Five for Friday- Finally!

Okay, so no, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth or forgotten about my blog!  But the past two months have had a lot of important family events, getting started at a new school, and lots of weekends away, which needed to take precedence for a little while.  Here's what has been going on in my little kindergarten world! 

 

I am in LOVE with my class this year!  They are so well behaved and sweet, and I am definitely counting my blessings being at a new school and having them this year.  One of my favorite things about the new school is the science curriculum and having a little playground right outside our classroom door.  I have plenty of time allotted for our social studies or science lessons every single day and I am getting the kids outside as much as I can while it is still warm-ish.  They love our excursions, even if for the simplest things.  Here we are looking for signs of living things.  Look closely...can you see the ant?  They could- especially with those magnifying glasses, which make everyone a scientist!   

 A couple of pictures from our fire safety week...the fire crowns were a free download here  I stapled them to sentence strips and wrote their names on the back.

  

And I found this cute little fire truck shape activity here

My students LOVED this!  I had the shapes organized in piles and had them follow a model, pick out what they needed and tell me the shape before gluing it down. 

This month I was lucky enough to spend two weekends at two different beaches.  Beaches in the fall are gorgeous.  :) One weekend was my state's teacher conference.  I attended workshops on working with ELL's, a make and take foldable workshop, and one on questioning.  

But this was the most relaxing part of the weekend by far...

I spent Friday afternoon after school prepping these adorable little gifts for my students next week.  (No, I do not have only 7 students...these are only some of them!)  We have been singing the "Five Little Pumpkins" song every morning and when my teammate found these cute printables I knew we had to do them!  I also bought Pete the Cat's Five Little Pumpkins and we have read it in class to practice rhyming.  I found the pumpkins at Dollar Tree and printed the labels on orange cardstock.  They are stapled over snack size baggies. 

A Hallmark series about a teacher...what could be better?  Season 2 is out on DVD...so excited!!  Episode 1 is up tonight!

Have a fun Halloweeny week!

Five for Friday- Happy 10th Day!

It's been a long week- today is our 10th day of kindergarten!  Two full weeks is a lot for the kinders and their teachers.  Good thing we have a three day weekend so we can catch up!

We made this cute Kindergarten, Kindergarten, What Do You See? book last week, after reading the Brown Bear version.  I have always wanted to try a class book, so hopefully this is the first of more to come!  The link to a template I used is here if you want to try it too.

Have you seen this website?  If you've used it, what do you think?  It has saved my life on more than one occasion.  It has FREE, printable, quick and easy (but rigorous!) Common Core aligned activities.  They are great for small groups and centers.  I need to put it here and also bookmarked it so I can remember to go to it...often I stress myself trying to come up with activities or searching TpT for something.  I need to make this my first go-to!

Another website suggestion...my coworker introduced me to www.planbook.com and I am hooked!  If you are like me and struggling to juggle different required lesson plan templates into something that is streamlined, usable and reader-friendly,  it is worth looking into!  I will say, it is a lot of setup work, so I wasn't sure at first, but I just planned my second set of weekly lessons with it and it went much more smoothly and quickly! Right now, I'm running off of the free trial, but the subscription is $12 for a year which I think is worth it!  Your lessons save from year to year and you can "bump" lessons to other days or even years.  It has common core standards included so you can just check off what you need to teach and it prints out in the lesson plan.  I could go on and on...but it's worth a look! (nope, not getting paid for a review, I just really like it!)

I turned 27 this week and started the year right with some treadmill running! I'm gearing up for some fall 5ks and a 10k. 

I don't have any good munchies to share this week...I need to go to the store and do some decent snack shopping.  My lunches have been a little haphazard and crazy.  But here is a good sunset picture from an evening cruise that my sisters and I took last week!

Have a great Labor Day Weekend!

Five For Friday- Ready or Not!

