What a week of TEAMWORK!

Aug 31, 2012

Every year we seem to get so Frustrated (capital F) because we have so many assessments to complete at the beginning of year and they seem to drag on, and on, and on, and on again.  This year we did it very Differently (capital D)!  We teamed up.  Two taught our wonderful firsties while the other two tested our little firsties!  And we got it all those individual tests done in 4 days!  Diagnostics and DRAs are D-O-N-E!

Many of lessons for our firsties were on expectations, procedures, social skills, and teamwork!  The students worked together to help us create a "garden" for our take-home book wall.  It was completed today.  And...wow!!! It really brightens up the little hallway that it is in.  I had to share.




It brightens my day!
Happy weekend everyone!

Em

Take Your Pick

Aug 27, 2012

I am always looking for fun and interesting ways to get books into the hands of our firsties!

Over the summer I stumbled upon Lesson Plan SOS (through Pinterest, of course).  They started a reading raffle at their school.  Love it!

So...I started my own version called "Take Your Pick."


This is a weekly drawing (again...trying to get those books in their hands)!!  Students earn tickets for whatever the classroom teacher decides and then they have their pick of what book they would like to win.  They just place their little tickets in the box and on Friday I pick 5 winners!

We started this today with our little firsties.  They were so excited!  So far...SkippyJon Jones has the most tickets.

I am looking forward to picking the winners on Friday.

Em

Portrait the Portrait

Aug 23, 2012

I have always loved those beginning of the year/get to know your students activities.  All the good conversations that help you get to know each one of them.  Well, this year looks a little different for us. (I think I will be saying this a lot!)  Since we will all be working with our curious firsties this year, we decided to do all of these lessons as a grade level. It is such a great time to see my amazing co-workers in action.  I learn so much from them.

Today we focused on self-portraits.

It started off with our new Whole Brain Teaching CHAMPS routine, of course.  Then onto the book:


Then Maria did an amazing job showing the students how they can use letters and numbers to create a self-portrait. (U for the face, 3 for the mouth, etc.)

On to the self-portraits...


Add a little outline...


And voila!  




After this...they did add color.  I was impressed with these portraits!

Once these wonderful pictures were made, colored, and displayed, I introduced the book "Cat the Cat Who Is That?" by Mo Willems.  Do you know this story?




  It could seem a little easy for first grade.  But I used it as a way to do two things: 1. introduce ourselves to one another and 2. introduce speech bubbles. 
They loved the story!  They thought it was funny and enjoyed looking for the speech bubbles. After the story we practiced introducing ourselves just like the author did.  "I am Em the Em." or "I am Mrs. Eshman the Mrs. Eshman."  The students thought this was funny and were laughing as they introduced themselves! :)

 Once the practicing was complete, students had to write their introduction.  We wanted to attach it to their self-portrait.  We decided to just use an large index card for this to ensure that they had enough room.



Each index card said: "I am____________the __________."

The students did a great job writing the sentence and it was a nice little assessment/observation tool for us (well, so was the self-portrait).

We used the same book to make speech bubbles later in the day for our monkey craftivity!  We even had some hidden speech bubbles around all three rooms that students had to search for!  Speech bubbles are so much fun!

Em



Twas the Night Before School..........

Aug 21, 2012

Don't you L.O.V.E. the night before school?  My favorite thing about the night before school is standing in the doorway with your lights out just peering and admiring the view.  It's clean, put together, floors still look great..... there's just something about it.  I think it's all the hard work we put into making our rooms look great.  I mean, for weeks and weeks, the ideas flow, you plan, buy, prep, buy, organize, buy, print things out, buy, buy, buy, buy and buy some more.  So, to step back and just admire all the sweat, tears, time and energy that we've put into our room is something I try to do each year on the night before school.
This year, for the first time in a LONG time, I'm LOVING my room.  I love the colors, I love the set up, I love the feeling I get when I walk in.  It's a happy feeling and I'm a happy person, so my room and I were made for each other.  :)

Here are a few pictures of my classroom.  A few changes from last year are........

I took off the ribbon and used crepe paper for ALL my borders! 
I used cupcake liners to make a few of my bulletin boards cuter.
My mom and dad helped me to make my crate seats after Em's hubby cut the wood!
They also helped cover a chair and table.  No I did not break ANY labor laws by using the rents.  They happily, with a huge smile asked, "What else can we do to help?"  Dangerous words to ask a teacher.  :)
I made a few banner things out of polka-dot paper plates and I heart them!
Oh yeah!  One of the most important is just about every bulletin board is blank.  I wanted to build the room this year since I will have three classes of firsties.  I'm so excited for this because I've N.E.V.E.R. done this! 
I'm sure by now you're like.... "Stop typing and just show the pics!"  So without further adieu......
Enjoy!!!














