Baby Steps

We finally have a full team!  I am excited to be working with fresh faces too, but wow, we have a lot of work to do getting them up and running.  I am headed into school in a bit to work on one of the classrooms and I sure hope we can get about 8 hours of work done in 2 hours!  This three day weekend came at just the right time, because I was gearing up for a full fledged pitty party for one.  After two days of absolutely no school work I am refreshed and ready to get some stuff done today!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Oh my, last week was quite a week!  We have four kindergarten classes this year and currently only two kindergarten teachers!  One of our teachers resigned the day before we were contracted to start back for the year, and the other is having trouble getting here from Jamaica and will be here a week or two after school starts.  That means we are setting up four rooms instead of two!  Thank goodness we have assistants or else I don't know what we would do!  I am hoping this isn't a sign of a chaotic year to come.  We have tossed around the idea of teaching AM to our classes and then swapping with the sub and teaching PM to the other classes.  I also need to get writing some sub plans to make it through the first 7 days of school.  Any advice is highly welcome!  I just hope everything is resolved soon so that I have time to keep up with all of the wonderful blogs I read!  It has been depressing seeing my unread count growing by leaps and bounds each day.  I am currently at 436 unread blog posts. :(  On the bright side we had visitors from the district office come through Friday and they were snapping lots of pictures and raving about my room.  I gave away my secret and told them that all my inspiration has come from pinterest and blogging.  I can't wait until I'm done and am ready to show all of you!  Hopefully tomorrow, but that means I need to get off here and complete a few quick (I hope!) pinterest projects.

I went to work today with the intent to get a TON done.  Instead, I did a bunch of scrubbing!  It amazes me how dirty things get over the summer!  I go back again tomorrow and hopefully I can get the bulk of things put away quickly.  I was hoping to be mostly done with room set up tomorrow.  We also found out that the teacher coming from Jamaica is having trouble getting her visa cleared and won't be able to start until the beginning of September.  Ekkkkk!  Hopefully the rest of us can rally together an get her room somewhat set up for her.  Here goes nothing!

I have a ton of projects to get done tonight so I really shouldn't be blogging; I just had to write a quick blog to let you know am super exited to be a part of a fabulous group of bloggers over at Me and My Gang!  It was started by two wonderful teamies, Monica Schroeder (of The Schroeder Page) and Stephie McCumbee (of Mrs. McCumbee's Class).  The most wonderful part is that Me and My Gang is organized by grade level (fantastic idea ladies!).  Go check it out!

Fabulous K Friendly Summer Finds - Tech Style

Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned.  It has been one week since my last blog post.  I have been so busy keeping up with all of your fabulous posts and pins!  I have also been busy with School Improvement Team meetings, family days, and a few awesome classroom projects.  I even squeezed in one day at school getting all of my furniture back in place.  I can't wait to go back in on Monday and see how much I can power through.   Which reminds me, I never snapped a before pic.  Oh well.  I'll try to remember to take on first then when I go in on Monday. 

On to the purpose of my blog post.  I came across a neat website a while back but hesitated signing up.  I'm not sure why.  (I did the same thing with pinterest!  What was I thinking!?!?!??!)  Anyway, this year one of the fabulous second grade teachers at our school moved to Florida due to her husbands military transfer orders.  She found out yesterday that she will be teaching a K-1 multi-age! and emailed pleading for some resources.  Since she is in Florida, and I couldn't imagine trying to attach and email all of those files, I decided to go back and check out the program I had passed up before.  It is called DROPBOX.  It is wonderful.  It is PERFECT for sharing and collaborating with teaching friends who are states away.  Instead of sharing one file at a time it allows you to share whole folders on your computer (that means no having to upload!).  Not only that, but it allows me to access these files from any computer that I have installed the software on.  It automatically uploads all files that I save to that folder on the desktop of my computer.  I can access that folder from work, home, EVEN MY SMARTPHONE!  The days of panicking when I get to school and realize I left my flash drive stuck in my home computer are over!  The fiancee will also be happy to hear that he longer has to send me emergency emails with said forgotten documents before leaving for work. 

