Back to School Part 2

As I had mentioned in my previous post, I would upload more pictures of my classroom and all the fun changes that I've made for this school year!  Mid last year, I decided to scan our class set of Decodable Books  to send home with the students, since there are not enough copies of the book for each student to get one.  I spent about 3 weekends scanning all 45 books and placing the pages into Illustrator and then making 25 copies of each book, whew!!!  It was a lot of work but I'm so glad that it's done and both the students and parents love having a Decodable Book to read each week.  I made these envelopes for the books to be sent home in.  By the end of the year, they feel apart so this year I taped them all around the edges and during the summer I paced out exactly when we would be reading each book and laminated in onto the cover.  

Book envelopes for weekly checkout of Decodable Books for students to read.  The entire year is paced out, the books are sent out weekly and parents must initial that the book(s) were returned to me.  

I found this idea on Pinterest and I spruced it up but I LOVE the concept to help reinforce reading comprehension!  

I had mentioned before that there are a total of 45 of these books, so I have them all organized by level so it makes it easy for me to send them home weekly.

Closer look of each scanned book, divided into their tabs!

When students are absent, this is the homework folder that I send home with work that the student might of missed and bring it to the office for the parent to pick up.

I changed out my cushion for the listening center this year.  Unfortunately, last year a few of my students accidentally drew on my super cute white bench and ruined it :(.  This year, I found outdoor cushions from CostCo that can withstand all types of weather so I'm hoping that they can withstand kindergartners!  I zip tied the label to the back of the crate and then sewed the front of the cushion onto the crate using 50lb fishing line!

We were lucky to receive AV carts for our Elmo's this year, here is how I set mine up to hold all of the electronics that I have.

Side view...so my projector is displayed on the shelving in the front and my computer is displayed on the shelving that slides out from the back.  If you look close enough, my speakers fit in-between the top shelf and the bottom shelf!  Woohoo!!!

Back to School

It's that time of the year again, Back to School!  I have been working hard these past two weeks in order to prepare for the new school year.  It's sad but I actually started prepping at the end of last year, by printing out our Group A and Group B signs.  I'm sure our school does back to school a little bit different, especially with kindergarten.  The first three days of school, we have 45minute blocks to meet the students and the parents and during this time we get to go over our rules and do and assessment on the students.  Then, we break the class up into 2 groups - Group A and Group B.  Half the class comes to school for 1/2 day (Group A) and then the next day the other group of kids come for 1/2 day (Group B).  That following Monday Group A would come for a full day and Tuesday Group B would come for a full day and then that Wednesday all the students would arrive.  So, it's a great way to ease the students into kindergarten.   More pictures are to come later on!

Welcome notes for parents!

I got these great trays from Lakeshore this year, and it helped me organize all my Group A and Group B papers for the parent conferences!

This year, I decided to ask parents if they were willing to help me prep projects for crafts we complete this year.  

I know this looks chaotic but I wanted to display some of the love that I have received over the years on my filing cabinets.  

This year, I decided to paint my desk and I think it looks awesome!  It was a puke green color before and I couldn't be more pleased :0

Reading Buddies along with stories for students to read!

Puzzles I bought from Ross for $4.99 and they are awesome learning tools!

Here is my morning station, otherwise know as calendar time.  I also bought these awesome magnetic ten frame frames for counting in the morning.  

I used sheet protectors to the dimensions of the shape and color cards and well as the rhyming words and everyday we review a color and shape and that cards just slide right into the sheet protector.  We do go over the rhyming words, I will ask students to give me other words that rhyme with "box and "fox"!  I also have a close up of the magnetic 10 frame, so easy to use!

Here is my behavior management plan, I moved it this year so that students would be able to move their clips on their own.  

I made thse signs last year and they just sat on my whiteboard :(  I am reinstating them again this year and hopefully will get put to good use.

Weekly Lunches

I was on Pinterest one day and stumbled upon these pre-made salads for the week, what a great idea.  I like to eat healthy, I am not one to buy school lunches.  Over the past years, I've always made my lunch every single day.  After seeing this idea, for the past three weeks I've been making weekly salads and it's been so amazing!  Not only does it save me so much time in the morning but it's super filling.  You need to layer your salads from the heaviest to the lightest.  I put olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, avocado all on the bottom of the Mason Jar.  Then, I make sure that the lettuce is nice and dry after rinsing it, cut it up and gently lay it on top.  DO NOT put salad dressing on until you are ready to eat your salad, otherwise it will become soggy :(.

