Currently and a Sale!

I'm linking up to Farley at Oh Boy Fourth Grade!  for her Currently Linky party!  Fun, fun!

Also, I am having a sale in my little shop tomorrow!  My favorite back to school items will be 20% off until midnight tomorrow night.  Be sure to check it out!

Five for Friday!

I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share my Five for Friday!  My little guy is still recovering from his tonsil/adenoidectomy, so I have had a lot of time to work on school stuff this week.  Here are some of the things I have been up to.

I was somehow able to go shopping yesterday, thanks to my sweet grandparents watching my kiddos.  It was a culture shock to be out of the house by myself for more than 30 minutes.  I hit up Michaels, Target, and Old Time Pottery.  I took a picture of some of the things I stocked up on for my classroom.  

1.  The chevron tubs.  I bought these from Michaels.  I have 2 owl tubs that were purchased from Meijer and are the exact same size.  Right now, I have my Accelerated Reader books leveled in them.  I plan on adding the chevron and mixing it up a little!  I will probably end up buying a few more of both types.  I live for plastic tubs. :)

2.  Scentso Markers.  These were on clearance for 50 cents at Michael's!  50 CENTS!!!  My kids loved these things last year.  How did I use them, you ask?  I put a few in the writing center to help the kids spice up their writing, but my favorite function of these heavenly-scented things were in our My Work Rocks boxes {idea from Mrs. Osterman's Kindergarten Rocks blog}.  I learned about these at the Indiana Kindergarten Conference, and boy did my kiddos love them!  They are just art boxes filled with fun things, like these markers, cool pencils, Twistable crayons, etc.  My kids totally wanted those boxes every day.  I chose two friends to get these boxes each day, with the only stipulation being they couldn't use them on tests.  THEY LOVED THEM.  Best reward ever.  And, hold the phone, but I even found smelly glue sticks for this year.  My new kids will flip their lids.

3.  Mini-accordian files.  I found these in the Dollar Spot at Target.  My plan for these is to print out alphabet, number, sight word, and math facts cards, cut them out, and store them for each child in one of these doohickies.  They can take these back and forth from home to school, and hopefully this will help us all stay organized.  They are bright, and I plan to make a cute chevron/owl name label to add to the front.

4.  Owl clip boards.  These came from Michael's.  I read on DeeDee Wills' blog about her sticker system for assessing on the spot.  I am really excited to try these!  My plan is to use one clip board for the weekly nursery rhyme assessment and another for our weekly oral reading assessment.  We use a program called ESGI for our grading period assessments, so it is a modification of the way DeeDee uses hers.  But great idea!

5.  Chevron and owl binder clips.  From Michael's.  How did they know that this was my theme?  I'm pretty sure the people at Michael's made this collection just for me. :)

6.  Pretty chevron saying sign.  I found this lovely at Old Time Pottery.  It's cute, and I plan to put it behind my computer in my teacher area.  It was a steal at $11.99!  

7.  Misc. chevron items.  I found all of these at... you guessed it... Michael's.  There are cupcake liners for open house treats, chevron pens, and chevron and owl pencils for my kiddos.  I stock up on pencils anytime I can, because my kids have a weekly spelling tic-tac-toe board for homework, and the prize for turning it in (besides knowing their spelling words), is a brand new pencil.  

For our first day, I am going to do a photo booth with my kiddos.  I always take a first day picture, but it's going to be fun this year!  I bought a tri-fold presentation board, and I plan to make a chevron bunting to put behind it.  Not sure what it is going to say yet, but I'm leaning toward I {heart} Kindergarten!  Above, you will see an idea I got from Michelle at Apples and ABC's.  It's a wooden letter (which was on clearance at Michael's) and a sheet of scrapbook paper.  I traced the letter, cut out the pattern, and Mod Podged it to the wood.  It is just the most adorable and perfect little prop!

Photo Courtesy of Accessory Auctions

I bought my first day outfit this week.  Anyone else out there are obsessed with online shopping as me?  I have discovered a new spin on it... Facebook shopping.  I stumbled upon a little shop called Accessory Auctions on Facebook.  They are based out of Texas, and they have the CUTEST stuff.  And it's cheap.  Cute and cheap.  I can do that.  Anyway, they have an auction Monday-Friday at 8 CDT.  I bought this little chevron top, and it is just too cute for words.  Even cuter in person.  And yes, I am a goober for buying my first day outfit two months before it's needed.  But the first day is pretty much like prom to me. :)

Another thing I worked on while tending to my recovering boy was filling my OWL binders for next years Kindergarten Kids.  I am at a loss for which binder cover looks best.  I am loving the chevron and chalkboard, but it's missing something.  The red cover is not doing it for me either though.  Your input matters to me! :)

Finally, I went to school yesterday for the first time since school was out.  I walked in to find this.

