Sunday, August 25, 2013

Hanging in there!

It has been crazy the last couple of weeks and I am trying so hard to hang in there with a smile on my face. I have things to do such as writing full week lesson plans for math, science, and social studies. Oh yea forgot to mention, I teach social studies now. That is exciting. I finally made a procedures PowerPoint for the first day of school, that's tomorrow ahhh. I did not cover all my procedures but enough to get through tomorrow. Its a jamed packed day. I am the teacher responsible for take the students outside but I am unsure if I am supposed to take them out tomorrow. That will throw my schedule off. By 20-25 minutes. Hmmmmm. Be a flexible teacher I will be!

I want to introduce stations tomorrow and with that I need to make some station graphic organizers today. If I can get them all complete, I will update my blog and add them. Students will be doing stations that involve place value, greater/less than, multiplication, and adding. Noogle is the name for the adding game. Its a new game I saw on pinterest. 

I uploaded some pictures of my classroom. We are doing Number Talks everyday. YouTube it if you never heard of it. It is amazing! My objectives corner. It seems tiny but I don't have any other place for it. Unlike other teachers I want a lot of white board space.

I was given, to borrow, for the school year two iPads. I also have an Apple Tv. Yes I will be utilizing tomorrow. Straight out the gate. I also found this app where I can record what I write and say. This will be perfect for students who are absent.  I am going to try it out soon. I was thinking about using it for my guided math time. Soooo many ideas and things I want to do, but not enough energy or time.

This posting is very choppy and goes from one thing to another quickly.  I will elaborate later when I am not using my phone to write my blog.  Sorry :-(

Until next time,
-PFons

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Early Post, But Bad Blogger

I have not been a great blogger so I thought I would quickly write. I woke up thinking away at all the projects I need to do. They are not little things they are big. Decorating is pretty much done, its now organization and planning. Who knew I had to plan which bathroom my kids will use. It is just the simplest things. Plus, all the paper work. I have done everything but lesson planning. Really, this is teaching? Haha. They left all this out in school. I am enjoying every minute of it though.
I am glad that my trainings are done so that I can focus only on the things I need to get done. The time flys by when your in your room working away. Plus, I have tons of questions so I am constantly getting clarification. Which take tons of time.
I set up my school website. Yeah exciting! My district is huge on technology and I want to use my website weekly.  I hope it will work and I stay on top of it. I just want once a week at least to update and add things. I will post link later.
Tomorrow (well today) I am doing a rough of my lesson plan, cutting out all my laminating materials, and getting my manipulatives. Oh, and of course all my paper work. I have the entire day as a work day and I am afraid I will get maybe half done. I wish I can get started now. Lol. I left everything at the school to force myself to not do anything, but yea of course was busy away making things at home. Spent the whole night.
I am going to add some pictures. I have a few templates I will update too like labels, circle dotes, sign in sheets, and caddy labels.  I think something else. These are all things I used in my classroom that I have gotten huge compliments on.
Until next time,
-PFons-
This was at a traing my school. We are the lions and are doing a sports theme.
coworkers and I at I our convocation. Twitter #sisdconvo13 to see what we takked about.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Colors And More Colors - Decorating

I went to my classroom today to do my Instagram of #TeacherTourTuesday from iTEACH5TH. It is coming along nicely.  I think pictures are the best way to explain my new room upgrades. Instagram video first.


Here is the sink area with my new rug I made. I sewed on the monster. My own template. It looks great. 
This is what is in every groups buckets. Markers, crayons, eraser, glues, pencils, red checking pencils, a highlighter (might need more), and sticky notes. This may change but as of right now I like that they have things at their finger tips.
This is my resource center (still need to add the letters to the flags. I made these too, it is called bunting). That shelf is where I will keep some science mags and books. Also, where I will keep my manipulatives. 
This is not a great picture but this is my desk (as of today) arrangement. I saw a peers room and thought I like some of your placements. I tried some group styles and love it. So lets see if they stay.
Here is my calendar. I still want to add some more decorations to this. Underneath the calendar you can see where the paper separates gross. 
My son Hunter put this together all by himself. He did such a great job. 
Here is one station. The little rolly table I got from the Goodwill store for $4.99. I also made these pillows. I will be making two red pillows too. The pillows are not necessary but I love them.
Here is my desk. I was not sure if I was going to keep one and I decided to keep my desk. I covered it with wrapping paper that I found at Target in the dollar section for a $1. I bought two roles because I thought there would not be enough but there is way more than I needed. 
Here is where I write my objectives. I am not sure still about how it looks but I love the idea. I call this my cute girly area but boyed up with my bug books. Perfect mixture. 
This is my buckets. It came out so cute and looks great on the tables. I just need to buy one more because I have 6 groups when I planned for 5.
On another exciting note, I got a new car. It is a fully loaded Toyota Avalon. I am in love. It is a great car and it has so many gadgets that I keep finding new things. 
Leather seats!! I am going to get the windows tented and I am about to get that done hopefully in the next few months.
Work starts Monday and I cannot wait. I am ready. I need to go ahead and start planning my first unit which is place value. Here it begins... :-)

*This week I will be making scratch offs for the first day of school. I got this idea from Saddle up for Second Grade. She is also my Slantbox buddy. 

Until next time,
     -PFons-

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Crafty Matty

 I am still buying everything I see. lol. I really need to slow down. I think I have more stuff then what I need. Oh well. I have been very crafty this weekend and needed to share some things I have made and things I still need to make. 
I made this rug that I will put by my sink. I saw it on Teaching Madness. My rug is similar but different. I liked her monster face so yes I copied that. I could not find a cute bright green circular rug so I got the rectangle one. I first made templates of the pieces on white paper and then cut them out of the felt (I had to make my own template since there was not one. I then sewed the felt to the rug. CUTE CUTE!! This is my second favorite thing in my room. First is my bunting. Oh, and I did make my Halloween/Fall bunting banner already. Will post that soon. I don't have a picture of it.
I then made this pillow. I put buttons on it. Cute. I do not have a reading center but students can use it during centers and can be an incentive. 
I also made these cute labels to for my new boxes for each group. Click Here for the free template. I used scrapbook paper to print the labels on and since I could not find my laminating covers I used clear packing tape to laminate them and stick them to my boxes. I put the labels on both sides of the boxes. Cute!!
Here is a 16inch by 16inch pillow I made as well. I will be using the red material for  two other pillows. Love it!
I should be in my room tomorrow and Tuesday, hopefully. I was not sure about buying a calendar and I decided I should. It will match perfectly and I hope it will go up tomorrow. Also, our school is doing an All-Star sports theme this year and our outside bulletin boards will be sports related. I have the perfect board idea and slogan. I will hopefully work on that tomorrow and get it done, if not Tuesday. I cannot wait to share.

Until Next Time,
   -PFons-