Operation Clean Room - Day 3

So let me start by saying - I am much calmer... ok not completely but at least I am calmer. I got a lot done today with the help of my mom AND my grandma!!

All but one of my boards are covered... what a HUGE project that was and I think they look amazing. Of course I forgot to take pictures today, sorry, I promise to have lots of updated pictures tomorrow. My mom and I used liquid starch and fabric to cover my boards and I LOVE them... well, there is one board that I have a funny feeling I will be re-doing tomorrow. Unfortunately I think my peg board didn't take the fabric very well, the brown color from the peg board actually came through the fabric and changed the color of it. I used purple fabric and LOVE it, but I might just go get a nice brown, or black or dark blue fabric and try again! I'm going to see what it looks like tomorrow and then decide.

My grandma was awesome today and helped go through lots of bins in my large walk in closet... apparently I didn't purchase enough $1 shoebox bins from my local Dollar Tree (even though I did buy ALL of them!) So another trip to the Dollar Tree is in order ASAP!!! Right now all my bins still have post-it notes on them, but one day I'll make pretty labels for everything. I actually found really cute labels from Print Candee called Playful Polka Dots Labels (click the title to see them) that I think I'm going to use! I just LOVE these!!

You know its really funny, I planned on having a red, blue, green and yellow room --- but what did I do? I purchased a really nice purple fabric for my front boards and a pretty shade of green for my side boards! Umm, yeah, so I guess my color scheme is out the window!! Which is a problem because now I don't know what I'm going to do about decorating and the kiddies come Thursday.

Anyways, my closets are looking great - my big closet is about 1/3 of the way done. My furniture is finally where it belongs, but I think I want to purchase some shelf/contact paper to cover the tops of some of my shelves. They are looking a bit run down and since painting is not an option (and wont hide the chipped/splintering wood) I think if I can find some pretty contact paper to cover the older bookshelves it would make things look a bit more inviting!

My mom is very crafty so I'm trying to convince her to transform my "teacher" chair (which is really just a big kid chair) into a work of art - ok not really a work of art. I would love for her to make a slip cover for my chair and add a cushion to it... although if I make it too comfy I may never want to get out of it! But how cute would that look vs. a boring old "old school" "big kid" chair?!?!

Ok it's late and I should really be asleep since I have one last day to get my room ready - although my posters and charts aren't laminated yet, but hey that's what Tuesday and Wednesday are for right? Going in extra early, sitting through PD and working through lunch and a few hours after school! back to the old routine!

Stop by tomorrow to see the pictures of my almost finished room!
Don't forget to click HERE to visit my giveaway and win a fun clipboard!

Operation Clean Room - Day 2

As the hours and days are passing quickly my high hopes of a successful start to the year are becoming filled with high anxiety. I've never had to do so much work in my room before, I guess that's because I had been in my pervious room for 5 years and had plenty of time to make it my own... now I know what I want my room to look like so I want it done before school starts!

If you read my post yesterday you saw that my friend and I dumped neatly emptied three large closets in my room and started to put everything back inside. Today we went and continued to work on the piles of items all over the room. We did get a lot accomplished, but there is just so much left to still do!

This is what my closets look like now... the whole left closet is full of books! LOTS of extra books that don't fit into my library. I put the books into plastic bags and labeled them by theme/topic. Then I placed them into baskets by themes. Each basket has a large index card on the front listing what types of books are in each basket. I'm going to bring my label maker in tomorrow or Friday and make small labels for the front edge of each shelf to list what books are on each shelf. The baskets are two deep so it's hard to see whats in the back baskets - by adding the labels right onto the shelves everyone (that is any teacher that comes in to borrow books) will know where to look AND where to put things back! The very bottom shelf (currently blocked by one of my small kiddie chairs) has some of our assessment tools as well as our phonics program. The very top shelf is designated for my friends stuff... it kind of got a little messy today but I'll fix that up another time to make it look neat.

I'm not sure what I want to do with the middle closet just yet... right now it has some randomly placed games, puzzles, and phonics activities. I'm thinking I might place items for centers in this cabinet... but I'm really not sure what I want to do.

The cabinet on the far right is my "teaching" cabinet. The very bottom is construction paper, I have to add another shelf above that which will house printer paper and some supplies. Then I have my "office" shelf which has extra folders, labels, sheet protectors, card stock, paper clips, notebooks, etc. Above that are most of my binders and books, and above that are extra pencils, index cards and other supplies. I'm hoping to store all the extra supplies from the kids on the top two shelves so they can be closed away!