Let me preface this by saying I love to read to my kids and to teach my kids to read.  It's not that.  I just really don't like textbooks.  I am making the most of it though, and have already stored away a great deal of it.  I definitely won't be using all of it, but there are some good components that I will incorporate.  I have also purchased Kim's Reader's Workshop units to use with my kiddos.  I'm excited to do more of a workshop method incorporated with our reading series.  

Don't forget to switch over to Bloglovin'!  Follow me on there!  Link in the top left corner. :)

Throwback Thursday!

Hey again!  It's only been a few hours, but I am linking up to Cara's linky to throw it back to the beginning of last school year.

In this post from August 7, 2012 {my very first blog post!}, I wrote very briefly about my room, but I posted lots of pictures....  not very good quality... But it's funny to see how much my room changed over the year.  I will be starting on painting my classroom hopefully next week, and I will blog about my total room transformation in the coming weeks. Can't wait!  :)

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Original Post from August 7, 2012

A new year is upon us! It has been a fantastic summer for my family and me. Summer is coming to a close, and it's time to get back in school mode. Woo whoo!!!

My classroom is 95% ready to go. I worked this weekend to finish it up.

Tomorrow night is open house at VFES. I cannot wait to meet all of my new kindergarten kids! It's going to be a fantastic year!

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Last week, I uploaded my my word wall cards and headers to my TPT shop.  They are for sale there, but you can access them until Friday through Google Drive for FREE!  Take advantage of it while you can!  All I ask is that you follow my blog and tell your friends! :)  Enjoy!

Sight Word Headers and Cards

Calendar Time Summer Linky!

Hello again!  This has been a long, long week in our house.  My little guy got his tonsils and adenoids removed last Tuesday, and I have pretty much been Nurse Mommy for the last seven days.  He is FINALLY starting to act like his normal self, PRAISE THE LORD!!!  I have heard that this surgery is 100 times worse for adults... I cannot imagine what that would be like.  I am excited to actually get out of the house tomorrow to drop my trunk full of school supplies at my school!

I'm linking up with Sharing Kindergarten to share my calendar time routine.  Calendar time is one of my favorite things about our day in kindergarten.  I do calendar time right after lunch recess with my math block.  I know some do calendar first thing in the morning, but it works for me to do it with math.

First of all, please don't mind my messy room.  I took this picture on the last teacher day, before everything was put away.  Don't judge... It looks a lot better now. :)

We start our calendar time to the far left.  We name the month, add the calendar date card (all of my cards have owls on them and coordinate with the monthly theme), and name the year.  Below that, you will see two smallish rectangles.  Those are the niftly little whiteboard strips from the Dollar Spot at Target.  We write the coded date on one and tally the date on the second.  Next, moving to the top right, we do the days in school.  We talk about place value and name the parts of the number as well as the whole number.  We then sing our months of the year and days of the week songs.  We name today, yesterday, and tomorrow (on velcro below the days in school).  Moving right, we then name our colors (each day for the first part of the year, then we begin to skip over that one as the year goes on) and shapes (3D shapes will be added to my wall soon).  To the right of those posters, you will see a number line.  I use this to show number formation.  Below that is a 100s chart.  We do a Mystery Number each day.  We make a picture on it each month.  I have a book that was given to me in student teaching that I use to get the pictures, but sometimes I make up my own clues based on the needs of my students.  Below that, we do today's weather and temperature.  Finally, you will see coins, a clock, and birthday and tooth graphs.  

Sheww... That's a lot!  Let me go into a little more detail now.  First of all, I always guide this instruction until at least October.  When the students are ready and trained in calendar time, I give the responsibility of leading calendar time to my students.  They serve in that job a week at a time, and they LOVE it.  On the board, you will see a pocket with pointers in it.  They get to pick a pointer to use to guide the group.  They LOVE that.  You may wonder why I don't use a Promethean board.  Well, I don't have a Promethean board.  I'm not complaining at all, because I would much rather have the technology I have in my classroom that a board, but when the humidity kicks in and I am reattaching things to my calendar wall, I dream of a classroom with one.  :)

I have struggled this year with how to show student accountability for calendar time.  Some teachers use folders with coordinating sheets.  I used to do that, but it sort of became a hassle.  Some teachers do one sheet that accompanies the daily calendar, but what about those first few months of school when they just can't do it?  Teacher friends, any input would be much appreciated!  

I hope to post again tomorrow with another linky...  But I will go ahead and share this sweet little freebie I posted this morning!  Chevron... Chalkboard... Bunting... Oh My!