Classroom Community

This summer I've been taking a class based upon the above book.  I've always felt strongly about building a positive classroom community, and was looking for some new ideas and strategies to build a strong community with my new first graders this fall.  This is a FABULOUS book and I have learned so many new ideas and already have my Morning Meeting built into my schedule for the 2012-2013 school year.  If you have any tips we'd definitely LOVE to hear howThe Morning Meeting works for you!

And now onto a cute little community building activity that we're going to do with our kiddos on their first day of school!

Looking over Pinterest, I've found several fingerprint tree ideas, but never really found a tree I liked.  So after several hours of using Adobe Illustrator, here's a fingerprint tree I created.  You could definitely add more fingerprints around your students' fingerprints to make the tree fuller.  I will be adding my students' names under each of their fingerprints.  If you click on the photo below you'll see a close up of a few fingerprints with names below them.  There is also plenty of room on the page for you to add your class name above the tree for extra personalization!

After I made the tree shown above, I decided that I wanted a shorter trunk so I created 3 different trees all with different sized trunks.  If you'd like a set too, just click the picture below for your copy! 

Have a FANTASTIC rest of the week! 

Merry Christmas... in July!!! (SALE EXTENDED)

We are linking up with the fabulous ladies at Blog Hoppin' and throwing a little sale in our store! All of our seasonal items at Teachers Pay Teachers will be on sale 20% of for one day only, so make sure to swing on by and find yourselves some goodies!
*****UPDATE*****
Since TpT has been updating their site, (making great improvements) the site has been kind of slow today.  So we've extended our sale to go through the 26th!    

If you want to link up, ya better do it fast! Head on over to Blog Hoppin' and join in on the fun!  Happy shopping!

Summer Loves

We are still here folks! Don't you worry, we haven't fallen off the side of the planet just yet. But we are so busy just L-O-V-I-N-G summer!!! We truly work so hard all year in our classrooms, on our blog and our store, and running our families, that we are just relaxing and soaking up every second of summer sun that we can manage. We are still quietly working on a few new units, but they aren't quite ready to share just yet. Instead,  I thought I'd share some things I'm loving right now. And sorry, not a single one has anything to do with teaching, so bear with me.

 

All things turquoise. I love my skinny jeans, my jewelry, my patio makeover, and very soon my new half-bathroom color.

I borrowed this pic from pinterest, but couldn't find who it was from. If you know, tell me and I will give credit.

Nail polish. Notice the color. I've had a few mani-pedis lately, and while I love this color on my toes, I'm addicted to the Schlack french manicure on my fingers. It stays FOREVER!

Frozen lemonade drinks. They have them all over the place, but this may be my favorite. It's a raspberry lemonade slushy from Bauman Farms. If you are local in Oregon, or in the Salem area, you should definitely check them out. Yum.

This little gem I found on Craigslist. My daughter Olivia just got a big girl bedroom, and she needed a new dresser. I LOVE the line on top. It was a project though. I had to strip it (with the coolest heat stripper EVER), sand it and repaint it. 

 

Now, I'm even more obsessed. It looks soooo good! And I'm so glad I took the time to strip it first. That is not something I would usually do, but it made a HUGE difference. I LOVE THIS.

 I've been following Bethany's blog for a few years, and her work is AMAZING. We finally had the chance to use Bethany to photograph our family this past Friday, and I can't WAIT to see the pictures. She is fabulous, so if you are local and looking for a photographer, definitely check her out.

A family friend of ours is moving to Abu Dhabi, and is selling almost all of her stuff. I scored this incredible leather chair. It's well loved, but is the most comfortable chair ever. Husband and I are currently fighting over who gets it. The picture really doesn't do it justice.

We also got this funky little shelf for $30. I have no idea what to do with it, other that I love the color, and its just so cute. Currently it's holding a lamp. Any other thoughts or ideas?

My IKEA couch. It's hasn't made her way home yet,  but soon. We are going to try to sell our house next spring, but our couch is just not going to cut it until then, so she's moving to my house. I love the color. Can't wait to meet her.

My Honda Odyssey mini-van. I wish mine was this pretty and shiny. I admit it. I drive a minivan. I swore up and down that I would never own one, but don't knock it until you try it. Once that third kid came along, we bit the bullet and got one. Best decision ever. It is just SOOO much easier for kids to get in and out of, to deal with car seats, everything. I love mine. I am a minivan mom and proud of it. And man are we putting miles on it this summer.