As you can see we got A LOT done... but there is still so much to do. I will be working on my walk in closet tomorrow. I will also be attempting to use liquid starch to attach fabric to all of boards - fingers crossed - I've NEVER done this but I've read a few posts and everyone says it works like magic so I hope it works well. I really hope tomorrow with the help of my mom and possibly my friend and grandma we can get the large closet re-organized and my boards covered. It would also be nice to be able to move the furniture around and set that up... right now I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed because I feel like my to-do list is just growing and growing and it's never going to end...

Since I can't work on my room any longer today I'm off to get some fun crafting projects done instead! :) That should cheer me up!!

Don't forget to click HERE to visit my giveaway and win a fun clipboard!

Operation Clean Room - Day 1

OH MY!!! That's all I can say... so I went in to my room at around 12 today and was kicked out left at 4pm. As some of you may know I switched classrooms this year. Thankfully I moved into my good friends room (she moved up to another grade) and before the year was over she gave me a "tour" of her closets and supplies and left me a TON of wonderful Kindergarten goodies, the only problem - I had no idea where everything was!!!

Todays mission: empty out the three large double door closets and throw out re-organize all of the hidden treasures that were in them. With the help of my friend and my little princess we managed to empty all three closets...

Aren't these closets pretty? I'm really excited, they are HUGE and have lots of room.... As you can see in this picture I started to put some stuff back in. The very top left shelf holds my friends book club books. I'm planning on using that entire closet for all my extra books that don't fit in my library. I can rotate them in and out easily. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to store them in this closet so they stay neat but that's my plan.

I have no clue what I'm going to do with the middle closet yet... the far right closet will be my teaching supplies closet. I forgot to take a picture of what I already put in it, but so far I have bins for pencils, expo markers, as well as stacking trays for all different kinds of labels and sheet protectors. Then I made a whole shelf with my binders (minus my teaching binder I want to try out this year) and all of my teaching idea books, ok almost all of them. Oh and see that little pink post it on the door? My friend who's room it used to be left me all kinds of happy notes all over the place! Every time I turn around I find another note. She is so sweet!

So here's my dilema, after 4 hours of working our behinds off emptying and cleaning these closets I didn't make much progress in the area of organizing and putting away. At 4pm when I was asked to leave my room I had to leave all this behind:

WHAT am I going to do with all this stuff?? Oh and see that door in the picture above, the one right next to the pretty yellow board? That is another huge walk in closet with TONS of stuff!!! Can we say overwhelmed?!?!?!? I can't even begin to think about decorating my room and making it look cute until I get all these closets organized and everything away. 

Since I can't think about decorating my room maybe some of you can help me! All the bins in my room are red, yellow, green and blue (see the bins on table in the picture above.) I have two boards (one bulletin board and one chalk board) next to the door to my classroom. Then I have three boards across the front of the room (you can see them in the first two pictures of all my tables covered with stuff) - there is a large chalk board, then a peg board and then a bulletin board. This year I was thinking of trying to use fabric dipped in liquid starch instead of bulletin board paper. Since I can't staple on to the two chalk boards and the peg board but I cannot decide on what color(s) to do them in. I don't know if I want to do one color up front and a different color by the door... any thoughts? The large chalk board in the front of the room is my word wall. The peg board is going to be part of my math wall - I'm not sure what the bulletin board in the front will be... probably part of my Math board but maybe so class rules or something. I was thinking of using the boards by the door to display student work. I'd love to hear your thoughts on what color(s) I should use on my boards!!

Oh and before I go... don't forget to enter into my Back To School giveaway to win a personalized clipboard!!! (Click the green words to go right to my giveaway!)

Thanks for visiting me today... check back tomorrow for more updates on how operation clean room is going!

Second Day of School Plans AND Monday Made It

It's Monday now and I have one week left of my summer break, sort of! I'll be heading in all of this week to be working on getting my classroom decorated and organized before all my kiddies come in. We officially start back on Tuesday after Labor Day with 2 days of PD and then the kids come Thursday for their first day!

I've been a busy little bee FINALLY trying to get everything cut out, laminated, hot glued, and decorated for my new room (and I am NO WHERE near ready!!) I just have to keep reminding myself to breathe -- in through the nose and out through the mouth, slow and steady... I always manage to get it all done so why would this year be any different. A few days of long hours in my room and I know it'll look perfect. I promise I'll get lots of before and after pictures to share with you.