(click the image)

The best part: It is free for 2 gigs of storage!  You can get way more if you are willing to pay a monthly fee.  I plan on only using it to back up important files and things that I need to share, so the 2 gig should be more than adequate.  Plus, they reward you with a bit of extra storage for completing some of the welcoming tutorials.  Bonus!

Here are the uses I can think of:

1) Working collaboratively with grade level members on documents while at home via a shared grade level folder.
2) Exchanging a class set of letters with penpals without having to email all of the attachments individually, I would only have to show students how to save it to the correct folder!
3) Keep backups of newly created or highly important files that I need to access both at home and at school.
4) Effortlessly collaborate and transfer files between teachers at other schools.

I could keep listing ideas all night, but I want to hear the ideas you can come up with! 

(click the image)

I also wanted to introduce SQWORL to those of you who have not heard about it yet.  I have bookmarked the websites that my students use regularly, now I only have to set my KIDS SQWORL PAGE as the homepage on the student computers at school!  To open the links they just click on the screen shot of the webpage they want.  Easy Peasy Mac n' Cheesy!!!!  Since they are not signed in to my account they are only allowed to view the links, not edit them.  I used to bookmark my pages and place a shortcut on the desktop of the computers.  You can only imagine what would happen to them... file name changes, deleting the shortcuts, copying the shortcuts 100000 times all over the desktop.  No more fixing bookmarks every other day!!!  WOOHOOO!!!!  What will they think of next?!?!?!?!?

Sorry this post was so text heavy!  Since you made it to the end I am rewarding you with this freebie!

(the first 10 days of my kindergarten morning work)

Lovin' those love notes!

Today's blog post comes to you in honor of love notes.  Love notes make my world go round!  I save them.  I wonder if my students even know how special some of those notes are to me.  I have had some that make my fridge right along pictures from my nieces.  I keep some of my special love notes in a shoe box and go back and read them every once and a while when I've had a rough day.  They can turn my frown right back around.  Every year I seem to have one love note that turns me into a pile of mushy blubber. 

Last year my best love note came on the last day of school.  I teach in a community where students don't have very literacy rich home environments so I give out books for Christmas and at the end of the year.  At Christmas I am lazy, so I just slap a cute label in the books, but at the end of the year I take the time to write the students all a note.  I give each one the most meaningful compliment I can think of, something that shows I've truly paid attention to them this year.  Well, we always have a half day on the last day of school so I always end up with several bags left for students who don't come.  This year I was smart and decided to give the bags out on the second to last day.  Well one of my students ran in on the last day beaming from ear to ear and gave me a super big hug and a note that she wrote me in response.  The note is in my classroom so I can't quote it verbatim but it said something along the lines of "for you Miss Lee:  You are a good teacher that i ever met in my live."  Then she asked me if I really meant what I said.  Well I gave her a huge hug and said "Of course I meant what I said!  You are smarter than you realize and your energy always makes me smile!"  Well later that day all of the teachers were standing on the corner of the school grounds waiting to wave the buses goodbye she ran up again and gave me the biggest hug and said "Miss Lee, just like you meant what you wrote about me, I meant what I wrote about you."  And I turned into mushy jello.  It was so nice to know the love notes I wrote made my students feel as good as the love notes they make me!


And now, without further ado, a collection of my favorite love notes:

I am particularly fond of the portrait of me in this picture.  It is hands down the best drawing of me EVER!  And I fully intend to make it into a tote bag.

This love note gets points for originality.  And extra brownie points for labeling her diagrams! 

I was amazed by the detail this student put into her drawing.  She was one of my K kids.  Notice my red M___________ Elementary lanyard and she even drew all my earrings.  How come they never put that much detail into their drawings in class!!?!?!?! (I am totally using Jenn's drawing rubric next year!)





And now some of the funny ones! (Not that that one at the top isn't funny, that picture makes me giggle every time.)



This is a picture of me???  I'm thinking my hair must be in a ponytail??  Or perhaps this is what I will look like when I retire?  If so, I make a pretty stinkin cute old person.

I send their name sticks home at the end of the year.  This was the first time I got one back craftified the next day...  He wanted to make sure I remembered him.  Note the torn out page of a book that it is glued to.  A little piece of my teacher heart died.  It's a good thing the funny stick puppet made up for it!







Last but not least:


This is me and Mr. Sessoms (my fiance).  I wish she had done it on paper instead of a dry erase board!  So cute!

