Target Always Comes Through

I posted about not being able to find the blue saucer chair I wanted a few weeks ago and sent out an SOS here. Well, someone suggested trying Target. Leave it to Target to have what I wanted.

I saw it advertised a couple of weeks ago and headed straight to my nearest Target. Even though it's not the same color as the one I originally wanted, I still love the chair I found there and think it fits in pretty well with my classroom library. Plus, $17.99 can't be beat. {Even the ones I saw at TJ Maxx were $30 and they weren't even the right color.} Thanks to those who suggested Target in their comments. I should've checked there first. :)

My kiddos love getting to sit in it and curl up with a good book. Happy Saturday, friends!

First Day

Ok, actually we just finished our second week of school. The year is off to a great start and I love my fourth graders. I've been absolutely exhausted though. I always forget how tiring August can be. There are so many changes in our district this year that I'm just trying to keep my head above water while keeping up with grad school. Too tired to blog lately. Hoping this will get better soon. Wanted to share a couple of quick things from the first day as I've been meaning to for, oh, about two weeks now.

Can't remember where I saw this idea, but I had this basket set out at open house and on the first day for parents to see all the supplies from our supply list.

Rachelle at What the Teacher Wants saved my day! In all my craziness trying to get ready for school to start, I somehow neglected to prepare a first day treat for my students. I realized this around 10:30 the night before school started and happened to remember seeing this cute idea and printable. Love it!

I decided to go ahead and TRY to get some sleep {as if that's possible on the night before school starts!}, but set my alarm for 4:40am so I could print these babies and make a run to Walmart for a box of Lucky Charms on my way to work. I threw them together that morning and placed them on the students' desks along with their info packets. They LOVED this treat! Huge thanks to Rachelle for sharing this!!

It turned out to be the perfect thing for students to snack on while waiting for the rest of the students and parents to make it to our room for the "informative parent meeting". That meeting always makes me nervous. I can talk to kids all day, but put me in front of 20 parents and I get major butterflies. Fortunately, our new principal is replacing that meeting by just having open house next year {yay!}. However, because the community was not used to this, we had to endure one more year of it. Oh well, I survived and it went fine. I will try to share more soon about the first few days. Hope your school year is off to a great start!

Popping in to Say Thanks

I've been running at full speed this week trying to get ready for our first day of school on Monday. Tomorrow is our back to school night. When I saw this awesome open house idea by Jodi from her wonderful blog Fun in First Grade, it was calling my name! I already had this box of popcorn that I had bought at the end of last school year for my class. I ended up only using a couple of packs so I had just enough packs left for my new students. 

Jodi had posted this adorable printable so all I had to do was print them and cut them out. Then I taped them onto the bags of popcorn. So stinkin' cute. And oh so simple which was one of the absolute best parts after spending way too many hours at school this week and coming home worn out tonight. If you're like me and you're running out of time before open house, this would be a great little project to put together quickly. Head over to Fun in First Grade to print your own.

My printer was being weird and printed a mini popcorn machine on top of the bigger one in the bottom right corner on a few of them. I ended up not using those. I didn't realize I still had one in the bunch when I took this pic. I was just too tired to take a new pic after I changed it out. Ha!

Tomorrow is sure to be another long day. Fortunately, our new principal told us that since we are required to stay late for open house two hours that we get to come in two hours later tomorrow morning!!! Sleeping in pretty much sounds like the most amazing thing ever to me! Of course, we've had plenty of meetings and a math textbook training along with two new state evaluation process trainings this week. {I won't even go there on that last one. Ahh!} Our new principal seems very fair though and willing to listen. She has also shared some wonderful ideas of her own so I'm looking forward to good things. 

Ok, off to bed now so I can take advantage of those much needed extra two hours of sleep. Can't wait for my new kiddos to pop into my room tomorrow night so I can meet them and give them these goodies! Thanks so much for sharing this fabulous idea, Jodi! I love it! :)

Top 10 Reasons You Know It's Back to School Time {Linky Party}

Tomorrow is the official first day back to work for teachers in my district even though I've already been working for almost two weeks in my classroom. So hard to believe the summer is over and it's time to set the alarm clock again.

Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits is hosting a linky party to list the top ten reasons that you know it's time to go back to school. When I saw this fun linky party, I had to join.

My Top Ten...
10. I've been putting off grad school work that I really should be doing to create my open house brochure among other things or scour out ideas on teaching blogs. {Ok, maybe that last part is nothing new.}

9. I can't go into Target or Walmart without wandering aimlessly through the school supply aisles. It also makes me downright giddy when I see fall items displayed in the stores.

8. I fall asleep thinking about school each night and keep having dreams about things going wrong on the first day.

7. Every single time I feel good about being able to check some items off my to-do list, I come up with at least three or four more things to add to it.

6. I've already purchased some Airborne to start building up my immune system.

5. My 4th grade team partner/good friend and I have been texting each other like crazy to talk about ideas for this year.

4. My purse is full of receipts for school related purchases. My bank account is less full thanks to this. {That whole not getting a paycheck this summer thing might also have a little something to do with it.}

3. I kid you not, it took me ten minutes to decide which color was just right for my students' daily folders when I was walking around in Office Depot the other day.

2. For days now, my husband has had to listen to me talk about how anxious I am to get my class list and related arts schedule {tomorrow!!} because so much of my to-do list is waiting on those two things.

1. I got my "back to school" haircut this week.

I have truly enjoyed summer, but I am super excited for the new school year too. Hop on over to join in on this linky party.

Saucer Chair Blues

I'm bummed. Yesterday I posted a picture of my classroom library and mentioned that I'm looking for a cozy chair for it. I have visions of my helper of the day curled up in it quietly enjoying a good book during DEAR time. I'm thinking something like this saucer chair would be *just* the thing:

See how it is displayed with my rug and matches perfectly?! The only problem is that I'm pretty sure this is the one Walmart had last year. I could kick myself for not buying it back then when I got the rugs. At the time, I didn't have the space for it though. They still have this chair on their website, but it's apparently not available to order right now. :( Please let me know if I'm missing something here.

They currently have some similar ones in store at Walmart, but they are more of a navy blue. They also have lime green, but the practical part of me says that it wouldn't stay lime green long in a room full of nine year olds. Plus, I have my heart set on a blue one! I went to Ross and TJ Maxx yesterday and found a red one, but had no luck in the blue department. Have you seen any blue saucer chairs like this anywhere? Or do you have a suggestion of a different type of chair I could purchase for my classroom library area? I figured there was no one better to go to for help than my wonderful teacher bloggy friends. :)

A Work in Progress

I've so enjoyed seeing the wonderful photos of classroom progress in the bloggy world lately. This week has been crazy busy. We have a new nephew who was born late Tuesday night. He's a total cutie pie! I kept his sixteen month old big sister the night he was born and on Wednesday so I didn't get to work at school that day. However, I've spent nearly every other spare minute working in my classroom this week. I still feel like there's tons to do, but here are a few pictures of the progress so far. I really should've taken some before pics because it was a mess! It's still somewhat of a mess, but at least it's starting to look more like a classroom these days.

As promised in a recent post, here is a photo of my classroom library or more appropriately, part of it. I prefer to spread it out a little around the room so there's another section on the opposite side of the room that I'm still working on.

I'm going to look for a cute little cozy chair to replace the boring blue one. I already had my chapter book baskets on the tall bookcase as mentioned here, but I added the short bookcase for picture books. I purchased new picture book baskets for this year {Dollar Tree is most definitely my BFF!} so I haven't labeled them yet or finished reorganizing my picture books which is why the three baskets on top are empty. My plan is to display books for a featured author each month on top of taller bookcase. The dots poster will contain info for choosing books. 

My sweet momma helped me redo the long bulletin board above the white board. Loving the dots on black border and poster. I'm still working on organizing the bookcase behind my desk area. It looks kind of dark in this photo, but can you see the colored drawers next to my filing cabinet? Love them already!

My smart board is my pride and joy! I just got it at the end of last year and adore teaching with it. The doorway in the back corner is the entrance to my cloak room and closet. I'm lucky to have tons of storage back there. Still need to finish my reading focus bulletin board. (It's the green one.) I have a banner to hang above the bulletin board. I use the table in front of the bulletin boards for reading with small groups. My media cart is in the far corner next to the flag. Also, I usually arrange my desks in groups, but decided to try something different and I don't know if I'm going to keep them this way or not.

