Grandparents Day & Living vs. Nonliving Things

School is in full swing....& I am TIRED!!!  I always forget how hard the first couple weeks of school are, but the kids & me are finally getting in our routine. With Grandparents day coming up, I made some writing templates and graphic organizers that could be used to write about Grandparents.  I can't wait to see what my kiddos write about their Grandparents. Click HERE to get this mini writing unit for yourself.

 

 

Since we are finally getting into our routines we will be starting Science soon!  Right now, I've been teaching some Social Studies...culture, custom, rules, etc.  You can grab that mini unit HERE for free.  Back to Science...next week I will be starting Living vs. Nonliving things.  I can't wait! I love this unit.  You can grab this booklet at my TPT store HERE.

 

Hope everyone has a GREAT weekend!! :)

My Classroom

Ok, here it is! My second home...

This year, I bought bookshelves for each of my tables.  So far, I love them!  We will see how they work tomorrow!  In these bookshelves I will store the "team" materials.  The kids will keep their math materials, crayons, scissors, etc, and will each have reading baskets where they will store their books and whisper phones.

This is looking at my room from the reading corner.

This is my reading corner/whole group area.  I just got a bigger rug, but don't have a picture of it yet.  We spend ALL of our time here.

This is still in my reading area.  I added BOGGLE this year, and I'm excited about the kids being able to choose to do this during word work.  You can also see my writing center...

 

This is my writing center.  I snagged this table for $5 this summer!  It reads "each day is a story". 

This is another table I painted a few years back.  This is my "thinking center".  I throw different activities in this center, like retelling stories, sequencing, etc.

This is part of my word work center.  These are actually two bookshelves put together.  They were really ugly and also the focus of my room last year, so I decided to spice them up!  I hot glued some fabric I had on there, added some cute flag border and bam!  The bookshelves are magnetic so the kiddos can make words on it.  LOVE!

I like to have carpet and lamps everywhere!!  It makes the room so much more homey!  Plus I love for the students to have different areas int he room where they can "buddy read" at the end of the day.  This is when they will need their whisper phones and book baskets that I mentioned above.

This is my new best friend! My rockin' behavior chart.  I got this guitar  idea from the inspired apple! 
I made fun little guitar picks with their names on it to move up and down the chart.  You can get these guitar picks for free at my TPT store HERE.  I can't wait to use this, this year!  I also made a packet of notes to send home that you can also check out HERE.

The front of my room/guided reading table. 

& lastly my awesome new milk crate seats I made.  I'm really excited about these.  I am going to have the kids store their guided reading books/materials in the drawers throughout the week.  That way I don't have to keep up with the books but can have them pull them out of their seat! :)

That's my room!  Hope everyone has a FABULOUS year!

Freebies!

I made a few freebies!!!!  Who doesn't love a good freebie?

The first item I made is a poster that can be displayed to help your students when they are engaging in partner talk.  Partner talk is EXTREMELY important! I have found that the kiddos learn SO much more when they do the talking opposed to me.  I got the idea for this poster from a math lead teacher who suggested making something like this so the student can refer to how to partner talk properly.  It is important, however, to model and practice this type of talking before students are ready to do this on their own.  Click on the picture to grab it!

Then, I made some fun writing folder labels.  I like to use folders so the students can take their work out, add more, etc.  I also like to put a lot of resources in their folder for them to refer to.  You can grab these free writing labels by clicking on the picture.  NOTE: I used Avery labels.

ENJOY! :)

Skippy- the take home adventure!

Who's ready for school to start back!?!?  I guess I am.  I'm really excited today because I found something I've been looking for and it is PERFECT!!!  To explain this new project, we're going to have to take a trip down memory lane....

When I was in 3rd grade I had the BEST teacher ever!!! Not only was she my favorite teacher but she was my neighbor.  She was wonderful & I loved school because of her.  Well, in 3rd grade we had a class pet and his name was Scruffy (he was a stuffed animal).  Every weekend she would let one of us (her students) take it home.  IT WAS AWESOME!  I loved getting to take Scruffy home.  Once I became a teacher I knew I HAD to do this in my room, but the problem was finding a cute class pet I wanted to use.  WELL look what I found...

Seriously!?! How cute, is this?  ANDDDD it was only 10 bucks! So, Skippy will be my class pet.  He will go home with a different student each weekend.  Skippy, the backpack, a Skippyjon Jones book, and a journal.  I can't wait to do this.  SO, if you'd like to jump on board I made the needed documents. To find this cute little guy go check out Kohls!  Click on the preview to get your own documents.  ENJOY! :)