Take a moment to admire your own room!!!!  Have a GREAT first day if you haven't started yet!!
By the way... if you haven't linked up with Miss Nelson yet, hop on over to her Before and After giveaway!!!! :)

 

Maria










  

CHAMPs and WBT, a Little Wedding!

Aug 20, 2012

Classroom management... sends shivers down the spine.  Picture in the Lion King when the hyenas say, "Mufassa".  It's always a challenge to be sure you're meeting the needs of every.little.firstie and getting them to buy into your class and school rules. 
So this summer while blog stalking perusing the blogging world, I came across First Grade Fever.  If you haven't visited Christie, you need to hop.right.over to her fabulous little site.  She had a post on Whole Brain Teaching which quickly reminded me that our curriculum director had sent us the same video Christie had posted on her site.  I was immediately drawn in again to the WBT method.  I quickly hopped over to the Whole Brain Teaching website and began reading up.  I was in love!  I thought/think it would be perfect for our little firsties. 
Well.... we also have a school wide behavior program called CHAMPs.  I have loved CHAMPs and it has worked very well for our little guys, but sometimes... it just doesn't reach all of them.  Here's a little snippet of CHAMPs that we provide to our parents:

The “CHAMP” acronym is specific and narrow in that it explains exactly what to do in each learning situation, so all students can be successful.   At the beginning of new learning activities or lessons, the children will receive an explanation, visual reminders, and modeling of how to be a CHAMP in each situation. 

This means:

  • C = Conversation.  (May we have any?  If so, what kind?)
  • H = Help.  (How do we get help?)
  • A = Activity.  (What is the activity?)
  • M = Movement (May we have any?  If so, what kind?)
  • P = Participation.  (What does it look like?)
Do you love a wedding????  I do! haha  I just got that myself.  Oh my.... lack of sleep already is getting to the brain.  Back.on.track.  So we are going to do just that!  We are going to marry the WBT and CHAMPs this year since it is the district and building expectation that our students follow this procedure.  Are you as excited as I am?????  :)

As a team we sat down and looked at each letter, it's meaning, and then came up with a gesture just as you would do in WBT.  Christie's has AWESOME Rules and Call Backs as a FREEBIE on her site, ( I LOVE them because I have a secret obsession with polka-dots).  I printed off a copy of "Attention Grabbers" from Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera!  We are also adding a few of our own.  "Curious"(teacher says) "Firsties" (students call back) and "Champ" (teacher says) "Strong" (students call back)
We are so excited about this wedding!  I need to thank all the wonderful bloggers out there for the inspiration!

So, if you're using CHAMPs and want to try to marry it with WBT, feel free to print your FAVOR!  Every wedding needs one!
We'd also LOVE to hear how you use WBT or CHAMPs in your classroom!  :)

CLICK HERE  to grab this FREEBIE!!!
It is a wall set of each letter with picture reminders.
A little explanation of how we will use these rules. 
For 'C' we will say, "Conversation _______ (red, yellow or green)" then make the gesture of a finger to our lips for red, whisper hands for yellow, and talking hands for green. 
For 'H' we will say, "Help, raise hand" and make the gesture of raising our hand.
For 'A' we will say, "Activity, I can ____(state I can)" and make the gesture of a thumb to our self and then a thumb up.
For 'M' we will say, "Movement, sit (or walk)" and our gesture will be the signs for those movements.
Finally, 'P'.  We will say, "Participate and keep your dear teacher happy".  Our gesture will be framing our face somehow.  :)



Have a GREAT Tuesday!!! It's our Open House night. :)  I'm so excited to reveal my new classroom look. 
Come back for a visit tomorrow!  I will be posting classroom pics!

Maria

Advertising for Free

Aug 19, 2012

Ok--so one thing you have to know about me...I like love LOVE LOVE LOVE a good deal!

This year I am throwing a "Curious About Rhymes"literacy night (more to come on that later).  Finding interesting ways to advertise is a fun challenge for me.  This year I found some "moo" mini-cards for free.  Um...yes...FREE!  They came in the mail today.  They are so stinkin' cute and I just HAD to share it with you!

This is the back with all the info.

This is the front! So cute!! 
This is the box they came in. 100 cards!

When the website said "mini" I did not realize how mini they would really be!  I love them, though and I think they will be so much fun to hand out to remind our families to come to the literacy event!

I look forward to showing you all of my "Curious About Rhymes" event materials.  This is just a sneak peek!

Em

Crayons to Computers

Aug 17, 2012

We have previously blogged about how great Crayons to Computers is in Cincinnati!  We are so lucky to have a community that donates so many wonderful school items for our students.  I had the opportunity to talk about Crayons to Computers on Channel 12 yesterday.  Thank you for providing our students with so much.

