Five for Friday

It's time for Five for Friday.  I missed it yesterday because I went grocery shopping after work, which meant a 45 minute trip into the closest town!  But I bought $400 worth of groceries for $66 using my coupons so I can't complain!

{One}  Because I teach preschool I don't have any students on Friday, so I asked my nephew if he wanted to each lunch with me.  He's in first grade, and he was really excited.  He even gave up his gym time to come each lunch with me in my classroom!

{Two} With a new classroom came a new aide this year.  We happen to go to church together so that was a nice surprise.  When I told her I wanted new curtains to cover my shelves, she bought the fabric and took on the whole project herself!  The previous curtains were red with tiny stars, and there was nothing wrong with them.  I just needed something that would go with my theme (or any theme if I decided to change it from year to year), so black with white polka dots it is!

{Three} I hung lanterns above the book corner to fill some of the space.  We have nice, high ceilings, that I was able to staple right into so those lanterns are not coming down!  Hehe.

{Four} Our first day of school with students is on Monday.  Our program went all day this year, and I can't imagine having 4-year-old's for 7 hours on the first day!  We are only having school for one hour so our students can see the classroom, explore some of the centers and then we're going to read a story and do an art project.  Hopefully this will help them (and their parents!) with their transition to school.

I created an area in my dramatic play center for a "Photo Booth" so parents can take pictures and they can dress up to take silly photos if they want, to calm the nerves and help them feel more comfortable in the room with all of those new faces!

{Five} I had this pole in the middle of my room, and what was I to do but make it into a coconut tree?!  I tore the leaves by hand to make the palm leaves look more natural, and it was looking a little bare.  My aide suggested crumpling up paper into a ball to make coconuts, and of course, I was like "Why didn't I think of that?"  (It's been a long week of home visits and paperwork!!!)  So now we have our very own coconut tree!

Have a wonderful weekend all!

Teacher Week: Tips and Tricks

This is the last day of Teacher Week '13 by Blog Hoppin' and today we are sharing our favorite tips and tricks.

1.  My number one teaching tip is to show students that you are a human being!!!  When you make mistakes, raise your voice a little too loudly, when you are sick or feeling sad, tell them.  This provides the perfect moment to talk about how you deal with these situations and why they happened.  You can also demonstrate to them when it is important for them to focus on working hard and giving their best effort, and when it is okay to act silly.  We all act crazy every once in a while!  

Speaking of crazy, brain breaks are great if your students have the wiggles, and they only take a few minutes.  Just Dance Kids 2 on Youtube has some fun songs for kids, and my students LOVE it when I dance with them!!!

Harry Kindergarten has some great videos to keep students engaged while they learn too!

After several weeks of school, I give students three videos to choose from and they hold up that many fingers to vote.  They love having a choice and as their interests change, I introduce new videos.

Classroom Digs & Organizing for Instruction

*** Classroom Digs ***

I spent almost all day yesterday trying to figure out how to get pictures of my classroom off of my phone, and I guess since it's not a smartphone, it is completely impossible!

In any case, I went into my classroom today to get a few more things done and take some pictures with my digital camera (which is probably for the best anyway!).  My first day of school with students isn't until September 16th and I have a new classroom this year, so I'm still working on the organization part.  But, I wanted to do the fun stuff first---YAY decorating---so here goes...

Welcome to my Jungle themed classroom!

View from the front door

Word wall - Pardon all of the books.  I have to wait for my bookshelf to be moved in.  The word wall letters are from Teaching Joy.

Writing center - The bulletin board to the left will have examples of things they can write about, such as fact books, recipes, grocery lists, ABC books, etc.

Book Corner - I separated a giant bulletin board into two smaller ones; one to place pictures of students reading, and the other for student work.  I had TONS of bananas left over from bulletin board sets I had purchased, and so I used them to make the word Bananas in "Bananas for Books."  It says "Spotted:  Great Work" above the other half.