Our door is to the left. The apple pocket chart you can see part of on the right is used to do our attendance and lunch count. Our calendar and daily schedule are on this bulletin board. There's a gap in the pocket chart because my math schedule card is MIA since I didn't teach math last year. I've looked everywhere for it! This board will also have our related arts schedule below the calendar once I receive it. The makeshift table contains the necessities including assignment trays, lunch count forms, extra schedule cards, and hand sanitizer. Underneath the table is our recycle box. I laminated my new dots on black alphabet and added it above this board. Sorry for the glare.

Those of you who work in old buildings like mine {think 1890's} know the challenges that come with it. I love all our windows, but they limit classroom arrangements. I have three different radiators to work around. Also, the ceilings are extremely high. The fire marshal will not allow us to hang things from the ceiling. It tends to make me feel like the room is always empty. I don't like bare walls, but I don't like overkill either so I usually choose not to hang things super high....not to mention it would be hard for students to see. 

So that's it for now, folks. I will try to post more pictures once it is finished. T-minus 6 days until back to school night so it has to be ready to go by then.

Back to School Deal That Made My Day

I went back to work in my classroom for the first time yesterday. Teachers don't officially go back to work until August 8, but I always go back earlier to get my room ready. It was a million degrees in my room. We have a very old building so we have window ac units. Thankfully, mine worked after being shut off all summer but it never really things cooled down very much. Surely I sweated off some weight rearranging everything?!

After attending an inservice this morning and getting out over an hour early {Woot, woot :) but shhh!!}, I headed to my local teacher supply store to look for some of the goodies I blogged about in my last post. I got my dots on black cursive alphabet and some cutesy bulletin board borders as well as some math charts as I've never taught upper grade math before and have almost nothing for it yet.

After that, I stopped by Office Depot to use my reward certificate that I had received in the mail last week. {It had been burning a hole in my pocket.} I already had my eye on a cute owl bulletin board set so I picked that up, but also came across those adorable colorful drawer organizers. I have been wanting one for.ever. Well, it just so happened to be on sale for $39.95. Plus, I had a coupon for $10 off my total purchase. So all in all, I got the organizer cart, bulletin board set, and 25 pocket folders for my students for only $30 after using my coupon and rewards certificate. I was pretty excited to say the least!

Can't wait to take my new supplies to my classroom tomorrow. And I will have some help tomorrow too! My sweet momma is coming to help do my bulletin boards for me. God bless her! She's the best.

PS - On a totally non-teacher related side note, I love Everybody Loves Raymond. My wonderful hubby bought me the the entire series set of dvds one year for my birthday. I frequently pop one in while working on school stuff which is what I've been doing this evening. That family seriously cracks me up.

What I'm in Love With {Linky Party}

First Grade Blue Skies is hosting a linky party to show decorative things we would love to have for a new school year. I've actually been thinking about how to unify my classroom more this year so it was a great time for this linky party!

I mentioned in my previous post about my lime green and blue baskets and rugs. Well, these would be perfect additions to that color scheme. Unfortunately, there aren't many products that Creative Teaching Press carries with this design. :(

I'd really love a few of these in lime green and blue for seating in a cozy reading corner or at my guided reading table. Walmart has these pretty cheap right now with all the college dorm stuff. The added bonus is the storage inside of them!

I also absolutely adore the dots on black pattern from CTP. I actually have a couple of products with this pattern already so I may try to add to that. I need a new cursive alphabet anyway. Sure, it has lots of colors, but it includes my lime green and shades of blue. They have several products to choose from with this design. Plus, the dots are so stinkin' cute!

So what are you loving for your classroom these days? Link up and share your wish list!

Classroom Library Organization

Since I thought I was meant to teach primary grades forever, I had spent lots of money years collecting oodles of picture books. However, last year when I moved to fifth grade, I had to go on a chapter book buying frenzy. I visited tons of yard sales and thrift stores to fill up my classroom library. Between that and some generous donations from friends and family, I was able to fill up my classroom library pretty nicely.