I can't wait to make this love note binder for next year!  

On an unrelated note, is anyone else consuming mass amounts of crystal light this summer thanks to these containers?  Is it just me, or does the cherry pomegranate taste like you're drinking cherry jello?




If you blog about your love notes, leave me a comment linking to your post.  I love reading love notes, even if they are not for me!

Almost Friday Freebie

I saw this saying somewhere and decided I needed to make it into a poster for my room.

click to download the pdf

First Day Fun

This is my first time trying to start a linky party! I'm not sure how successful I will be, but you have to start somewhere, right? And I am inspired. It's that time of year where I am beginning to write plans for the first few days of school. I always write EXCRUCIATINGLY detailed plans for the first few days. My mind is always racing trying to remember details about how each child gets home and repeating names over and over while I try to memorize them. The first couple of days bring back those feelings of being a beginning teacher, and writing such detailed plans makes it so there is one less source of stress. That being said, I am always looking for new inspiration and figured it would be fun if we started sharing our most favorite activity to do on the first (or second) day.

Rules:

1) You may only share your most very favorite activity. That means you may only pick one - torture I know! :)

2) Please add my linky party button (and link it back to this post) when you blog about it so that your friends can get in on the action. - I have tried to make this easy for you by including the html code for you to copy. 

<br /><a href="http://havingfunk-1.blogspot.com/2011/08/first-day-fun.html"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqz9HSkGe2oni2gDmLsFvQLdIAZaR7tkc1dV1zGQdDvMi1p2WKd-iGE_0NYesUTGNrfJ9W_Okbp6_97j24R7XoDgn76qwvxcrAoaSkqBwi3ORBkTDAseH-wo8Pj1gT7OLQH4tqD5w2oP8/s1600/first+day+fun+linky+party.png" border="0" /></img src="https:></a>

3) Please make sure that the link you add is a link to your blog post and not the main page of your blog. This will make it so that other people can easily find what you wrote.

Without further ado:

My favorite first day activity....

...is making these faces! I do this on the very first day of school. I am always amazed at how cute they turn out.  I can not take credit for the idea as I got it from my mentor teacher when I was student teaching.  I think she may have gotten it from Debbi Miller???  (Or maybe Debbi Diller... so hard to keep those two straight!)

I supply my students with two googly eyes and assist them in creating their desired hair-do and the rest is up to them! I hang them around our door when I have a hallway classroom. The past two years I have had an exterior door so we have displayed them in the window.  I love how it represents our classroom learning community. It's amazing how much they really do look like each student.  They are so cute that I leave them up the entire year!  I use multi tone face shaped papers that come stuck together in a note pad.  I buy it at my local teacher supply store, but you can also order them from Lakeshore.  You can find all sorts of cool "hair like" yarns at your local craft store.  It is a lesson in patience, since there is only one of me and most of the kindergartners need help gluing the hair on.  I find that it works best to do it right before our rest time so that I can call over students who aren't sleeping one at a time to finish them up.  I also give each student a card with their name typed in a traceable font to help practice writing their name.  (When I was in first I just gave them a blank index card.)

I can't wait to see what everyone else does on the first day!

-Tammi

Pinterest

If you are pinning head over to Michelle's Math in the Middle: Pinterest Linky Party.  (Feel free to follow my boards as well.)

Don't get me wrong... I LOVE pinterest, but sometimes I feel like I spend all my time gathering new ideas and none of my time actually creating these new ideas!  I hope it is just a summer problem.  Anyway, I am hereby vowing to be better.  I am picking 5 projects to do by next Friday.  If I blog it then I have to do it, right?

Classroom Organization: Drink Mix Containers I will make container for our name sticks & one for our high frequency words.

Management: Ask Me Visor I will make two ask me visors (one girl, one boy).

Academic: Writing Skill Cards  I will make a set of writing skill cards for not only lines but also each letter.

Seasonal: Sub Tub I will finish my sub tub.  Complete with emergency sub plans which can be used for any read aloud.

Miscellaneous: Song Routine Binder Make a song binder easel for our beginning of the year songs and poems.