A view of the other half of my classroom from the door.  I love all of the cubbies of materials with real life labels.

This bulletin board will be used to display student art.  The middle of the bulletin board will be used for a seasonal art display.  Work that students create at the art center will be displayed around the outside.  To create the animals:

1.  I hot glued clothespins to thumb tacks to hold up the artwork.  

2.  Since I didn't like the look of a plain clothespin, I glued on a jungle themed animal cutout to make them look more attractive.  

3.  The animals at the bottom are hot glued to a clothespin and then glued to the wall.

Tip:  Glue the thumbtack high up on the clothespin.  I discovered when I glued it lower, the animal tipped upside down! You can also use sticky tack instead if hot glue pulls the paint off of the walls. :)

This is my morning meeting area.  Everything is low so my students can access everything for the Read Around the Room center.

The area to the left is my Information HUT board to display  information parents may need to know.

I placed paper on the cabinet to the right, where I have my Jungle Behavior chart with chevron from Teaching Joys. 

Next to the chart it says, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Look who's HANGING OUT in our room!"  Here, I will place pictures of my students to display all year.

*** NOW Teach: Organizing for Instruction ***

The only organizational tip I could think of that some people may not have thought of was how I store my bulletin board posters and supplies.  When thinking about how I would pack up my room this year, I happened to look over and there it was: an "under the bed" box and it was empty!  I love that it has wheels and can easily be moved from place to place.  It stores a lot of items, and you can't see it very well in the picture, but the handles clip around the top so the lid doesn't fall off when you pick it up.  It is so much easier to carry this around than those giant, heavy storage bins!

Thanks for viewing my classroom.  Head on over to Blog Hoppin' to check out how other teachers get organized!

File Folder Pocket Chart

My goal this year is to be super organized and keep my desk clear of clutter (a girl can hope right?)!  After creating labels for magazine files to organize some of the materials I use often in my classroom, I wanted to create my own pocket chart to store class lists and things I need to file away for future use.  Who needs to spend way too much money on buying a pocket chart when you could make one in about an hour?!

For this project, I used 3 file folders, cardstock, zebra scrapbook paper (I purchased a single sheet for $.50), puffy letters and jungle stickers from JoAnn Fabrics, and zebra stripe duct tape.  I didn't have colored file folders and didn't want to spend $20 on 100 of them just to use 3, so I glued colored cardstock to the front of the folders to make them a little more colorful.  You could use scrapbook paper or duct tape (they have superhero duct tape!) to create just about any design to match your classroom theme, and this project was so easy to do once I could figure out how to glue the folders together.

The directions on how to complete this project can be found on The Silver Lining.  My tip: flip the folders around backwards and nest the folders inside of one another so the back of the folders will be the front of your pocket chart when you are finished.  It was easier for me to visualize how to put the folders together this way!  Now I can finally say I made something from Pinterest that I have been pinning for the past year!

Organizing Materials

For my first post, I wanted to write about a DIY project I made because I love, love, LOVE doing craft projects.  This summer has been dedicated to getting ready for my new classroom this since this is the first year in four years of teaching I know I have a job in the fall more than two weeks before school starts! YIKES!!!

With all of the time I have this summer (yeah, right) I decided to spend more time organizing my classroom so I can start the year off right!  The first DIY project I did was inspired by the Clutter Free Classroom, which I altered by making my own labels for magazine files that I bought from Target for approximately $2.39 each.  She bought the magazine files from Ikea for cheaper, which were made from cardboard, but I wanted something I could use from year to year and easily change out the labels if I moved to a different grade level.

Teaching preschool this year, I don't need labels for each day of the week, so I created labels to easily access materials I use often.  The labels are from 3AM Teacher on TpT and are FREE.

After creating the labels, I printed and laminated them, and glued them on with hot glue.  The labels can be easily removed and changed out if necessary.  Not bad for my first DIY project!