I knew right away that I wanted to find some cute and sturdy containers to house my books. I found these inexpensive baskets last summer and L-O-V-E them! The dot cutouts are adorable and go well with other dotted items in my room. They are sturdy and the perfect size. I bought several of them in each color. These colors sort of developed into a theme after that. I found two rugs with the same colors and bought storage containers in the same lime green and blues. It worked to create unity in my room.

I chose to organize my books by genre or topic because it has been my personal experience {not saying this is always true. at. all.} that my students tend to choose books by interest. I stumbled across Beth Newingham's awesome website! I printed her labels (view them here), laminated them, and hot glued them to the front of the baskets to make it easy for students to find books they enjoy. I do have some picture books set out, but I don't have nearly enough room for them all. Sigh. All I know is that my future children {personal kiddos, that is} will have plenty of books to read one day! :)

Anyhow, I will try to post some pics of my library once I return to my classroom to get to work. How do you organize your classroom library?

Help!

At the risk of sounding like a total blogging newbie here, I can't for the life of me figure something out and need your help. Is there a secret to commenting on my own comments??

I have no problem making comments on other blogs, but when I try to reply to a nice comment someone has made on my own blog, I can't. I've been selecting "comment as: google account" before I try to post a reply {which is how I typically comment on other blogs}. Each time, however, I get redirected to the blogger log-in page. When I log-in again, still nothing. Ahhh!! What am I doing wrong?

If anyone would be willing to tell me how to fix this, I would be forever grateful. Thanks in advance!!

ETA: Problem solved = YAY!! Huge thanks to Mrs. Shepherd for sharing with me how to fix my commenting issue. {Turns out I had to download Google Chrome for those who may have had a similar problem.}

Printer {Linky Party}

Dana from the wonderful A Place to Share is hosting a printer linky party so I thought I'd join in. Here's the printer we have:

It's an HP D1500 or, as I like to refer to it, "the little printer that could". I bought it at Walmart and it has served me well for over two years now. Not going to lie, the main reason we chose it was its price {less than $30} along with the relatively inexpensive cost of ink cartridges that it uses. I believe new black cartridges run around $14 and color cartridges are less than $20. However, I hardly ever buy them new as I get mine refilled at Cartridge World. By bringing in my old cartridges, I never pay over $9 for black cartridges and $12 for color cartridges. I've never had any trouble with their ink refills either.

We actually don't run through them too often at home mainly because I try to do most of my school-related printing in my classroom. My school printer may be a big ol' dinosaur, but I make those cartridges last forever by using a little tip I picked up in one of the teaching interims I did before I got my job. {In fact, I used one black cartridge all year at school, but printed a TON of stuff!}

If you select "print as draft" and choose black ink as much as possible, it will really maximize the life of your ink cartridge. I've never had a problem with the quality although I'm sure you wouldn't want to print photos or something really nice that way. However, it works great for blog printables to run copies from. I rarely ever print anything without selecting those options.

Wow, never thought I'd write that much about a printer or ink. Happy printing, y'all!

Two Awesome Giveaways

Head on over to the oh-so-fabulous Ladybug's Teaching Files, become a follower, and make a comment to be in her drawing for a great giveaway she is doing in honor of 1,000+ followers. She's giving away 4 of her cute blog templates. Got to admit, this is a teacher who would LOVE to win!

Also, head over to the amazing Teaching in Flip Flops, become a follower, and make a comment to be in her drawing for an adorable Scentsy warmer in honor of reaching 100+ followers. Ok, I'd also love to win this one! :)

And the list keeps growing...

As the first week of school gets closer, my to-do list keeps growing. I'm really not required to be back to work until August 8, BUT I plan to go back before that to work in my room.

• Finish two more grad school classes before I start setting up my classroom.
• Create an informational "Welcome to 4th grade" brochure.
• Design a Smartboard presentation to go with said brochure that I can use during the parent meeting on students' first day.
• Set up and rearrange my classroom. Let's just say everything had to be moved or put away for summer cleaning so it's quite a mess in there!
• Decorate my classroom.
• Print labels for student workbooks once I know who will be in my class.
• Decorate my bulletin boards. I want a new set for the beginning of the year so I plan to buy the cute owl set below for the board outside my door and use the caption "4th grade is sure to be a HOOT!"
• Oh, and figure out what in the world I'll be teaching that first week with students!