One of the things I have accomplished so far is to make tentative first day plans. I realized I have some wonderful resources from all these great teacher bloggers out there I better start thinking about how I can plan to use their goodies in my classroom, and why not start right away?!?! So without further adue here are my plans for the second day of school. They are pretty tentative since I'm not 100% sure when my lunch will be or my preps so I planned my second day assuming my lunch was the same time as last year and that I have no preps (which I really hope is not the case! But better to be over planned than under planned!)

** Note, anything in green is a link that will take you to either a product or blogpost!**

Day 1: What I Do on the First Day of School head there to see what I plan on doing the first day of school!

Day 2: So assuming my day has no preps (fingers crossed this doesn't really happen!) My day will be broken into 2 chunks - the morning is from 8:45-10:30 (That is, assuming lunch is the same time this year as it was the last 2 years)... then we have the afternoon which is 11:25-3:05, it is a HUGE chunk of time, 4 periods and with kinders not having a prep during this time can make them really restless!

I don't have my schedule so I don't know when I should technicially be doing reading, writing, social studies, etc., but I'm hoping that the second day I can follow the plans I already made for myself without any trouble!

*All times listed are approximates and in hopes that all activities go smoothly and all the kiddies are happy!

8:45 - Pick kids up
9:00 - Line up outside of classroom and do a quick greeting
9:05 - Go to seats and introduce unpacking routine (where does everything go). Call kids a few at a
          time to unpack slowly.
9:30 - Go to carpet
     - Do pledge
     - Review 'Magic 5'
     - Morning Message
     - Review the daily schedule and the flow of the day
     - Introduce clip chart behavior plan (that is if I can get it made in time for the beginning of the year!)
     - Read a book ~ any suggestions?? I'm reading "Miss. Bindergarten" on the first day and all the
          "Chester" books the second week.... I'd love some ideas!
     - Introduce circle talk and do a circle talk about the book
10:00 - Do Cafeteria Expectations Craftivity from Roudy in Room 300
     * I'm really excited about this craftivity!! I recently found it (it's free which makes it even better!)
          and I really think my kids will enjoy doing it.
10:20 - Review line-up procedures and get ready for lunch
10:35-11:25 Lunch
11:25 - Pick kids up and review walking in the halls
11:35 - Sit at desk and review how to put away lunch items
11:45 - Go to carpet and introduce 'Brain Breaks' (I've found a lot of different ones from many different
          authors, I'm compiling the ones I think will work best with my kiddies and will share as well as
          tell where I found them once I'm done. I thought this would be a good time to introduce 'Brain
          Breaks because the kinders don't usually get to run around the first few days they have lunch, so
         they are full of energy and need to let some of it out.
12:00 - Introduce the 'Glue License' Activity, another great FREEBIE I found, this one is from
          Mrs. Miner's Monkey Business. I've never tried this one yet with my kiddies, but I think they will
          love it and I think it will be a great way to teach them how to use glue! (Incase you were
          wondering I plan to do the morning craftivity with glue sticks.)
          - I'm also going to have the 'Backpack vs. Lunch Box' cut and paste activity for the kids to do
          once they get their license! Good practice to "prove" they really are allowed to use the glue! This
          one came from First Grade a la Carte and is another FREEBIE!
12:30 - Self-Portrait
     - Introduce what a self-portrait is and show examples.
     - I am using a 'Yearbook' this year which I purchased from Katie Mense on TpT, so I am going to
     have the kids do their self-portraits on the first page and write their names. (I will not be putting their
     books together before school starts, there just isn't enough time to get everything copied, I will put it
     together piece by piece.) I'm in love with this packet and with Katie! (Ok that might have come out
     wrong... tee hee, what I mean is that I needed some things altered to meet my schools calendar and
     diversity and she did it for me! SHE IS AWESOME!)
1:00 - Math Time
     - I will introduce our Math routines and my brand new weather tracker (my Monday Made it!! Scroll
     down to see it!) We will also do the first lesson in our book.
2:00 - School Tour
     - I figure by now the kids are probably ready to get up and move!!! So we will go on a tour of the
     school, I might do a game/activity with it but haven't decided on that yet.
2:30 - Snack
     - While the kids eat their snack I will read one of our 'Star' books. (I will post more about that
     another time, this post is getting WAY too long!)
2:50 - Clean up the room and introduce pack-up routine and dismissal routines
3:05 - Say goodbye to my little kiddies!

So that is a VERY detailed explanation of what I hope I can accomplish on the 2nd day of school, it will be exciting and fun to see what I actually get done! :)

NOW on to my Monday Made It!! I'm super excited about this and have to say that I am in LOVE!!! I cannot believe that I made this... ok my husband helped a ton and so did the nice people at the home improvement store, but still I love my Monday Made It!

