It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It is the most wonderful time of the year!!!!  LOL  Now your gonna be be singing that song aren't you??  I'm sorry, but I just couldn't help myself!!! :)  I have a love hate relationship with this time of year.  Excited and loving the fact that summer is soooooo close, but hate to say good bye to those sweet little faces and HATE all the stuff that has to get done before we can walk away for a couple months!! My to do list always seems sooo long and there never seems to be time to get all of it done.  I have done pretty good this year at not procrastinating so I am pretty proud of myself.  One of the things on that mile long list was to make certificates for the awards ceremony we have scheduled next week.  I usually use the certificates that Lakeshore offers, but I didn't feel like using so much color ink this year so I decided to make my own and run them on different color paper.  Here are the first 2 that I have made, an AR Participation Award and a Sight Word Super Star Award.  If I make anymore I will be sure to post them for you.  Click the images below if you would like to use them yourself.  :)

Happy Mothers Day to all the mommies out there!! :) 

25 Days of Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of my blogging buddies and fellow teachers!!  Here is a game for you to use in your small groups when you get back in January.  My babies will be Dibeled on Nonsense Word Fluency in January and I have not really done much practice with it, so I thought this would be perfect! Hurry... before you MELT!!!

Click HERE to get your copy!! :)

Math Night

Last Thursday our school hosted a Math Night for our parents.  They were invited to come and learn about simple games they could play with their kids and then we gave them the opportunity to have a "Make it Take it" time so they could actually take home some of the games that were discussed.

We decided to share how easy it is to use dice as a learning tool so we shared the simple game of Roll Say, Keep, only we changed it to Roll, Count, Keep.  We included a dice and everything they would need to play this game at home.  We received a very positive response from the parents that took advantage of this opportunity.  I have included the document that we provided in hopes that you may be able to use it the same way or in your classroom.  We also shared that they could use the cards to play memory also!! :)  My wonderful colleague who I have posted about before - Ms. Jayme - was the creator of this gem.  Enjoy!!

Roll, Count, Keep

Always just one more thing...

Do you ever feel like you are almost caught up, only to realize that there is now yet ANOTHER "thing" that is required/needed/due or all of the above?  This seems to be the story of my life these days and is the reason that it has been more than a week since my last post!!  Please tell me that I am not alone!!!!!!  I have had a few moments of relief these last few days...enjoying some Fall fun with my favorite 7 year old!! :)

Among all the craziness, we have managed to have some fun - all surrounding Veteran's Day. Thanks again Kim Adsit for being the supplier of our fun!!  Hooray for Veteran's Day!!  We did so many things out of this unit over the past 2 weeks and of course I didn't take a picture of half of it...yet. 

One of the first things we did was Label a Hero!  The kiddos labeled a soldier of their own as I labeled mine.  

We also created a brace map for the parts of the flag.  As we discussed the flag and added it's different parts to our map,  the children created one of their own.  

Download HERE

The next day the kids recreated the brace map again, this time using the pieces from Kim's unit - this being one of the things I did not take a picture of.  They turned out so cute too!!  I will try and remember to snap a couple on Monday.  The other things we did that I didn't take any pictures of are an adorable soldier and Veteran's Day book and an Ordinal Numbers activity that really helped my kids grasp that concept even better!  Oh, we also did the All About Number 11 activity today!  See, so much I can't remember it all!!  If you missed out this year - go buy it now so you will have it for next year!!!  You will not regret it!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!  1 more week until our Thanksgiving Break!!  Yippee!!!  Next week brings A Thanksgiving Feast and butter making!!!! :)

Rule Number 6... or 3 :)

Hey!!  I have also had several requests for the following additions to my rules posters.  

For those of you who want to use 

Rule # 6: Respect others, respect yourself respect your school - Here you go!! :)

And for those of you who want to use this in place of my Rule # 3.  :)

Behavior Calendars ~ Discipline Policy docx :)

I'd just like to say thank you for all of your kind words through email and the recent comments on my posts about the vinyl and the Clip Chart!  I a so glad I have inspired some of you to brush the dust off those sad little Cricuts that have been stuck in the back of the closet since they were brought home!!  It's really not scary once you become familiar with it's capabilities!! 

I have had a lot of requests for the rest of my behavior calendars I use in my student's D.O.T Books and also for a word version of my discipline policy.  

Click below:

BEHAVIOR CALENDARS

DISCIPLINE POLICY 

I have changed a few of my rules so this is the updated one.  Please don't mind the ugly font that google used - please change it to a pretty one for me! :)

I hope the discipline policy downloads o.k - this is the first time I have uploaded a word doc to Google docs.  Please let me know if you have any trouble!!

I also worked on some new rule posters for my room this evening.  Click below to find them!!

In the coming days I will be posting and sharing more about the D.O.T Book my students use... I am just trying to juggle a lot right now with some recent polka dot orders and the beginning of school... oh and those people I lovingly call my family!!  I'm not sure they even still recognize me!! LOL :)

I did spend all day in my classroom today, and I even brought my SLR to take some decent pictures but I seemed to have made more of a mess today then clean so it really wasn't a pretty sight this afternoon.  I will do my best to get some tomorrow!  

Classroom Pics & Clip Chart Part 2 :)

 

I have been working a little each day in my room and I am making pretty good head way.  Above you can see what I walked into on Monday.  I always feel so overwhelmed on my first day back but slowly things start getting sorted and put back where they go or in their new spot.  We had to take EVERYTHING off the walls at the end of the year so having to put them back up is not usually on my to do list during this time... but this year it had to be and lucky for me my para came in on Monday to help and she will be with me again tomorrow.  She is  such a huge help and I truly don't know if I could do what I do without her!!  I am no where near done but here is what it looked like when I left on Monday.  It is starting to resemble a classroom of sorts... :)

Here is a close up picture of my favorite new addition to my room this year... Pink Polka Dot material!!!  I love it with the black border!!  Thank you Hobby Lobby!!!  I swear I think I could live there!  I love that place!!!

I will take some more tomorrow afternoon before I leave.  

I was able to go to school for a couple hours this morning.  Why does time go by so fast when you have soo much to do????  My biggest accomplishment this morning was assembling my clip chart!!  It still has to be laminated and of course it still needs polka dots, but here it is and I am really liking my new labels!! :)

I have had a few people ask about how I explain this to my parents and how I report daily behavior, so you can find my Discipline Policy HERE and my Monthly Behavior Chart HERE!  My discipline policy is a combination of things I have found here there and everywhere and my behavior calendars are from I think the DJ Inker Kidilly Wink CD.  Maybe??  I just added the behavior codes and title...thinking I may shorten that list, but can't decide.  :)

Clip Chart

I have used the Clip Chart in my classroom for the last year and a half and have loved the results!!

I made this one very quickly out of construction paper and it served its purpose, but I had to send it to File 13 at the end of this year because it was very faded and well... it's just not cute enough!! :)  

One of the many things on my To Do List this summer was to make a new one... and I finally did!!!  Better late than never!!!  Well, it's not all the way made, but I finished the labels for it tonight so I am one step closer and I want to share them with you all!

You can find them HERE!! 

You can also find it HERE!!