HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2016 was a good year!  

I was given the incredible opportunity to shift focus from being a First Grade Teacher to an Intervention Teacher, working with K-5th grade students in Reading and Math.  I look forward to the rest of this school year as I'm already seeing wonderful growth in my students!  The next school year will go even smoother, now that I know what I'm doing!  😋

I usually don't make "Resolutions" but I do have some goals/plans for the new year.  This year, I'd like to take some vacations!  One will be to the Happiest Place on Earth: Disneyland!  My family and I are looking forward to going back to Disneyland.  Being from San Diego, I have visited there more times than I can count, but it never grows old!  Some people recommend that we try Disney World, and maybe someday we will, but for this year, we'll go to our favorite place on Earth!  Maybe I'll even get a trip home to San Diego, too!


I hope you all have a wonderful new year filled with laughter and fun!

Happy New Year!

OCTOBER UPDATE

Boy did I ever get behind with my blog!  This year is going by so quickly- I can't believe it's almost November!  I really have a lot of things to share, about my new position as an Intervention Teacher, and also my after school United Way Reading Camp Program.  It's been a great year so far.  But I'll save those for another day.

Here are a few things I am up to right now....


This weekend I'm working on printing out

The Ultimate Guided Reading Toolkit Bundled with Guided Reading Lesson Plans

by JD's Rockin' Readers.  It's an incredible resource for Guided Reading!  I used it last year, but never finished printing out all the activities.  It's 511 pages long!  So worth it though!

I'm also excited about a new book on Amazon called The Reading Strategies Book.

I started following Heinemann Publishing on Facebook because they post tips and hints from the book that are very helpful!  This book is so useful that teachers are taking it to office supply stores to have it put into spiral format for easier use! 

Tomorrow is Halloween, or "Storybook Character Day" at my school.  It's going to be a crazy day, but then we can turn our attention toward Thanksgiving Break, and then Christmas Break!  Yeah!

BTS 2016: DAY 4

We're getting closer!  I feel much better, though there's still plenty to do.  I really need a kidney table so I can use my cute crate seats!  (My favorite pinterest project!!)

This is where my kidney table will go.

I installed several partition walls so teachers can come in and utilize the Leveled Library without distracting my small group.  I need to decorate these and brighten them up!

I cut my rug down so it's better for small groups.  My Library needs a few more labels, but otherwise it's good to go.  When I only had one or two windows, I would use a valance or two.  But with five windows, the owl pennant banner works out perfectly!

I decorated my hallway bulletin board with Dr. Seuss border.  

I'm also prepping at home.  Teachers check out bags of books from the Leveled Library in my room, so I updated the checkout cards.  They can take 1-4 cards out of their hanging library pocket and put it where they take the books from.  It makes returning the books so much easier, and also keeps track of where the books are.

Tomorrow is my first official day back.  I am very grateful it's a workday!  It's time to finish the set up/decorating and start planning for my students!

BTS 2016: DAY 3

Day 3 in my classroom might not look like a lot was done.... until you see the amount of empty boxes!  

I admit that I hate to break down boxes.  

My helpful husband came to school today to fix a broken shelf and he decided to break the boxes down for me.  Yay!

I put out some of my Reading and Math items for my small groups.  These shelves are narrow, so this worked out well!

I have decided to keep some of my classroom library.  I have been collecting books for over 15 years, so this was a big step for me to downsize by 1/2!  I will use these books to make Take Home Book Bags for my struggling readers. I will also have students reading on the rug when I am testing one at a time at the table.  Now I just need to finish organizing it!

I am hoping to be done by Thursday so I can take Friday off to rest and relax before summer is officially over!

BTS 2016: SET-UP MUSIC

When I set up my classroom every year, I try to play very upbeat music to keep my energy level up.  Cleaning, unpacking, and setting up is a lot of hard work, especially when I've moved rooms every year for six years!  This year I decided to try Pandora as I wasn't sure where I packed my CD player.  I set up several stations, including 80's Country, 90's Country, 80's Pop, Family Musicals, and Christian Contemporary.  However,  I soon discovered that Pandora is blocked by my school's Wi-Fi!  So, I pulled out some old CD's to download onto my phone.  A teacher friend has a bluetooth wireless speaker for her room, so I found an inexpensive one on Amazon for $21.99 with free shipping.  It's only about 4 inches tall and will be perfect for my classroom!  It arrived today!  I really like Amazon Prime!

Ultra-portable Bluetooth Speaker

I looked through my CD's at home and found my favorite set-up-the-classroom music: Garth Brooks!  I had to look up on YouTube how to download CD's onto iTunes, then onto my phone, but I did it!  Now I will have good motivating music while working in my room.  I also plan to look for my Michael Jackson CD's around here somewhere.  Upbeat music really makes a difference when you're setting up the classroom!  