I downloaded Primary Inspired Weather poster (another great FREEBIE!!!) and made my very own weather chart.

Don't you just love this?!?! We went to the local hardware store and purchased a small piece of very thin wood (similar to plywood). I had the store cut it to 9" x 11.5"unfortunately when they cut the wood because it was so thin it splintered a lot. While trying to decide what to do about this dilema I saw this BRIGHT yellow tape and ding ding ding I knew exactly how to cover up the rough edges. When we got home I printed the poster and laminated it. My husband painted the wood white for me (the board was a half inch bigger than the paper all around so I thought it would look nice with a white boarder. However, once we spray glued the weather chart down and added the fun yellow tape you couldn't see the white boarder - oh well. I then cut some purple ribbon and hot glued it onto the back a poof I had a great hanging weather chart! I still need to make the clothes pin clips for around the chart but I'm in love with the way it looks and so is my little princess. She has been running around the house with it all day reviewing the weather with anyone who will listen! Guess we will be making another one for our house!

So that my friends is my MONDAY MADE IT!

I know this was a SUPER long post - thanks for hanging in there and reading it! If you're still with me don't forget to check out my Back To School Giveaway!

Rainbow Conferences

When I first started teaching Kindergarten I had a wonderful mentor teacher, Mrs. S. She taught me so much that first year and I'm fortunate enough that she is willing to continue to mentor and guide me whenever I need some help. One of the things we talked about was the importance of scheduling reading and writing conferences.

You see when I first started Reading/Writing Workshop I found that I was constantly conferencing with the same children over and over again, which unfortunately meant certain children weren't getting enough conference time with me. Mrs. S. suggested that I figure out a system of keeping track of which children I conferenced with each day. I loved this idea and I sat down to figure out a way to keep track of my conferences.

My first year I created a simple calendar grid that I used to track my conferences, but over the years I developed it to become what I now call my "Rainbow Conferences." So what is "Rainbow Conferences"? It's a two system method of keeping track of whom you conference with and when.

The first part is a monthly calendar.

I make one monthly calendar for reading AND another one for writing. I think it is very important to maintain two separate calendars. The calendars are color coded to help you keep track of which days during the week you are supposed to conference with each children. For example - if Samantha's name is in row 1, then I know I conference with her on Mondays so any box that is red means it is a day I am supposed to conference with Samantha. It looks more complicated than it really is, I promise! The bright colors help draw my eye to the correct boxes to help me keep track of my conferences. 

For reading and writing I use similar keys to help mark my conferences. I always mark a capital 'C' if I had a regular conference with a student. I mark a 'G' or write the word 'Group' across any boxes I may have held a group conference with. I also keep track of any assessments I do with the students as well as if a student is either out of the classroom or absent for the day. I find that by keeping these calendars all together I can quickly glance and see when I did an assessment with a student last and if I need to do another one. I keep these in my teacher binder. Below is an example of how I would mark my reading conferences:

The second part of my conferences is a poster I created that is also color coded. I print and laminate these posters and hang them on my wall. I fill in all of my student's names on the correct day of the week so I can clearly see who I am supposed to conference with. 

I really love this system for keeping track of my conferences, they have helped me over the years make sure I get to all of the children in my class as much as possible. 

Now I'm sure you are wondering, "How do you decide which children to conference with each day?" Well that one was actually very simple for me. Since I teach Kindergarten I don't have a good judge of what levels they are on so for the beginning of the year I set up my calendars in alphabetical and reverse alphabetical order. For example if my reading conferences are alphabetical than my writing conferences would be reverse alphabetical. I may swap around a few names if I have too - I ALWAYS make sure that I am not conferencing with one person for reading and writing on the same day! That is very important to me!!! 

As the year progresses I group my students (whether it be formally or informally) and use these groupings to help organize my conference days. In reading I organize my students by their reading levels. We use colors and letters for our reading levels - so I schedule all my "red dot/level A" readers for the same day, if there are more than 5 students on the same level then I schedule the remainder of the students on the next consecutive day. Some months I just line my kids up on my calendar from beginner readers all the way to advanced readers. Other months I make my groups based on their reading levels and than randomly assign a day of the week for each group. 

For writing, again, in the beginning of kindergarten I don't have a good judge on their level so they are just simply scheduled alphabetically. But as the year progresses, similar to reading, I schedule them in groups based on their ability. 