Late to the Linky Party

Jenn over at Finally in First started a favorite font linky party a few weeks ago.  It took me forever to get all of my fonts reinstalled on my new laptop, but I am FINALLY ready to join the party.  :) 

The ladies before me have FABULOUS taste so it was hard, but I tried to stay away from including repeats.  I definitely added quite a few new ones to my collection!

(If you click the image you should be able to view a larger version)

I {heart} Linky Parties!

Mrs. Lamb from Views from Room 205 is hosting a linky party asking us to share the things we could not teach without.




Here are the things I depend on (and there are a LOT!):

Embeding PDFs from Google Docs

I had a question about how to embed pdfs and saw many others did to.  So I looked it up on googles help page.  I figured now that I have an answer (and a couple easy tips) I would share the wealth.  I just hope I explain it clearly....


Step 1: Upload your document

Step 2: Share your document

(right click on the document you want to share and select "share")

(Next to where it says "Private - Only the people listed below can access" click on "change".  Change it to "Anyone who has the link can view".

Step 3: Copy the link to share your document (I will hence forth call this your magic link.)

Step 4: Place it in your blog
When I'm writing my blog and I get to the place I want to put a document I type the document name with asterisks on either side of it (so it is easy to find later) and link the text to your magic link (that you copied earlier from google).

***LIKE THIS***

Step 5: HTML mode
Then when I'm all done I switch to HTML mode.  And find the place where I want my document.  It should be too hard to find the string of asterisks.

Step 6: Paste the code

The Fancy Code¹:
<iframe frameborder="0" height="560px" src="LINK TO THE DOCUMENT" width="100%"></iframe>

Cut and paste The Fancy Code below your magic link.  You can hit enter a few times to make room. Then take the part that says "LINK TO THE DOCUMENT" and replace it with the magic link.  You just need to insert the blue part that is between the quotation marks.  So copy blue.  Replace red. (It looks pinkish in the picture, sorry!)  Delete the excess parts of your magic link with your asterisks and all that extra stuff you didn't need anymore.  Clear as mud? 

Step 7: Publish your post
Easy peasy lemon squeezy... or at least it is the second time. :)




¹Anything truly remarkable always starts with the.  See: The Ohio State University

Behavior Plans and Behavior Problems Linky Party!

I think Linky Parties are one of my most favorite parts of blogging.  They are like web professional development I didn't even know I needed. :)  Anyway, I am joining this party because a) I found it in a timely manner and b) managing behavior problems has always been an area of challenge for me.

Visit the Lesson Plan Diva's site to see some of the other posts:

I have a very hard time being firm.  I give WAY too many warnings.  I think my students can tell just by looking at me that I'm really a softy pushover without an intimidating bone in my body, and I really don't want to call their parent.  That means that I have to compensate!  A lot!  Each year I get a little better, and hopefully by the time I'm ready to retire I will have become a master.

Our school started PBIS last year to help us approach behavior management as a community consistently across the building.  I love it and it has drastically cut down on behavior problems (at least in my room).  The best part... due to my technology skills I was nominated to make the documents for our school, so I love using them!  Of course as I made them I pieced together ideas from many other wonderful schools in our county and across the internet, but imitation is the best form of flattery right?  (I wish I could give credit to the sources of my inspiration.)

We have a 4 color system which in my room is really a 5 step system.

Each day each student starts out on red.  If I notice model behavior they are able to move their clip up to the star.  Every time everyone in the class has ended the day on red or the star (more commonly known as "all red days") we get a "popcorn point".  When we get to 10 points we have a popcorn party!  Why popcorn?  Because I like to eat it.

On the other hand, each time I need to redirect a student throughout the day the student must move his/her clip down.  The first step is yellow, or a warning.  After that is green which means the student must fill out a reflection log and call his/her parent for an intervention.

*Bare with me, this is my first attempt at sharing one of my google docs.*

If the behavior continues the child takes a break in a buddy classroom while he/she fills out another reflection log.  Usually by now the problem has been resolved and the student may return to class, but if the behavior continues the buddy teacher will determine that an administrative referral is necessary.



Students also have the opportunity to earn punches on a punch card.  In my room, after 5 punches the child gets to pick a treat from our treat box.  When the student gets to 10 punches I buy him/her an ice cream at lunch.  After 15 punches he/she gets to go to read with a buddy 3rd grader.  If the student fills the whole card they are invited to a school wide party at the end of each quarter.