It is Thursday night as I am writing this, and thinking back over the week Monday seems like months ago!  Most of my week was spent pulling my room together, and I am happy to say it is ready for our Open House tomorrow!  (Just don't look in the closets...) :) 

But first, before school stuff, it's been a pretty rainy and humid week.  I think this rainbow ended right in our field.  Can you see the double one behind it??? 

Do the trips to Walmart ever end???  My new school is 10 minutes from one, and that has already proved to be pretty dangerous.  

Here are some of my favorite little details in the room...

My ribbon curtain project was successful!  Although, I am not sure it was cost-effective.  It took about 6 or 7 rolls of ribbon in different sizes. 

My classroom library survived the move nicely.  Here are the first few bins I put out, along with my Laura Numeroff book friends purchased over the summer from Kohls!

My desk at the front entrance of the classroom.  I know it is kind of ridiculous to spend this much time on the teacher desk, but I figured if I was keeping it I might as well dress it up.  It added so much character to the room! (I played around with the idea of getting rid of the desk, but I'm going to work off of it this year and maybe take the plunge next year.) 

Thank you Kinder Craze for this cute idea!  They were so easy and are ready for Open House.  The glow sticks are from Dollar Tree...four in a pack and the ribbon comes with it! 

Snack of choice the past few days.  I am happy to report that chocolate is readily available in my new school.  :)  It has been showing up on my desk in one form or another all week!

I am so excited to meet my students tomorrow and get the school year started on Monday!  

A Perfectly Imperfect Classroom and Other Thoughts From The Week

I was not good about taking pictures this week, so this is not a Five for Friday, but I've got a lot of thoughts so I'm still going to reflect on the week.  

I have worked for only three days and I am already exhausted from taking in information from my new district and school and working in my classroom.  I have such a love/hate relationship with the whole classroom setup process.  I have to admit, I stopped looking at "classroom reveals" and reading blog posts because they are making me feel so overwhelmed.  My classroom will not be picture perfect this year but that is okay.  It's in a formerly open school, so one whole side of my room is a makeshift "wall" made up of a jumble of cabinets and bookshelves lined to separate my room from the hallway.  And the cabinets are stuffed full, so all of my stuff is currently sitting in the middle of the floor and covering every open table space.  Maybe one year I will get to stay in the same space and work out of organized cabinets.  I realized I was incredibly spoiled last year in a huge room with two large windows, two locking doors, and lots of bulletin board, wall and storage space.  This room will be different, but if I tackle the organization process in little pieces, eventually it will be fine, too.  

I've been catching a few of Sheila Jane Teaching's Periscopes once in a while.  Today (maybe yesterday?) she made a really sweet point about having an imperfect classroom.  I'm paraphrasing, but she said to remember what is on the inside that makes you a great teacher.  If you put me in a room with no color scheme or cute decorations on the wall, could I still be a great teacher?  I love having an organized, visually appealing, put-together room, and do strive for that (and boy does it make my job easier!).  However, I was hired to do this job because I'm a great teacher, not because I had a gorgeous classroom.  I think it is worthwhile for all teachers during this stressful time of year to stop and remember why we are great teachers!  It's setting an "infrastructure" of an ordered day and our personal connection with our students that truly matters. 

With that being said, there are a few positives and fun things I have been working on.  

1.  I have a tiny window in my room.  (One of the things I love about my new room is that it has an outside door that opens to a sweet little fenced in playground!  We can step right outside into it!) I am working on making a ribbon curtain for the window.  If it turns out I'll share a picture soon! 

2.  I looked at Sit Spots last year and ordered a sample but they didn't work on my area rug.  (I did end up using the sample for a little one who used it as a visual reminder of where to sit, even though it didn't stick to the floor.)  This year I have wall-to-wall carpeting and no rug, so I decided to get the Sit Spots.  I ordered apples to go with my theme.  I wish they were not so expensive however...$1.99 for a shape times twenty-ish students is a lot.  Additionally, I ordered 10 feet of the strips, which were cheaper.  I plan on cutting these apart to show students where to put their feet to stand in a line.  I learned last year that a huge part of kindergarten is managing spatial awareness!  If I can get them in a decent line before they even leave my room, our hallway behavior is much better. 

