Back to school!

It is so hard to believe that today is my last day of summer vacation! Tomorrow is the first day I can get into my classroom AND it's the first day of new hire training. The next two weeks are going to be crazy...and then the next 40 or so weeks after that!

I hope to have my classroom finished by Friday... Which I believe to be a totally unrealistic goal but who knows. My parents and the hubs have decided it's not unrealistic, and I'm certainly not allowed to argue with that! I'm excited to get going AND for Monday Made It tomorrow! Stay tuned! 

Side note: Who else starts back to work this week?? 

-Laura

Spaces and Places

I assume today that they are finishing up our classrooms, as we will FINALLY be allowed in this upcoming Monday!! I was able to take a peek on Tuesday afternoon and noticed that A) the previous teacher had finally removed all of their things, and B) there were two new tables in the room. That's all the furniture I'll be getting, so maybe the reason I couldn't come in this week is because they're going to set my computers up for me?? A girl can dream.

Here are a few pictures of my room from the first time I saw it in mid-July. Note the cabinets full of the previous teacher's things. All gone! And imagine that in addition to the desks just piled against the wall, there are also two tables in that tangle. And a teacher chair!

(Wow, it wasn't until I uploaded these pictures to the computer that I realized how awful they were. I have got to get my digital camera working!!) 

All gone!!

My room is pretty large! I'm excited. After spending a year in the tiny special ed pods and student teaching in two small classrooms, I have space!!

Speaking of space, have you all read Spaces and Places by Debbie Diller? You should!! I think it is especially helpful for previous teachers trying to declutter and redo, but it has also been helpful as a brand new teacher! (Side note- you can buy it cheaper at Barnes & Noble than on Amazon. Someone explain that to me.) Part of her book says to make a plan before you even think about moving furniture. Since I can't move furniture until Monday, this has been a great distraction!

The squiggly lines represent the separator between my classroom and the next. We're "curtain partners." Adorable.

For the rest of today I will be working on coming up with an ABC list that has to do with language arts, explicitly defining my procedures for the classroom, and doin' a little compliance training. I can tell you're jealous!

Until next time!

Laura

My First Monday Made It!

Monday Made It with Fourth Grade Frolics

Y'all, I have been looking forward to posing a Monday Made It ever since I first saw them on the internet. I'm so excited to show off a little of what I'm doing for my classroom. Sadly, I don't have a camera. (Well, I do, but it's on the floor of my bedroom and I'm not entirely certain it works, so please forgive my iphone pictures!) 

After seeing this ALL over Pinterest, I had to make my own. I feel like it's a pretty self-explanatory project for the kids to use to help me out! When the students arrive, they don't have to do anything. However, once class has started, I'll have my star boy and girl of the week check for absences and move those kids' numbers to the absent box. Then, as students leave class (during class), they can move their magnet to the location where they are headed. I might change "absent" to "other" but for now, I am going to test this out. 

After showing my mom, she insisted I make one for her classroom (she teaches 7th grade language arts) but with zebra print. Then I showed that to my friend Rachael (also a first year fifth grade language arts teacher!) and SHE insisted on having a zebra one as well. Now I'm out of cookie sheets, so thankfully no one else can beg for one without providing their own cookie sheet!!

 I found the idea on Mrs. Petite's Teaching Passion ... or rather on pinterest, which redirected me to her blog. ;) 

My next (and last) project is also from pinterest, and Mrs. Brown Dot Com. I got the back board from Michael's for $1.99 and the letters were in sets of two for 99 cents each. That wasn't the greatest deal... I only needed one of each except for the N's! So I made one for my friend Rachael. I forgot to take a picture of hers, but it's pretty much the same except using more of the green colors! 

I have found a looooot of great ideas on pinterest and through following blogs. I wish I could claim some of their products as my own! Haha oh well. My goal is to create some crate seats...but after reading about how expensive they can be, I am way thrown off on that idea. You would think something like that would be so much cheaper! 

Have you made crate seats or something similar? How much did that project cost you? Maybe I can be a better bargain hunter, because these seats would be so cute! 

**COMMENT UPDATE** - I can now comment on my own blog, but I can only comment on other blogs that also have pop-up comments. I've done a bit of research and apparently this happens randomly with blogger. Hopefully it will go away soon so I can thank you all for your support and great ideas!

An appropriate first post

Once upon a time, I had a blog in college for my technology and education class. That was about four years ago, and I have since slept. But after a summer of reading teaching blogs, I finally decided to rejoin the blogging world and be less of a stalker non-participating member of teaching blogs. 

I figured the best way to do this was to join the "currently" linky party at Oh Boy, Fourth Grade! After seeing these on blogs all summer, I'm excited to post my own!

Check back later this weekend for an updated blog, actual information about myself, and so on. Until then, enjoy!!

- Laura

PS- I have tried commenting and it's not working...on any blogs. :( Is there some really easy trick that I am missing out on? Please help!