It's a little overwhelming, but oddly enough I'm getting excited about jumping into it even though the summer is not over. Now, if only I can get past these yucky grad school classes. What's on your back to school list??

Go Fourth!

Hello! It's been quite a while since I've blogged. The last couple of months of school were crazy with state testing and end of the year activities. Summer break has been grand though! My husband and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas in early June and it was AMAZING! Since then, grad school classes have been consuming my summer, but I'm happy that I've gotten a lot done. Hopefully I'll be finished with my master's at the end of November!

Nassau, Bahamas - The water was gorgeous!

Now, as much as I hate to think about it right now, I'm starting to gear up for back to school. {Cue the alarm clock going off and whining!} Actually, I couldn't help but feel a little giddy when I walked into Walmart the other day and saw employees setting out school supplies on the shelves. I'm starting to think about how I will set up my classroom for this year. Still, I will miss sleeping in.

There are BIG changes in store for this coming school year...

Guess where I'm moving! :)

1. The biggest change is that I'm moving to 4th grade!!

AND I don't even have to move classrooms! Yay! I'm super excited about moving down a grade. I enjoyed fifth grade, but feel like this may be a better fit. Fourth grade is not departmentalized like fifth so I will be teaching everything. Even though this involves more planning, I'm totally embracing this change. I'm very much looking forward to having the same class all day and not having to worry about being on someone else's schedule to switch classes. I'm sure there will be much more about this to come.

2. I got a SMART board for my classroom!! You may remember me mentioning wanting one in this post. Ok, actually I got it during the last month of school, but I'm still over the moon about it! My students were thrilled, but their excitement couldn't compare to mine, haha! I had used a Smart Board before, but wanted to brush up on my skills. I attended a couple of inservice trainings to learn more about using it this summer so I'm looking forward to incorporating my new knowledge this year with my new kiddos.

3. We are getting a new principal at my school. Our principal retired at the end of last year. He was great and totally supported his teachers. We were used to things being pretty laid back though so we are all fully expecting changes this year. It should be interesting to see what happens.

4. Our district adopted a new math series. We already use the Scott Foresman reading, science, and social studies series so it came as no surprise that our district went with the Foresman math series as well. I attended an inservice on it this summer, but I've seen a copy of the inservice schedule for teacher's first week back and know that there are further trainings for this textbook in my future. Not going to lie...I'm a little nervous about teaching math in general in 4th grade because I've only taught math in primary grades before. {Last year, I only taught science and social studies in 5th.} Have any of you used this series before? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

The Breakfast Club

Our school participates in the Accelerated Reader {AR} program. I realize there are mixed feelings out there about this reading program {I, myself, have not been the biggest fan over the years}. I've seen this program work well for some. I've also seen it totally turn some students off to reading {example: my two younger sisters} in due to teachers who require students to participate and require them to reach a certain number of points each grading period as part of their average. When I came to a school that used this program, I decided that I would never use it in this way. I did not want to make my students hate reading.


Therefore, I have only encouraged them to read for AR and give them a set DEAR time, but I do not require them to take AR quizzes. The choice to participate is ultimately up to them. I set goals for all of my homeroom students each six weeks based on their level, but I have some students that do not want to participate and that is ok. For instance, this six weeks I only had 8 students who met their goals. {Of course, more students than that participated, but they did not reach their goals.}

I decided that students who put forth effort to read books and actually take quizzes on what they've read deserve to be rewarded so I started a breakfast club. The fourth six weeks recently ended so I rewarded students who met their goal with doughnuts and juice that they got to have during morning work time. I plan to do the breakfast club again at the end of the fifth six weeks and I can already tell that the last one was an incentive for other students as most of my kiddos have been reading up a storm any spare minute they get! The only problem {well, sort of problem} now is that they are practically fighting over the computers so they can take AR quizzes. Ha!

doughnuts = a great reading incentive...not to mention a great way to start a Monday! ;)



Wish List

Don't get me wrong...like most teachers, I spend a ton plenty of my own money throughout the year on classroom stuff. However, our school received our classroom allowance money this week so I have $100 to spend - like soon {plus a little fundraiser money left from something else}. Yay! I've gone over several possibilities on which to spend this money and am trying to narrow it down.

