Yes, David!

Two of my favorite books to read with my students the first week of school are David Goes to School and No, David! by David Shannon. 

The kids think that David is hilarious and cannot believe the things that he does to get in trouble.

These books provide a really great opportunity to talk about classroom and school rules. To go along with our PBIS framework (Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports) we focused on how to turn "no, David" into "yes, David". I was really proud of how well they were able to think of positive rules to add to our "yes, David" chart. I made a cut out of David and had him hanging on one of the bookshelves when the kids came in. They insisted that we pretend he was a new student in the classroom and they even begged to give him a desk and chair. I asked them to help me come up with a chart of positive reinforcers to help David make the best choices at school. 

Here is what they came up with...

The students cut out and made their own David face to paste on their writing activity where they wrote their favorite "Yes, David" statement. 

Back to School

The last couple of weeks have been crazy preparing for school to start. We have hit the ground running and I am loving this year already! I wanted to share pictures of my classroom before the craziness hit as well as pictures from Meet the Teacher.

I had a table set up outside of the room for parents to sign in and grab a check list to make sure they didn't miss anything important. Here are the pictures of the other stations my parents and students went to.

#2 was a student information sheet - these let me know of any important medication, allergies, or illnesses the students may have.

 Station #3 - I left sharpies for parents to put their student's names on their binders and I also asked them to write their names at the top of our behavior logs before leaving them in the box. This saved me so much time!  

 Station #4 - Parents let me know how their child would be going home the first day of school as well as the remainder of the year. 

 Station #5 - I am so glad I had a form for parents to sign up to volunteer in our classroom. Almost every parent filled one of these out. One of my teammates made a slip of paper with instructions on how to properly sign up to be a volunteer in our district. 

 Station #6 - Parent Survey - This survey asked about the student's favorite subject, least favorite subject, something they do really well, and something they can improve on. 

 Station #7 - I set up a remind group for my class this year so I can easily send out text messages to parents to let them know when we have things going on in the classroom. Within a day I had 20 parents sign up to be in our group. 

 Station #8 - The students love getting to choose their own lockers and it was my hook to get them into the door on Meet the Teacher night. They so often hide behind their parents until I invite them in to choose their locker and most of them eagerly accept! 

Station #9 - School Supplies - I put out labels for students to sort their school supplies while their parents filled out paperwork. It is so much help to have these things sorted out when it comes to organizing and putting everything away. 

 Parent Treat - I found this for free on TPT and I thought it was an adorable way to thank my parents for getting involved in their child's education. 

Our school theme is superheroes so I thought this was a really cute idea to give the students as a gift at Meet the Teacher!

 I saw this adorable poem on Pinterest a couple of weeks ago and I stopped at Walmart on my way to work to grab some confetti so that I could make these for Meet the Teacher night. The poem tells the students to sprinkle the confetti under their pillow and it will help them sleep well and feel fresh and bright for our first day. One of my students told me today (on the third day of school) that he loves the sprinkles that are still under his pillow. 

 This year I decided to add an extra bookcase to the library and make it more closed in. My mother-in-law made us those adorable pillows. The kids have been asking nonstop when they can use them.

 Math wall - I will put strategies and vocabulary under the MATH letters. I love the shelf my Gramps built to give us more storage under the chalkboard. I bought Reagan Tunstall's STACK math centers and I look forward to starting those with my students very soon. I also downloaded that really cute new Calendar set for free from a teacher's blog and I love that I am now incorporating weather and base-10 blocks. 

 Here is what the room looks like standing at the door - I love that this is my home away from home and I am so blessed by the faculty, students, and parents that I get to work with.

My lovely team! Aren't our new faculty shirts the cutest? They say "I believe everyone has a superhero inside them waiting to be discovered."

A big shout out to Cassie Thompson at Adventures in Teaching for this awesome Meet the Teacher Pack! Get yours here!

After a twelve hour day I am ready for some sleep. Happy teaching! :)

My New Favorite Organizer

While setting up my room this last week I became overwhelmed with the amount of supplies I needed to find a home for at my desk. I have seen teachers use toolboxes to create awesome organization but I was not sure I wanted to spend the money or take the time to do this. I finally caved - and I am glad that I did because it only cost me $20! Props to whoever came up with this genius idea! I tried Home Depot first but they do not carry these in the stores. Thankfully Lowes came through for me because I was pretty determined to get this done. 

Here is what I purchased...for $19.95

You can check it out here.

I had some black spray paint left from my bookshelf project so I made use of it to spray the organizer. While I was waiting for it to dry I searched for free labels on teacherspayteachers.com and I found these cute colorful ones made by Melissa Mazur! I love that the labels are editable and I was able to choose what I wanted the 18 drawers to say. 

I am so happy with the way it turned out...and my desk feels so organized!

Happy organizing :)

Welcome to my class!

As my first summer as a teacher is quickly coming to an end I look back and realize how many things I thought I would have "plenty" of time to accomplish for this upcoming school year. Of course I waited until this week to start tackling this list so I have put in a ton of hours and I have to mention that I couldn't have crossed off so many items (seriously my favorite part of list making) without the help of a handful of awesome helpers! Here's a sneak peak of what we have accomplished this week.

My Door

-Our school theme is superheroes so I searched and searched until I found my favorite idea!-

Here was my inspiration...

Writing Center

Work on Writing is a part of the Daily 5 rotations that each student goes to everyday. My goal is to organize the room in sections for each subject. I bought the "write" cardboard letters from Hobby Lobby and spray painted them black. My dad delivered the desk from my old bedroom that my Grandpa made him when he was a kid AND he brought a cute lamp that he picked up at a garage sale for me. And I am really excited about the black paper organizer that I picked up at a garage sale for a few cents last year. My Gramps helped my spray paint the organizer and it will be the perfect home for all of our different writing prompts and construction paper. I am going to fill the bulletin board with examples of different things students can write (poems, letters, lists, recipes, etc.)

I love A Cupcake for the Teacher's "Writing Center Starter Kit!" that you can buy here.

Word Work/Daily 5 Clip Chart

Every morning during Daily 5 rotations I call my tables to go pick their rotation. The students know that only 5-6 can work on each rotation at a time and they must go to a new rotation each time. I decided to add stickers to my chart for the students to clip their clothes pin to. I cannot tell you how many times a student came to report that more than 5-6 people chose the same rotation. Hopefully this solves that problem. The students love all of the hands on activities found in this station. Although their all-time favorite is always being called to the horseshoe table for "Meet with the Teacher".

When the students choose to go to word work they are then given 14 options to choose from to practice reading and spelling their weekly sight words and spelling words. These activities range from simply writing the words with colorful markers to creating sentences using their words. I love that this gives the students hands-on practice and they don't even realize they are learning because they are having so much fun! I store all of the recording sheets in these file folders and the students do a great job helping me keep these filled.

I made matching labels for all of the manipulatives that go along with word work including stamps, beads, play-doh, wikki stix, dice, and paper clips. 

If you are interested in using this word work station in your classroom you can find it in my TPT store here. It is called the Sight Word Mega Pack. I have included the labels for the file folders, recording sheets for each activity, the labels for the manipulative buckets, and a slides to use each week with the Arlington ISD sight words. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my first blog post - I can't wait for the many more!