(The acronym S.O.A.R comes from our behavior expectation matrix.)

Now does this system work for all of my students?  NOPE!  I have tried various sticker charts, point systems, etc but the fact of the matter is I am simply NOT good at keeping up with them and therefore they become ineffective.  So here are the 3 most valuable tips I have learned over the past few years.

1) Spending my personal time with a child is one of the BEST ways to build a positive relationship with and show them that I honestly and truly care about them as a person.  I have visited homes and brought board games.  I have taken students out for a day at the movies.  I have gone to softball games and girl-scout meetings.  The value of this is PRICELESS.  It can be intimidating and scary at first but the benefits far far far far far outweigh the cons.  They never forget it.  Even the most difficult student will work towards one of these visits.  (I usually have one or two students a year that need this extra attention, so it does not end up taking up too much of my free time.)

2) Keep redirection from becoming personal by focusing on inanimate objects.  For example, if a student is distracted and not working or working very slowly  say, "You know what, I don't think this pencil is working very well.  Why don't you try this fast one."  and zoom the pencil in the air in loops as you pass it to the child.  Or "Oh my goodness, I think something is wrong with your chair!  It keeps tipping!  Try this one."  Sounds silly, and it is, but it works!  It makes redirection a positive experience instead of negative.

3) Take pictures of positive behavior.  Show them to the class.  It is one of the best compliments you can give.  Praising a child individually is like one compliment.  Praising them in front of an audience is equivalent to getting a compliment from everyone hearing it!

(*Teacher tip* Intimate bags make great chair pockets.  I used to get them 3 for $1 at Dollar Tree.  They have since changed the material they use and the new bags snag and don't hold their shape well.  Boo!)

This student had kept his work area clean while the rest of the room was a wreck!  Can you tell by the overturned chair that is just outside of the picture?????

Hope the links work for you!  If they don't, let me know and I'll go watch a tutorial so I can to fix them.

Back to School Bonanza Giveaway!

Oh my!  I have not visited blog land in forever!  After spring break I grounded myself from blogging to wrap up the year and this summer has been dedicated to wedding planning.  But I am happy to announce, I am finally off punishment and have allowed myself to start blogging once again.  Boy did I ever pick the best week to come back!  There is a HUGE giveaway going on from some of my blog idols.  There are 12 prizes going to the winner.  Yes, you read that right... 12!

You can find out all of the details here:

I don't know if I can wait until Thursday to purchase some of those delicious units on TPT!

My nest linky party

I have anxiety about joining this linky party.  Ha, that's cuz I don't want my inner slob to show on the internet.  I guess I have two nests at school...

The first nest is the one I like best because my laptop and document cam are there!  This picture is post my after school cleaning.

good: I love having my desk in the middle of the room.  It helps me keep it clean because I actually spend time there now.
bad: That nasty paper sorter gets so junky looking!  I need to go through and purge.  (There are also two bins you can see poking out from under my desk.  I'm hoping some elves live under there and will clean those out for me... I'm still waiting.)


ugly:  This is what it usually looks like at the end of the day.  Eeeeek!  I tend to keep going at rabbit pace all day and never stop to put (or even throw) things away until after the kids are gone.  I wish my desk were closer to the recycle bin!

This is my other nest... I hate the clutter surrounding it.  I even sewed a curtain to hide some of the clutter... unfortunately I don't think I made it big enough, it really needed to cover the whole small group area!

good: My "do not disturb" hat - When I am in small group or assessing kids I put it on, then the kids know not to bother us.  Sometimes I forget to put it on and the kids happily remind me when I try to shoo them away.  I probably look ridiculous... but hey, whatever works, right?
bad: Too much stuff!  I need to throw some away, but of course then I'll need it.  Am I the only one that identifies with the show Hoarders?  They should make an episode dedicated to teachers.
ugly: My small group table has been MUCH neater in past years.  I blame it on that nasty cabinet thingy.  I need to find a teacher to swap a bookshelf with me if I am in the same room again next year.