The reason I group my students and then add them to my calendar is to help make my conferences run more smoothly. If I know I'm meeting with all beginner writers on Monday I have the option of 1) pulling them as a group and working on a skill they all need to improve on or 2) have my "bag of tricks" ready with activities and lessons for beginner writers and meet with them one-on-one. I find it a lot easier to be thinking and focusing on one level of writing (or reading) rather than meeting with a beginning writer, followed by an advanced writer, and then some average writers thrown in too. The skills they all need are so different and having to change gears so often during conferences is not very easy. 

So that my friends is what I like to call my "Rainbow Conferences!" I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into what they are all about! If you are in love and want to learn more about them, including some tips and tricks, plus get an entire set of 2012-2013 school calendars for both reading and writing already mapped out for you then head on over to my Teachers Notebook Store or my Teachers Pay Teacher Store and pick up your copy today! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this system or how you organize scheduling your conferences!!! 

Thanks for stopping by today :)

Back to School Giveaway!

I can't believe the summer is coming to an end... many of you have already went back to school and some of you, like me, will be starting soon. It's hard to say goodbye to summer... BUT there is something exciting about the beginning of the year. Decorating my classroom, new school supplies (yes I love new school supplies), and meeting my new group of kindergarten kiddies! As sad as I am to see summer come to a close I'm excited for this new adventure... 

This is a big year for me, after 5 years in my classroom watching it go from a small room to being fully rebuilt to a very large full sized room I am moving next door to a new classroom. I am taking over my good friends room since she is switching grades. This "new" classroom has so much potential in it and I  can't wait to get started with organizing and decorating it!!! I'm still teaching Kindergarten so I'm super excited about that. My little princess is also starting school for the first time this year, I know she is going to love it and although I'm a little sad to see her growing up so fast I'm so happy and excited. She asks every day to go to school and she loves doing "homework" (a.k.a. workbooks). I know she is going to love it and that makes it all the better. 

To celebrate the beginning of the school year I thought I would give away one of my clipboards. (Please be patient with me, this is my very first giveaway and I am sure there will be some hiccups along the way..) I made them last year for all the teachers on my grade and they LOVED them!!! You can choose from one of the designs I already have or request a color/theme and I can do my best to accommodate (I don't have a Silhouette Cameo or other cutting machine, although they are on my must have wish list! So keep that in mind if you are a winner, everything has to be either hand cut OR I have to find awesome scrapbook paper!)

Here are the clipboards I made last year:

 

Now here is the best part... I currently have 16 followers! If I hit 25 followers by the end of this giveaway I will give 1 clipboard away, if I hit 50 followers I will give 2 clipboards away, if I hit 75 followers I will give 3 clipboards away, and so on!! So the more you share my giveaway and the more people who follow my blog the more clipboards I will give away! The possibilities are endless, and so is the amount of clipboards I will give away!!

After you enter don't forget to leave a comment on my blog with your email address!! I need a way to contact you incase you are the lucky winner :)a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Monday Made It - Look What I Made

My first Monday Made It!!! :)

So if you've had a chance to check out my Pinterest account you will see I have one board dedicated just to projects I have seen that I must absolutely cannot live without dream about making for the upcoming school year. I really really want to make everything on this board but let's be honest with each other, there are two weeks left until school officially starts and I want to enjoy as much of these last two weeks with my little princess before we both start back at school!

One of the items on my list was the picture frame post-it note holder that I've seen all over Pinterest. I was at my parents house and I raided my moms art closet and found the clear picture frame I needed to make my post-it holder so I just HAD to make it tonight! I have to say this is one of those projects that took me minutes to make! The hardest part for me was deciding what papers/embellishments I wanted to use! I finally decided to make one that matched one of the clipboards I made for one of my friends... now you know I have to make the matching clipboard for myself - just another project to add to my to-do list!! (But at least I can say I completed one of my Pinterest to-do list items off!!)

Check out my post-it note holder:

I am in love with this! I think it's going to look super cute on my desk, not to mention I will ALWAYS know where a post-it note is (and so will everyone else who walks into my room!!!!) The only thing I did learn is that you have to put about 1/4 of a stack of post-its onto your holder. The post-its I had handy at home just wouldn't stay on. I stuck the whole stack on and plop within minutes they fell right off... so then I took about 1/4 of the stack and they have been stuck on for quite a while now. I do know they make those "super" sticky post-its, I haven't tried them with this yet, BUT a whole stack of those might stick really nice!

What's on your to-do list for the beginning of the year?? Have you been able to cross anything off of it?

PS - If your new to my blog don't forget to follow me along on my adventure as the school year begins!