3.  Today's whole project was organizing my classroom library.  I love, love, love my classroom library.  It packed up nicely and survived the moving process in organized fashion.  I was able to add lots of quality titles to it today as I was sorting through what was already in the classroom.  

4. So far I love my new district and school!  

5.  Not school related...but I just finished reading Jennifer Fulwiler's book "Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It".  It had me in tears by the end of the book.  I'm happy that I was able to do lots of summer reading this year!  I have to remember to keep some good titles on hand to help keep some balance this year.  I used to read "Freedom Writers" to start off every school year when I worked with high schoolers.  This year I'm thinking about re-reading "Educating Esme" since I'm considered (and feel like) a new teacher again.  Any other fun (not necessarily PD related) teacher reading suggestions??? 

I'm off to celebrate a family wedding out of state this weekend, and will return refreshed to my classroom on Monday! 

My Printer Woes- An Update

So, my printer saga continues.  (The beginning part of my saga is here.)

I downloaded Adobe Acrobat's free trial.  Boy is that thing fun to work with!  (I apologize in advance to those of you who probably use A.A. all the time and are probably reading this with a slightly amused expression on your face.  I'm relatively new to this, so it was a novel experience.)  I was doing all kinds of things to my pdf file of classroom decor printables; adding, deleting, editing pages, changing colors and font sizes.  I was having way too much fun.

After I was pleased as punch with myself for getting it down to a very customized, nice neat file that contained everything I needed, and ONLY what I needed, I went to email it to Staples and realized it was 99 pages.  If I added just one more page I could get a slightly larger discount.  So I did.

Went to email it again.  Whoops!  It said my file exceeded the limit, even though it was less than half of what I started with.

Well, I said.  I have Adobe Acrobat now.  I will just split the files.

Four files later I began uploading each to a separate email.

Four HOURS later, one file was rejected, still being too big.  So I split it again...part 2a and 2b.  I don't even want to tell you how many versions of this one product I have saved on my computer by now.

 Today, when I checked my email and saw that one had bounced back for an "error," I called Staples.  After being on hold, the guy who answered the phone said, "Well I see the emails here but they aren't printed.  But there's nothing keeping me from printing them now."  (Okay, well print them now please?)  Then he said, "Oh, it's 59 cents a page.  Is that okay?"  No, it certainly was not.  This was comparable to my local print shop of 65 cents per page. When I asked why it was not the advertised website price, he said, "Well you can upload them to the website for that price, you know."

Sigh.  I told him to cancel the order.  I went back on the website (which was the initial very first thing I had tried, by the way) thinking that now since I had my smaller files, it would be easier to upload them.

Well, the Staples website won't take my files.  There are "errors."

I have ended up uploading all 100+ pages to my quick and friendly local print shop.  It took the entire single file in one piece in about five minutes.  They are quick, (albeit slightly pricey) helpful, not crowded, and I know they will be done and ready for me to pick up by tomorrow morning.

I felt better after I priced out some mainstream published classroom decor that I liked on Amazon.  When it is all said and done, minus my effort, the cost of the file, Adobe subscription, printing, and laminating will be slightly cheaper than the same premade pieces I liked (calendar, schedule cards, etc.)  And I'm pretty sure they will be sturdier.  And everything will be customized exactly how I want it.

Let's just hope my bank account will catch up at some point.  Oh yeah, and I'm out of internet data now.

T-3 days until I'm officially back in the classroom!

Five for Friday- Almost that Time!

So I don't have a picture for this, but a good part of the week was spent in some training workshops for my new position.  It's helping me slowly ease back into a school routine but I am feeling a little overwhelmed too!  Less than a week to go until I am officially back to work, and two weeks until the kiddos start.  (Sheesh...typing that out made me a little nervous!) 

