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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Open House Night

It's hard to believe that summer vacation is over for me!  I have spent the last several weeks getting ready for school and have been at school every night this week until about 11 p.m.  making sure things were ready.

I went back on Monday.  We had workshops all day. We have a new system called Infinite Campus that I was trained on this summer.  2 other girls and I had to train our co-workers how to use it during our workshop day.  I HATE speaking in front of people.  Thank goodness one of my co-workers did all the speaking.  She did great.   I got home and was getting my son ready for football practice.  I looked at my youngest son.  His eye was swollen!  I seriously thought it had to be a joke.  Goop was dripping from them.  They were watery.  I ended up calling the doctor.  I had to bring him in.  He had pink eye!!!  "Seriously?!?" was all I could think.  He wasn't sick ALL summer long and the first day I am back he gets sick!  I couldn't stay home because I had way too much to do.  Luckily my mom watched the boys on Tuesday.

Tonight was our Open House.  I found out about an hour before it that I had a new name on my list.  Thank goodness I checked my email or I would have been caught off guard with her. I was able to get everything ready for her.  I absolutely LOVE my class.  They seem like the sweetest group of kiddos ever!!!  If today was any indication of our year...it is going to be fantastic!  Every single one of these kids were so sweet.  I can't wait to spend the rest of the year with them.

I got everything in my room ready about an hour before our Open House started.  I was sweating as I was running around trying to finish everything!  I did it!  I work best this way too...right up until the end.  I got more done in the last hour than I did all day!   I am going to share some pictures that I took.  I still have to work on my desk area....but...I am happy with the way my room turned out.  I have NEVER had a theme or color them.  This year because of all you and your cute blogs and great ideas, I decided I'd try one.

 These are my new name tags!  They are from Really Good Stuff and they are AMAZING!  They are thick and they have an adhesive back. I didn't have to use contact paper and I didn't have to laminate them.  It took 5 minutes to slap them on my desks.  Never will I go back to anything else!

 
 This is my calendar area with my schedule posted.

 A view looking at the back of my room...

 Looking at the reading/meeting corner...

 Looking at the back of the room...

 My writing center...I still had boxes to put away...

 Looking at our lockers...

 Looking at the front of the room...

 My word wall, book bins ad sink area...

 Book bins with binders for morning work and poetry....

 Work wall....

 Birthday posters...

 Bins to put folders and library books in...

 Lockers...

 One blank locker waiting for move in students...

 Guided Reading corner...

 Crate stools...

 Meeting area....reading corner...I didn't finish labeling bins yet...

 My chair from Ikea...

The calendar...


I am happy with the way it looks right now!  It feels homey!

After our Open House I got to see the last half of my son's first football game. It was fun watching him play against another city.   It was hotter than blazed...close to 100 heat index.   Many of the school in Minneapolis are closed tomorrow and Friday due to the heat.  We are breaking records here and many of their schools are not air conditioned.  Yuck!

I hope you are all enjoying your first weeks with your kiddos.  :)
Sara

Friday, August 23, 2013

Five for Friday Linky Party August 23rd

I can't believe that today is officially my LAST day of summer vacation!  We have been so busy trying to get last minute things done.  This week we had doctor's appointments two different days...just to get all the back to school forms ready.  I have been in my room a lot trying to get ready.   I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for the Five For Friday Linky Party.

1.  My son started football last week.  He has practice 3 nights a week for 2 hours and games on Saturday.  I love watching him play...but wow...is it time consuming!  He had his physical today and is falling in the size range of a 15 year old...and he's only 11.  Crazy.  He's bigger than most players on his team.  :)  At 5 feet tall myself...he's got me beat.  

2.  I have been in my classroom a lot.  I made some fun read fans for my reading area.  I love how they turned out.

1.  I took some 12X12 sheets of paper to start.  The first fan I made was huge, so I made a smaller version using 6X6 sheets of paper.

2.  I rolled paper into cones.  I made 8 different cones for each of the three colors of paper that I used.  For the bigger fan I had 24 cones.  For the smaller fans I ended up with 6 different cones for the each of the 3 colors of paper that I used, totalling 18 cones altogether.

3.  I glued the cones into a circular shape.  After the first fan, I figured out that it was easier to staple them together and then glue a circle background on.



4.  I alternated colors and glued them together.

5.  I took some letters to match my room and glued them to 2 circles.

6.  I glued the circles to the middle of my fan.


7.  This one turned out HUGE.  So I made a smaller version below.


I loved how they turned out and how they look in my classroom.


3.  My son is going to be in 6th grade.  We had 6th grade orientation this week.  We spent a long time trying to figure out his locker combination.  After several attempts and a blister, we learned his locker is sticky.  He eventually got it.

4.  Companies to Classrooms is a place in MN where businesses donate items that they no longer need.  Teachers from certain school districts can go in and pick out 15 items per month to use in their classroom.  Each line on a piece of paper counts as an item.  Some items you can only take 1 of...and you write that on your line.  Some items you can take an unlimited amount of and that counts as 1 line.  I did pretty well on Monday and got some great things for my classroom thanks to generous people for their donations.

I got 75 binders.  I am going to be doing the Rise and Shine binders that you can find out about here.  I also got 100 pieces of big card stock for my Morning Meeting messages.

I got plastic envelopes that I will use for our sight words. I also got lots of stationary for our writing center.

Some of my items on the counter.


5.  I spent tons of time in my classroom this week.  I still have quite a long way to go.  I am feeling like I have a plan now.  :)

Items that I got rid of from my room.  I am a hoarder.  I admit it.  I have a problem.  All the things above were given to other teachers who wanted them.

I lowered the legs on my kidney table.  I put my new crate stools under them.

While lowering the legs on my table...I accidentally knocked it over.  It knocked all my shelves and containers over and created a mess.

I got my meeting area somewhat set up.

Baskets are ready for their round trip folders, library books and Monday folders.

I still have to get rid of the red containers and put my new containers on the shelf.

My book bins are set on the shelves.  I still need to label them.

I got containers for each group of desks.  I absolutely hate desks and have been begging for tables.  I feel tables create more of a sense of community.  Kids at this age have a hard time keeping things organized.  I am turning the desks backwards this year so they can't be opened.  All our journals and supplies will be kept in these bins that I have yet to label.

My writing area.  I still have to put charts up in the back.

My group meeting area - the reading board which is now finished.

I made some valances by using some cute scarves I found that match my classroom. I also made tissue paper pom-pom balls.

I still have TONS to do. I have lots of labeling yet and have to get ready for open house.  I'll be spending all day Sunday at school.

Finally, I wanted to share my winners of my giveaway.  I emailed everyone twice.  For some reason the emails did not send the first time.  After not hearing from anyone, I figured something went wrong.  Here are my winners at the bottom of this link.  Your prizes are in the mail!  Thanks for entering. Congrats!


Fianlly I am going to share two pictures of me and my boys.  I enjoyed staying home with them this summer and am sad that our fun has ended.
Us at the hospital waiting for my sister's kidney stones to be blasted.

We went to the MN Vikings training camp.  It was a great day!

Have a great weekend!  I hope all of you that are back in school are enjoying your classes.  I am exhausted and haven't even started back yet!
Sara