Of course, I'm not done yet!  I also make apple and cinnamon muffins for the week so my husband and I have a healthy and easy breakfast.  Below is the recipe from the book, 500 Cupcakes.  They are so yummy!

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups superfin sugar

4 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. cinnamon

4 tbsp. vegetable oil

1/4 cup sweet butter, melted

2 lightly beaten eggs

3/4 cup buttermilk

2 small apples, peeled, cored, and finely diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Grease a 12-cup muffin pan

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter, eggs, and buttermilk with an electric mixer until well combined.  Add the flour mixture and beat until nearly combined.  Stir in the apples.  Do not overmix.  Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 20 minutes.  Remove pan from the oven and cool for 5 minutes.  Then remove the muffins and cool on a rack.

Makes 1/2 dozen

Yearly Langauge Arts Pacing

Over the years I have gathered enough worksheets from prior months being paced that I saved and organized them by months (in my binders, of course!).  Right before school ended last year, I thought it was time to combine all the months together in one BIG binder, so everything was easy to access and all paced out for me.  I even went a step further and re-photocopied some older pages to revamp them!  I went to OfficeMax and bought a 4in binder and monthly tabs, so I could start organizing.   FYI  - Office Max will price match, so if you have a smart phone be sure to scan the barcode to your phone and stores selling the items at a cheaper rate will appear.  At checkout, show the cashier the cheaper price and you should be good to go!  I only paid $3 for my tabs which originally cost $8.

I then started going through duplicates and throwing old worksheets away.  I left three Language Arts worksheets and one sight word page for each day of the week.  Some pages consists of the letter we are learning, or concentrate on word building/blending.  Then, I went back and wrote the date on each page from our yearly pacing guides.  Now, I know each day is complete, easy to reference and each day will match up to my pacing guide!

Every month all paced out for the entire year

Sight Word practice for January 29th

Making 10

As you are all of aware with Common Core Standards, one of the standards that our grade level found challenging to teach was "Making 10".  Over the summer, I did a lot of research and I found a great idea to teach the concept, a rainbow!  I figured to introduce students to this concept right off the bat, so hopefully it will sink in without them even realizing.

 I've made a huge poster, 24x36 that I printed at OfficeMax and then painted it.  I used my Cricut to cut out the letters and viola!

Before

After

I also made a smaller version to put on the students' pencil boxes.  You can download the template here: Making 10 Freebie

Yearly Binder Inserts

I absolutely LOVE organizing, it's one of my favorite things about being a teacher!  I have created binders for each month of the year, including the beginning and the end of the year.  Inside, I keep all art projects and other goodies for the month.  I also used my cricut to create my adorable covers.  I bet I could scan these in and make them printable.  Guess, what I did!  They came out soooo good!  They are up on my TpT site.

I have a total of 37 binders, crazy?!  I have binders for everything!  My most used binders are my yearly Language Arts pacing, student information and data binder.  Those binders are coming up in another post, soon!  

Kindergarden Common Core Standards

Our school is in restructuring in, so that means we have walkthroughs once a month to ensure we are doing our job properly!  After receiving feedback from our of our walkthroughs. my principal wasn't too thrilled that I just had the common core standards posted, she wanted me to be using them in a more interactive way.  So, I had to take some time to think about how I could make interactive standards.  One day, it hit me, CRAYONS!   Now. I love using ALL the colors when I create something (I'm very into rainbows!) and crayons were the only objects I could think of that would let me be able to incorporate a colorful, interactive, common core standard board.  Therefore, I created my standards to look like crayons and I'm absolutely thrilled on how they came out.  My coworkers love them too!  I've made all the standards but I'm not going to display them all at once.  When we are learning a new standard, I will introduce the standard to the class and then house the crayon on my standard wall.  More pictures to come :)


These crayon standards were meant to be versatile, so there is no right or wrong way to use them! I printed and cut them but didn’t laminate them. However, I cut up sheet protectors to fit the crayons and I display my standards that way. I’ve seen many teachers display their standards by using ribbon and hanging them. It’s completely up to you on how you want to use them and how to display them. You have the power!

Below are some examples of the crayon kindergarten common core standards!  The crayons come in more colors, of course!  You can find the full version on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Here are some of the Common Core Standards that students are to learn during the month of August.  As I said prior, I only use the Standards we are learning and by the end of the year, the whole board will be filled with the crayons!

Here the is full board, to be filled by the end of the year!