BTS 2016: DAY 2

The second day that I was able spend in my room was a busy one!  My first day doesn't really count since I got the keys and only stayed an hour. But today I sure accomplished a lot!  Before I can tackle my own setup for small groups, I must first clean and organize what was already there.  This room is called the Literacy Library, as it has two walls of leveled readers bagged and ready for checkout, but it also has a plethora of other materials to be sorted and organized.

Check out the BEFORE pictures from yesterday here.

It may not look all that great overall, but I did a great deal of cleaning and organizing! 

These Writing Materials were scattered in a few places around the room, so I cleaned out this black storage cabinet and put them all together. 

I found these Writing materials on the floor. All of them. Apparently they were on a bookshelf that broke over the summer. I cleaned out another black storage cabinet and organized the materials by grade. 

I cleaned off the first bookshelf in the picture because there were a great deal of magazine holders with leveled readers all over the floor and window sill that needed to be added to the leveled library. I put them all on a table until I have time to rearrange the leveled library to make room for them.

I gathered all of my school's Writing Folders that were scattered all over the room, from one corner to another! Having them all in one place will make them easier to distribute. Once school starts these will be given to the teachers. We collect writing samples from Pre-K through 5th grade in a special folder, and the students will receive it at the end of 5th grade. 

I think this could be my favorite part of the room by the time I'm finished!  I found a place for my Keurig and Scentsy!  I need to make a few more improvements to this area, but considering this sink/counter area was covered with a very large assortment of boxes, it's not a bad start!

I'm going to enjoy my last weekend of summer before working in my room again next week!

BACK ALREADY?

Well, it's that time again. Summer is winding down and it's time to start thinking about my new classroom. This is my 6th move in 6 years, but this one is a challenge!  I'm moving into our Leveled Library room. Aside from the nice Leveled Library on 2 walls, there are a lot of materials around the room that need to be sorted and organized before I can figure out how to design my Intervention areas for Reading and Math.  My stuff is in boxes in the middle of the room. The rest has to be gone through. Whew!  It's going to be an interesting adventure to figure this new room out!

BEFORE

It will take some time to go through all the materials, but I am up for the challenge!  I just need to update my playlist for some good working music before I tackle this!  Wish me luck!

SWEET SUMMER

I cannot begin to express how happy I am that it is summer!  It is such an incredible feeling! All of my stress is gone!  I had no idea how much stress I was carrying until it was lifted!  I am really enjoying puttering around the house, putting my house back in order after the craziness of the school year.  I've been organizing, purging, and cleaning.  I've had a garage sale, had the downstairs carpets cleaned, had dentist appointments, spent time with family, had lunch with friends, read several books, and even took a mini-vacation out of town! There is still plenty more to do around here, but that's for another day!  I still have plenty more time- it's still early in summer!

One of my friends recently visited Mexico and I had asked her to bring back some milk caramel candy.  A few years ago a different friend raved about how awesome the caramel candy from Mexico is because it's made with real milk.  I am not fond of milk.  I do not like to drink milk, never have, never will.  But the candy made with milk was great!  I figured my friend would bring back a couple of pieces, so I was totally surprised by how much she came back with!

Lots of yummy treats!

This one was really good!  Sugar crystals on the outside of the shell, creamy caramel center!

This one has an interesting story!  At first I saw these and thought they would be caramel suckers similar to what I had tasted in the past.  I started to suck on one and immediately thought something was up.  It didn't taste like I had expected, it was a little "off" but I couldn't figure out why.  I saw "leche" in the ingredients list, which I know is milk, but I didn't know the word after it, until I looked back at the animal picture on the front.  I didn't even have to google the second word, because I realized it was made with goat's milk!  Lol!  Caught me by surprise!

La Esperanza (below) is my favorite of the bunch!  This is such a unique candy!  You must scoop it out with a spoon or your finger. (I used a spoon, of course!)  It was really good! (and it was made with cow's milk... leche de vaca, that one I knew!)

My summer is off to a sweet start!  I am so glad there is still plenty of time left!

FREE POST-ITS

I love free stuff!  I love Post-Its!  So I really love FREE Post-its!  A teacher friend of mine recently told me about NAEIR. "NAEIR’s Teacher’s Program is a great way to help teachers stretch out-of-pocket expenses on classroom supplies by providing FREE materials such as arts and crafts items, pens and pencils, highlighters, scissors, incentive items like stickers, and so much more."  There is a free membership program for teachers, and the items must be used for school use only.  You only pay handling fees, with a minimum of $25.  Each of these items below had a handling fee of $1 to $5.  There is no cost for the item itself and the shipping is free.

 $29 handling fee for everything pictured, total value was $342!

This bag of Command Hooks had a handling fee of $2.  That's it!  Just $2!

Post It Dry Erase Weekly Calendar

This entire box of monster post-its only had a $3 handling fee! What a great deal!  

Interested in learning more?  Check out  http://www.naeir.org/teachers/teachers-program-overview.  I am looking forward to using these items in my new classroom!