I'm too embarrassed to show you the nest I am sitting in right now at home (I have completely taken over the coffee table and one side of the couch), and the spare bedroom that has become a giant walk-in teaching closet.  My fiancee keeps asking me to do something about it.  Each time he asks, I go in there and move crates around, but somehow I don't think that's what he has in mind.  I even promised to bring some if it to my classroom, but then he realized June is just around the corner and it will all end up back at home anyway! ;)

My First Linky Party!!!

Always First Grade has been hosting a classroom photos linky party and I have enjoyed seeing everyone's classrooms so much that I have decided to share mine.

 

This is the view when you walk in my room.  Please excuse the mess on the students tables, today we were  SOOOOOOOOOO busy (Making these cone shaped leprechaun faces from What the Teacher Wants) we didn't have time to clean up at the end of the day.  In fact, if it weren't for another TA popping her head in our door at 2:15 we wouldn't have noticed that it was the end of the day at all!  Don't you love days like that where everyone is so engaged?   I think I forgot to take a close up of a student table, but I love keeping them in collaborative groups with community supplies. 

 

We are lucky enough to have four student computers; unfortunately, one is out of order right now.

My small group area…I had a tall bookshelf behind my small group area in my old room.  I liked it much better than that beastly cabinet.  The middle shelf is nice and tall, but the storage space behind the cabinet doors is awkward and useless since it has a ton of vertical dividers (for file storage I guess).

These are my student mailboxes.  I love them.  It makes it so easy to pass out papers and write notes throughout the day.  I guess I’m a hog, because all of the top spots belong to me!

This is our kid closet.  We keep backpacks, coats, and recess toys in here.  The white sack holds shopping bags for students who forget backpacks.

One of my favorite spots in our room, our “listening closet.”  The kids love to squeeze in there together to listen to books.  It even comes with it’s own built in headphone storage. ;)

Our job chart and weather frog.  Each student has a bee with a number that sticks with Velcro to the job they pick.

We are required to have a focus wall in our county.  I have yet to feel completely happy with the way I design it.  CD pockets worked well for the big first grade vocabulary cards, but not so well for the little K cards that we demote to our word wall when we’re done.  I need to get another small blue pocket chart.  (My L and U fell off the wall today… I guess that’s a sign spring really is on it’s way!)

This is our whole group area and it’s the hub of our classroom.  We use the smartboard CONSTANTLY.  I don’t know how I ever taught without one.

Our “Today we will…” board is another piece that comes with teaching in my county.  We are required to write objectives using blooms taxonomy for each lesson and post it where it is visible for the kids.  I have a love hate relationship with this requirement.

This is our classroom library and another one of my favorite areas.  We keep books sorted by author and genre.  I do love that the K kids are MUCH better at keeping the library clean than my firsties were!  (I promise I didn’t clean for the picture!)

I need to get more bins, I used to buy mine at walmart but they stopped carrying them.  Ekkkkk!!!!   They are carrying stackable ones with handles that flip now instead.  Does anyone know where you can still find the old ones?

*UPDATE*  I've had questions about where my library labels came from.  I made them myself and you can get them from my TPT store here.

 This is our centers area.  We have five main stations, one for each domain (phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency).  Each center has a tub with folders that correspond to a table.  They get their own buckets (each bucket has multiple folders because we are required to differentiate each domain for 3 levels) and folders at the beginning and are wonderfully independent.  One of the biggest helpers are the folders I make and bind together each year.  I buy wax coated folders at Walmart during back to school.  This year I found them for 1 cent each (they are usually 10 cents).  I then bind five of them together, with a heavy duty page protector on the front (that holds their center contract), using a comb binding machine.  This makes it so easy for them to keep track of their work since everything is color coded (center buckets, tables, folders, etc.)

This is our cool down station.  Kids go to this desk to fill out a reflection log if they change their color twice.  I find that looking out the window helps students cool down faster. (This picture makes it look like we have a beach outside our classroom... unfortunately we don't.  That's the K playground.)

These are our cubbies.  As you can see we have a ton of workbooks.  We rarely use any of them.  If students finish all of their centers for the week one of their choices is to get out their reading workbook, this is really the only time we use them.  I don’t know why our district spends so much money on them.

 Aren't these faces super cute?  We make them the first day of school.  I pass them every day on my way out of my room and they make me smile so much that I leave them up all year.