5. Saving the best for last. Where have I been all my teaching life?!?! How did I not know the amazingness of putting fabric on bulletin boards. I just got mine all put up yesterday and I am in LOVE!! I just keep staring at the mostly blank boards! haha Oh, the things that make teachers happy! 

What have you been up to this week? 

Clock Buddies {Thursday Throwdown }

Hi everyone! Today is my first day back at work! I'm excited to get the year started and look forward to seeing my teaching friends. Today is a special treat because we get to work at school ALL day without meetings! I don't know about you, but for me those inservice days before school begins are always packed with meetings! 

I'm linking up with I'm Lovin' Lit for Thursday Throwdown. This once monthly linky is for us to share ideas on how we make the classroom more interactive for our students. 

I like to have my students work with partners often! We will work with a partner at least 2 times a week and usually more often than that. I'm always looking for different way to pair up my students and one of my favorites is clock buddies! 

Students get a blank clock and have their classmates sign up for different times on the clock. Here is a picture from ReadingQuest.org of what a completed clock buddy sheet would look like. 

When it is time for kids to work with partners all you need to do is say find your 2 o'clock buddy and start working! It is so easy and saves so much time when pairing kids up! 

I like this method because it forces kids to mingle. Kids don't have 12 BFFs, so that means they aren't always going to be with the person they want to socialize with instead of work. Yes, there are always exceptions to this and some kids will socialize with anyone! 

This offers your students choice and there is always an element of suspense when I ask the kids to get their clocks. No one knows which time I will call! 

I got this great idea from a fantastic website called ReadingQuest.org. You can click here to go straight to the page that gives the scoop on clock buddies as well as the printable clock sheet I use in my classroom. 

If you haven't visited ReadingQuest.org before you really should head over and check it out. The site is labeled as being for Social Studies, but I've gotten some amazing reading strategies there!