And now my true loves.

Miss Olivia is two and a half, and just starting to develop a bit of a diva attitude. She runs the house for sure! We spent the first three weeks of the summer visiting my parents in South Carolina, and spent all of our time playing in the pool. Liv is still the cuddliest of my bunch, and loves her mama, nail polish, lip gloss, bandaids and changing her clothes. I'm having so much fun with this girlie-girl this summer!

 

Mr. Benjamin is my middle child. Enough said.  After he turned six last spring he had a few random seizures and gave us a big scare. He's been fine since, until this week when he had another, so back to the neurologist we went. Everything is fine, but now he's on some meds for awhile. This kid is smart, spunky, stubborn, and has his own view on the world, and how he interacts with it. Nobody tells him what to do. He makes me laugh (and scream) at least 10 times a day.

Dylan is my oldest, my most thoughtful, and at times, my biggest bully. He likes to show the other two who is the boss. He's almost 8 and will be in 2nd grade in the fall. He was at my school, even though we don't live in district, and it was both awesome, and terrible all at once. I loved him being in my reading group, and keeping close tabs on him, but he also had trouble seeing me as Mrs. Scott, rather than Mom. While in SC, we spent time in the boat, where Dylan practiced his water skiing. He's also developed his love for reading, and is on his third Diary of a Wimpy Kid book this summer.

My husband, and definitely my best friend. Right after SC (which was just me and the kids) Mr. Scott and I went to Alaska for five days for my cousin's wedding. This was the first time in nine years that we have left for that long by ourselves. We've had many overnight dates, but this was the first time we've left Liv for more than a night, let alone five. It. Was. Amazing. Alaska isn't my favorite place (I prefer the sun) although it was beautiful. We went to Denali National Park and is was incredible. We saw moose, caribou, and ten grizzly bears. But my favorite part was definitely getting to just hang with him. I heart him.

So, that's what I'm loving so far this beautiful, and sun-shiney summer. What are you loving?

Lesson Plan Notebook Makeover

  Hope you are all having a FABULOUS summer!  It hasn't been much of a summer around here yet, it's been one rainy June around here!  We decided it was time to makeover our lesson plan notebooks and we though we'd share with you all what we keep inside of them.

 Our lesson plans make up the "bulk" of these notebooks and are located at the front.  

We have a master that we copy and fill in weekly.

 We have 5 divided sections with tabs labels for:

School Schedules:  

Here we place schedules from learning specialists, library/PE schedules, computer labs schedules, etc...

Assessment Scores:

All of our district/classroom test scores are stored in this section.

Student Information:

This section contains the student info sheets that we have parents fill out on open house.  These sheets contain student info, bus/pick up info, important phone numbers, and email addresses.  

Emergency Informations:

This section contains allergy information & other school wide student information forms.

Important Notes:

Here we keep notes from parents regarding bus/pick up changes, or any other notes that are important to hold on to.

Behind each tabbed divider is a section cover page (see below for examples).  Behind each cover page is where we keep the important papers and information.  At the end of each section, behind all of the papers, is a pocket folder that can easily hold small notes or other small papers.

If you'd like a copy of these pages, just click below the picture for your copies!

{Click HERE for notebook cover and section cover pages}
****WE'VE UPDATED THE COVER WITH 2014-2015****

Hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week!  

We're definitely hoping for some sunny weather to head this way!

Clipboard Makeovers

Hello summer!  Well, officially it begins on June 20th, but we've been on vacation since June 8th and are truly relaxing and enjoying some much needed family time.  Classroom organization has been on our minds these last few weeks as we've been deciding on where our new smart boards should be mounted.  We loved all of your advice and can't wait to use these newest additions to our classrooms in the fall.  We've had these old clipboards lying around our rooms for quite some time and have been wanting to give them a little makeover.  The two small ones were new purchases at Walmart and were SUPER cheap!  

We found a great tutorial on how to remodel these clipboards over at Skiptomylou, one of our favorite crafty blogs!