I got some great deals at the TpT sale!  There were some things sitting in my wish list that I have been wanting...I finished off my Beginning Writers monthly prompts from the Moffatt Girls along with some other good buys!  

So now that the TpT back to school sale is over, it's printing and laminating time.  (Since this is Doodle Bug's linkup, I thought it would be fun to show these!  These are her Back to School Clip Cards .  I wanted to have them on hand for my Word Work station for the first couple of weeks.  I tried them out on our resident six year old and she loved them!)  

I don't currently have a printer that works with my new laptop, and getting stuff printed has been frustrating.  I purchased a classroom decor set that I am trying unsuccessfully to print.  I made the mistake of sending the clip cards to my local UPS store which charged an arm and a leg.  The closest Staples is about a 40 minute drive away, but much cheaper per page.  After trying unsuccessfully to upload the document to the website for a day, and then downloading the app which was supposed to be quick and easy but didn't work, I gave up and went into the Staples store myself.  There I was told to email the document.  So I did, and the Google Drive link wasn't working.  So I went home and sent the pdf as an attachment.  It sent, but after not receiving the confirmation email I went to my "sent" folder and IT IS NOT THERE.  I have no idea what happened to it.  I typed out all the pages I needed too.  It is a 200+ page document but I only want about 75 of the pages right now.  And when I called, the lady said "I think we have to print the whole thing, I'm not sure we can do that."  Now I can't figure out how to delete pages....any free application I try to open it with says the file is too large.  And the Adobe application I think I need costs $ to download.  Needless to say, it is SUPER FRUSTRATING!!! 

So if any of you more experienced printers out there know of some tricks for getting this done, please let me know!  I want to move away from thinking about the decorating for a bit and spend some time focusing on the curriculum and management piece before school starts, but I do want things looking put-together and organized!

OK that's all for my printing rant.  :)  I got new running shoes!  Well actually I bought them at a sale back in the spring but pulled them out this month.  My old Asics were black, which I think I liked better, but I do like the blue and pink combo on these. 

It's back to the chocolate this week (maybe due to my printer frustration!).  I think I consumed three or four of these over the past week or so.  I've noticed that there are these little Starbucks refrigerators popping up in checkout lines in the grocery store, Walmart, dollar stores, everywhere.  Which makes walking by without grabbing one almost impossible, especially on a hot day!  I have been trying to wean myself to the ones that are just coffee + milk.  I don't even want to know how many more calories are in the frappucino!

Five for Friday- On a Saturday

 

 

I would like to say I was busy on Friday....but, being that it is summer break and all, I really just lost track of the day.  ;)  So this is five for Friday on a Saturday. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just finished reading The Distance Between Us by Reyna Grande, and I would really recommend it if you have English language learners in your class, or if you work with them at all or know someone who does!  It brought me back some of my former ELL students' stories over and over throughout the book.  Some parts are a bit mature and emotional at times...her father is an alcoholic and becomes abusive, but overall it is a very real picture of the trials that an immigrant goes through.  I loved seeing how the author rose above her difficult situation to get to the place that she is in now.  It also shows the power of a positive teacher influence in a student's life. 

 

Saw Dustin Lynch and Josh Turner at an outdoor state fair concert this week!!! 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Ahem, okay, back to teacher stuff.  :)  I took the Periscope plunge!   At first I was a little overwhelmed by seeing yet another social media outlet to keep up with, but I also saw how great it could be for personal professional development.  So, I took the plunge.  I'm still learning my way around it, so if you know any great teachers to follow let me know!

 

 

Had some pool days this week...yay!  I go back to work in twelve days so I am enjoying the time I have left until then.  I finally decided on a classroom theme...we're going with Apples and Chalkboard...not any sort of premade set in particular, but I'm going to put it together using what I have. 

 

 

And, finally, my Friday food favorite...these lime popsicles!  It had probably been a couple years since I had a popsicle and this summer I have rediscovered them. 

Don't forget to scope out the other Five for Friday posts at Doodle Bugs Teaching!