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

Getting Organized

Hi!  We've had some pretty uncooperative weather here for several days.  Luckily, I am not one of the 16,000 people without power until probably Wednesday.  I have spent lots of time indoors which gave me time to start and finish my classroom decorations for this upcoming school year.  On Friday I found this cute picture from Ikea.

I have fallen in love with it.  On Saturday I stopped at the Dollar Tree and found some bins that match the colors.  I am so excited to do a classroom make-over.  I designed some new things for my classroom to help me get organized and set up for the new year.  I intended to do only word wall words and then kept adding to it.

There are 500 of these words.  I also took the top 100 that our first graders are expected to know and put them in ABC order on an ABC border for my classroom. 

 

 After doing the word wall cards, I started making labels and decorations for my room that coordinated with my picture.  I love what I came up with and am so excited to get to school and redo my room.

 

There are 4 different frames like this.  You just need to snap your kids' pictures and attach them to this background. 

 

I then added table numbers to hang above my tables.  There are 7 in all.  Below are a few more sames of what I made. 

 

 

You can check out the rest of my pack here....

Get-Organized-Tons-of-Classroom-Labels-500-Word-Wall-Cards

 

I hope you are having a great day!

Sara

Classroom Decorations: Beach Theme

Last year a friend/coworker asked me if I would design some labels for her classroom.  Her room was a Hawaiian/Beach theme. I designed her desk tags and locker/book bin labels.  I just added them to my TPT store.  Her room was so cute and I was so jealous of it that I thought about doing it for my classroom this year as well.

 
 Name tags for Desk (with and without lines)

 

 ABC cards for walls....

 

 Word Word ABC Headings

 Greeting Cards to welcome kids to school

You can find them here:  Classroom-Decorations-BeachHawaiian-Theme

 

I am willing to do any theme.  If you would like me to make some for you...let me know your theme and what you want.

Sara