After gathering the clipboards, we got out our scrapbook paper, spray adhesive, and clear acrylic sealer.  Then we traced the clipboards and got the paper all trimmed up.  Since we were using large clipboards and our paper was only 12X12 (our large clipboards were about 14 inches long), we cut small strips of paper to fit the top.  Decorative tape would probably work as well, but we didn't have any on hand at the time.

After they were glued and sealed, we attached some ribbon!  Doesn't ribbon just make everything prettier?  The small one on top already has a place ready for it! Right next to one of our laptops.  It seems like when we're sitting at our laptops (which is usually at the end of the day, or when taking attendance or checking our email) we are always in need of paper.  Our sticky notes always seem to disappear and make their way to other parts of our classrooms.  We're sure these cute little boards will stay put!

We've also recently added our June/July Math Journal Questions to our Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  

There are 30 questions which review of the following skills:

*Adding/subtracting single digits

*Adding/subtracting a single digit to/from a double digit number

*Comparing sums and differences

*Place value (grouping 1’s into 10’s)

*Time (counting up one hour/half hour) 

*Shape fractions with halves and fourths

Interested?  Stop on by {HERE} and take a peek!

Have a wonderful week!  We'll be back in a few days!

It's the end of the school year!

Tomorrow is our last day with our kiddos.  We've had a great year and we're both looking forward to family time this summer and lots of other projects.
Here are a few little freebies from this week that we thought you might enjoy!
This little freebie is a word/picture sort activity focusing on
r-controlled vowels that make the er sound.  These cards worked perfectly with the Two and Four Column Double-Sided Pocket Chart

that Homeroom Teacher kindly gave to us to review.  

Here is the four pocket side that worked perfectly for this word sort.

 The two pocket side worked well for a compound word sort that we also did.
We put the compound word on the blue side, and the two words that make the compound word on the green side.

We received this product for free in exchange for an honest review.

The opinions expressed in the above paragraph have not been influenced by the company or the free product mentioned above.

If you'd like a copy of this word/picture sort, just click below this picture.  We've also included a recording sheet.  The word/picture cards could easily be cut on the dotted line to provide more of a challenge for students if needed.   You could have students match the words to the pictures before sorting them into the correct column.

{r-controlled word/picture sort}

Here's another little freebie that we'd like to share with you all too.  

We like to reward our students that consistently bring back their math homework.  Here's a little insect (since we recently learned about them) inspired math award.  If you're not wanting a math themed award, no worries we've also created a hardworking award that can relate to any subject area!  Just click below the picture for your copy!

{Math Homework/Hard Worker Award}

We hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll be back in a few days after we get some much needed rest and relaxation!

Treat yourself!!!

6 kid days left... We think we can, we think we can...

After a fantastic long weekend, we are back and trying to finish up the year. Our little kiddos are assessing our hearts out, and are really trying to keep their heads in the game. We had a fantastic field trip to the zoo last week, and we have a little freebie to share. But first. Don't you think it's time we all give ourselves a little pat on the back? We've (almost) made it through another year. So we have a way for you to do just that. Have you heard of Silpada Jewelry? It's definitely a favorite of ours, and we wanted to make sure to share it with all of you!

 

Erin is hosting a catalog party right now, and we knew you'd want in on the action! So click on over {HERE} and shop away. The fantastic thing about this jewelry is that it's all sterling silver, and life time guaranteed, and it's all FABULOUS!  And don't forget to put it Erin's name  (Erin Scott) when you place an order. Then, send us an email and we will send you our amazing new First Grade Common Core Math Assessment for free! It's quickly turning into one of our best sellers, and we'd love to help you get it for free! Make sure to take a minute and treat yourself, but hurry up, the party is closing at the end of the week.

We also mentioned that we went to the zoo last week, and we have a quick activity to share with you if you're still looking for some last minute classroom ideas. We started with the book One Night in the Zoo. 

We read this sweet story, and then the kids did a piece of writing on their own. We had them imagine what they thought happens at the zoo at night. They had the cutest ideas, but dang it! We forgot to pull out the camera!  So go ahead and do this in your class, and see what great ideas your students have. 

 Click {HERE} for your copy.

Need more zoo activities? Make sure to check out our Zoo Map Pack and our It's a Zoo Day Game pack.

We have a few more freebies to share during this crazy busy week, so check back later. Happy Tuesday!