1. Lakeshore Learning All Purpose Teacher's Organizer - I can only imagine how wonderful this would make life and planning/organizing each week!

2. chapter books from series that my kiddos will not put down right now including The Magic Tree House, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc. I already have several of these books and want to fill in gaps in my classroom library because my students can't get enough of them! Love it!



Fresh scent Clorox wipes are my favorite! 

 3. practical items we are currently running low on like tissues and Clorox wipes - not as much fun, but necessary so it will probably come first


 4. some goodies from our local teacher supply store -
I can ALWAYS find something in there I "need" for my classroom!

5. Ok, the next one is not even a real contender, but I'm seriously dreaming of this! {Too bad $100 doesn't come close to covering it.} I've taught with them in my previous jobs before I came to my current school and they are such amazing interactive tools that keep students engaged!



Would love to have a SMARTboard!



Most schools in our system have them, but then again most schools are also Title I schools and receive additional funding that can provide these. We, unfortunately, are very borderline-ish when it comes to meeting Title I guidelines and miss it by just a little which means we do not receive this funding. Sigh. It would mean hiring aides which could make a huge difference for our struggling students. I've been working on raising funds for a SMARTboard, though, so hopefully more to come on that later. :)

For Every Action...

We recently wrapped up a science unit on force and motion. We did a rocket experiment using film canisters, water, and Alk-Seltzer tablets to demonstrate one of Newton's Three Laws of Motion. {See explanation of experiment below.} However, before we did the experiment, I had my students use their textbooks to help them fill out a foldable I made about Newton's Three Laws. They had to write the definition and illustrate each law with a real life example. I included the page numbers from our Scott Foresman science book with it, but if you wanted to use this foldable you could very easily white them out and/or write your own page numbers.



After they completed this foldable, we conducted our experiment. I had done this experiment a couple of years ago with a summer camp group I taught, but we were able to go outside then and they shot off pretty high. However, it's still winter here and we had to conduct ours inside this time so I was a tad bit concerned that we might do damage to the ceiling {although obviously not too scared as it didn't stop me from doing the experiment with them!}. I had leftover film canisters that I had gotten Walgreens to donate back when I did that summer camp I mentioned before. They were very nice about doing so especially when I told them what the canisters were to be used for so call up your local Walgreens. Tell them I sent you! ;)

I put a few paper towels on the floor and had my students sit in groups on the floor around the paper towels. I had already filled the film canisters with about a quarter of an inch of water. Then, I passed out half of an Alka-Seltzer tablet to each group. When I said "go" they had to quickly drop the tablet into the water and seal the lid {keyword being SEAL here as it must be sealed tightly until they hear it snap or it won't work}. Then, they have to turn the canister upside down so that the lid is touching the paper towel, step back, and wait for the rocket to shoot off! They thought it was the coolest thing ever and, luckily, the ceiling was fine. :)

Then we got together to discuss what happened and record our data on a lab sheet. The experiment illustrated Newton's Third Law of Motion which simply states:
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
action = dropping the tablet in the water
reaction = carbon dioxide was created and the pressure built up inside caused the rocket to "blast off"

I highly recommend this experiment especially as spring approaches and you can get outside with your kiddos! Have fun!

Welcome!

Hi there! I was inspired to create this blog after reading some of the AMAZING teacher blogs out there. I've found tons of wonderful K-2 blogs as well as some great 3rd grade blogs, but not quite as many designed by 4th and 5th grade teachers. I also thought this would be a good way to keep thoughts, ideas, and tips organized {even if they do not always turn out as "fabulous" as I had planned!} for future use.

This is my fourth year of teaching, but my first year teaching 5th grade and let me tell you, I have learned so much this year! I have previously taught K, 1st, and 2nd and honestly thought I'd never want to teach anything above second back then. I've grown to LOVE 5th, though, because the students are so much more independent. However, having said that, students are also so much more INDEPENDENT...meaning they have a mind of their own sometimes and many have middle school attitudes already. This seriously makes for some challenges sometimes, but I still wake up each morning loving my job. I thank God for it every single day and know there is absolutely nothing else I would rather be doing...even on those not so fabulous days.