October??

Oh my...I cannot believe it's already October! These first few months of school have flown by and my little blog has been neglected! I've had several ideas for blog posts over the past few weeks, just have not had the time to sit down and get to it. Nevertheless, I would like to share a few ideas with you from my Religion Center.  I feel fortunate to be able to have these type of materials available for my students. One of my goals this year was to add new materials to the center to incorporate religious themes along with our literacy and math skills. One of the first activities I added was  roll and stack Noah's Ark.

 I used DJ Inkers clip art to create the mat. The children roll a die and build a stack of cubes to match the number on the ark. You can (or should be able to!) download it here.  I have not had the best luck in sharing with google docs...so I hope it works for you!

I printed several mats on different colors of paper.

Thanks for checking in...up next: The Lost Sheep Activity!

Ready to go!

Hello! Here are a few photos of my *finished* room...really, it's always a work in progress, isn't it??

 Housekeeping/dramatic play area for September....

View from the back of the room

iPad/listening center. I have 3 classroom iPads.

Writing center

A few of our reading buddies; magnet center to the left.

Religion center

Circle/large group area, math wall

Thanks for checking in! Have a great day!

A little organization....

One of my goals this summer (which didn't actually happen over the summer) was to organize all of my center materials. I like the idea of having them organized by month, but do not have the storage space to do each month separately. I decided to group the centers into Sept/Oct/Nov, Dec/Jan/Feb, and Mar/Apr/May into a 3 drawer cart.

                                  (I downloaded these cute labels from Miss Kindergarten.)

I sorted through the items and pitched ones that I don't use, had missing pieces, or were outdated. I like these big drawers because I can fit everything in them...like counters or manipulatives.

And then, when I was done, I still had a pile of stuff left...these items I just sorted into reading and math for now, but eventually want to break them down into skill tubs.

The best part was seeing everything I had...now I know what I have to begin the year and what skills I still may need to supplement. Sorting is always a good thing. ; )

Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Word Wall Title Freebie

I added this title to my word wall...you can find it here if you'd like a copy! Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Day One!

Not day one of school, but of classroom set up! I went into my classroom and worked for a few hours today. It always feels good to get things a little organized. I feel like I made a lot of progress! Here are a few before and afters:

I was happy to see that my SMART board is now mounted! It used to be a portable board, which was nice, but the cords were always a problem. This will be much nicer.

Here's that same area in the front of my room after I put up my word wall (on the right) and reading focus on the left. The children's cubbies are also in the front of the room.

Here is my math focus/calendar wall. The shelf under it houses math materials....I'm still working on that area!!

This is the 'before' of my writing center. I worked on the writing focus board today. I started to put out a few supplies, but again it's a work in progress.

On the left I hung up ideas for writing, color words, alphabet chart, etc. The section on the right holds pocket charts for our daily schedule and the "Today I will learn..." pocket chart.

Here's a sneak peak at my classroom library....I get so discouraged....frustrated....don't know the exact word for it...at my lack of space!! I guess even though it's a small area, it serves the purpose. I just wish I had room to spread out the books and reading buddies.

That's it for today! Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

Creative fonts!

Hello! I spent a little time this week searching for some new fonts. Thought I'd share what I found...my newest favorite is the sound box font. It lets you create items like this:

So great for the word wall, literacy center items, sight word practice....etc. It's called teacher helpers and you can find it here.  I've also pinned a link on my September pinterest board.

I also found a great tally mark font!!! If only I had known about this one sooner! I've spent a lot of time in the past trying to create tally marks....this font makes it super simple! You can download the tally mark font here.

The other font is called color font. You can download it here. If you have some time to search and browse there are so many fun fonts to spruce up those classroom materials! Thanks for checking in!

Summer Update = )

Hello! Needless to day, it's been a while since I've updated my blog...

I've been taking some time off from school projects. This past school year I had the worst schedule I've had in all of my years of teaching...I was burned out by the end of the year. Kids were great, super family support, but here's the deal...I had 14 children in my class in the morning. After lunch I picked up 6 students from another class (that teacher was part time). So I had 20 students in the afternoon. This made it extremely difficult to carry over any learning from the morning, since 1/3 of the students were not in my room, along with other expectation issues, management styles, etc...you get the idea. 5 and 6 year old children, in my opinion, are not ready to transition and handle this kind of schedule. Yuck. I tried my best to make it work, but I'm glad it's behind me. I'm not going to dwell in the past. So at the end of the school year, I focused on my family, home,  hobbies, and summer! It feels good to rejuvenate and be ready for the new school year ahead.

My older son graduated from high school this year. We had fun celebrating him and his success. I thought I'd share a good recipe with you, since I don't have much school related info to share. I made these lemon cookies  (from pinterest) for the grad party and they were a hit! Super easy and delicious and it made a lot. Recently, while grocery shopping, I came across this:

I thought it'd be great to make orange flavored cookies instead of lemon and this cake mix did not disappoint!

Here's the recipe:
1 box of cake mix
1 egg
1 container cool whip (I did not use the whole container of cool whip when I made these or the original lemon cookies.)
Juice from an orange.

Mix it all together and chill for an hour. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. I baked them on parchment paper as recommended in the original recipe. They turned out great! I added enough cool whip to make the dough firm, but didn't use the whole container.

One of these days I will head back to my classroom to sort my learning center items...that was on my 'to do' list this summer. I've also printed a few items and have been pinning a lot of great inspiration for the new year. Stay tuned!