Here is the video!


Crayons to Computers Video




Em




Quick Transformation Part 2

Aug 16, 2012

Thursday was the day for part 2 of some transformations.

#1
Last week (was it last week?  I don't know) I posted about a cork board that changed into a chalkboard with a quick coat of paint.  Here is Maria's final product (so cute, Maria)!

#2
My wonderful mom came to help me finish our school book room today.  As I stated earlier, we have tons of new books and they must fit in our cafeteria.  So we found some beautiful new shelves to put them on.

With the help of some duct tape...




the shelves now look like this:


Better, right?  But with some book boxes, it looks like this:


Yay! Thank you duct tape.  You made my life much easier today.  So did you mom!  Thanks!

Em



Wow-It Wednesday

Aug 15, 2012

SO.... I missed Made-It Monday.... again.  :'(  How about Wow-It Wednesday.  I have been blessed that my mother-in-law came down yesterday to help me by watching the girls.  As soon as she got here I ran as fast as I could slowly grabbed my things and headed to my classroom.  We are able to stay at school until 10 p.m. and that's when I left.  No kids.  Just me and the room (and Em for planning which we can't wait to share and my mom and dad: Oh how I love thee!).  I'm feeling better about it, but wanted to show you a few more made-it items. 

These babies will be holding all the different types of paper we have to have for Writer's Workshop.

Found in the TRASH!  :)
about $5 for this can that sticks to plastic
  


TA DA!!!!
OH MY YOUNGEST!  Mama thanks you.  I tried to fix with black duct tape, but she ended up back in the trash.  :(

All that breaking wore her out.

I got this in the summer clearance at JoAnn's for about $3.

Oh Sharpies.... how I love thee.



 

Crate seats in the making.  The pink is vinyl because little critters freak*me*out.  It was about $9 with a 50% off coupon at JoAnn's.  The foam in the middle was about $22 (I think...Mr. E. will have to confirm, he's the finance man. with a coupon.  Crates... came from wonderful source. 
Gotta love dads! The last picture is my meetingish area. :)  What do you think???

Finally... my mom and dad helped me recover my chair and a table that was also FREE!!!
I HEART you my fellow co-workers who put your things in the trash! 
Your trash has been my treasure. :)





Now go out and WOW the rest of this Wednesday!


Maria 






Favorite Read Aloud Linky

Aug 14, 2012



I'm excited to join Teaching Happily Ever After in her Linky Party.  Favorite Read Aloud...oh...I love this topic!  There are way too many picture books to choose from...so...I'm thinking of a chapter book.


I love reading this book because I think it has such a good message.  It strikes up some good conversations for students to have.

Happy Reading!
Em

Bookroom Remodel

Aug 13, 2012


I moved to a different school within my district three years ago when my elementary school closed.  As I was getting to know my new school, I learned that the bookroom had been shoved moved around quite a bit!  All the books were mixed up in four filing cabinets in the cafeteria.  Those poor books!! I could tell they had been nicely organized at one point in time.  That is when I decided that it was time for a REMODEL!  Stage 1 begins...

So I took a trip to IKEA (of course)!  And I bought these awesome boxes for two bucks!  What a deal!
                                                        FLYT Magazine file IKEA
Each of the book sets got a new clean bag and label. Organize, sort, organize, sort...and voila! I had lots of boxes full of lots of books.

Now came the tricky part...where to put them all?  Our school is busting at the seams.  We don't have room for boxes of books.  But that does not stop a teacher...so my brain starting turning....

Oh, husband!!! After much hammering, sawing, and sweat...we came up with this: shelves on a cafeteria wall.


The curtains (also from IKEA) protect the bookroom from little hands!

Stage 2 of our remodel started when I decided that all of these wonderful books needed to be logged into a format that teachers could easily search through.  I wanted teachers to be able to look at titles by level or category so that themes may tie together better.  Well...that was a stupid brilliant idea!!!!  I have spent hours upon hours upon hours logging books.  Here is what it looks like:


So stage 3 started this summer. I was asked to order $10,000 in books!  Oh you read that right...10,000 dollars!  Are you wondering what that looks like?


It was like Christmas in August today!  Opening box after box after box of all these wonderful books! (Here is my mess)


So this week will bring more bagging, labeling, and sweat (no air conditioning).  But how exciting to have so many new, fresh, interesting books to use this year! 

Oh and one more thing.  Thank you to Heinemann for a whole box of free books.  We look forward to using these.


Thanks for reading about all of my bookroom adventures!  I look forward to uploading the finished product!

Em