Hallway Bulletin Board and Linky Party

This week we started back with our BTS meetings and oh my goodness am I excited or what?!?! Getting my class list was like opening a present on Christmas morning. This year I only have 14 little sweeties to start (I've been told to expect a few more that are having issues with getting their paperwork in though). I was excited to see some of the unique names! Every year at the beginning of the year, we start off with the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and so I figured I would start off my hallway bulletin board with a Chicka Chicka theme! Here it is:

I hope you're all enjoying the back to school madness as well. On Monday we have our Meet the Teacher Night and I will upload all of the paperwork I give to them in case ya'll want them too. 

Now onto the 5 Things I Miss About Summer Linky Party. This Linky Party is from the Joy of Kindergarten and even though I am excited for school to start back up, I will certainly be missing quite a few things about summer!! 

1. Having the time to go to my morning yoga classes!! I will certainly miss starting the day being healthy by going to yoga with one of my best friends. I would need to start going to class at 5:00 am in order to be back in time to get ready for school and that it just a wee bit too early for me. 

2. Oh my goodness I don't even want to think about what I'm going to do when my little sister goes back to college. The end of my summer means that the end of her summer is just around the corner. This is a picture from a painting class we took together this summer.

3. I have already said this one a few times but I will definitely miss my sweet little pup Tucker!! I signed him up to go to a Doggy Daycare so he will at least be having fun a few days a week while I am at work and not all alone in my apartment- thank goodness!

4. Having the time to read for fun rather than for school or for grad school. I am already looking forward to Thanksgiving break just so I have the time to leisurely read a book (oh, and the fact that we will be going to visit my little sister at college in HAWAII!! Ahh!!)

5. And last but definitely not least, I will miss just RELAXING. This is definitely something I take for granted a little bit about mid way through the summer and I miss big time once the school year starts back up. 

Alright, now it's your turn! Head on over to Joy of Kindergarten to link up!!!

Classroom Pics

Well I can't believe it but I am finally almost done getting my classroom put together!! There is still a little left to do, mostly just sorting through a bunch of stickers that were donated to me and organizing them. Anyway, here are the pictures!! 

Ok, you caught me! This first one is not actually of my classroom, it is a 4th grade classroom I saw while attending a workshop. I just love this bulletin board because I have had the song "Call Me Maybe" stuck in my head all summer and this board made me smile :)

This is a view of our carpet area where I hung up the pom poms I bought at Party City. I think I am overdue to update that super old chair. It looks like it has been there since our school opened in the 60s.

This is just a side view of my classroom. It is very unorganized right now but this is where we keep most of our games for centers and some math manipulatives in the red and brown bookshelves.

I am so proud of this! This is something I saw on Pinterest and actually made it! I am the worst about pinning things I think are adorable and then never going back to them. But this time I actually made it!! It is made of two of my file cabinets that I put back to back and then covered with paper and border, then put magnets on it. Later in the year, this can be one of our centers where they spell their sight words using the magnets.

This is our specials classes and special events schedule board. At my school, which is Catholic, we go to mass every other week. My kids are always asking "are we going to mass this week?" We also have some specials that are every other week and they ask about those. Hopefully by keeping this board updated it will keep them informed on what to expect that week. The days of the week are from Mrs. Lemons blog and the specials tags I found on TPT from Little Miss Glamour. Sorry for the blurry picture!

Last but not least, here is the view of my room from the door. Hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures!! 

Back to School Linky Party!

While blog hopping around I stumbled across this Linky Party from Mrs. Shope's class and thought it was a fun little party for the back to school season!! I'm sure my list will be incredibly long compared to others!

1. Bring in my freshly cleaned carpets to lay on my tile floor- which gets so dirty so fast!

2. Hang up my borders- I am doing double borders this year and am so excited! It is ridiculous how something so small makes me so happy hah

3. Finish cleaning/re-sewing chair pockets

4. Hang up window decorations

5. Organize my hundreds of stickers I have collected over the years- does anyone have a good suggestions for this?? I have soooo many and want to find a good way to keep them separated by theme.

6. Put together parent packets for Meet the Teacher night

7. Prepare pencil pouches

8. Put up my hallway bulletin board. This year I am doing a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme that I saw on Pinterest.

9. Finish my first week of planning

Woohoo- That wasn't as bad as I thought! Go ahead and link up and make your own to-do list!!

Back in the Classroom!!

I headed into school today to start getting my room all organized because believe it or not, we start back to school meetings on Monday. It is amazing to me that I was there for a few hours, yet my room looks like I hardly got anything done! I will be back in again over the weekend to add some more touches to it. If possible, I would like to be COMPLETELY done with decorating before Monday so all I have to worry about is beginning of the year paperwork and planning from then on out. Once you see the pictures though, you will notice I definitely have my work cut out for me!! It may be time to bring in my mom and sister for a little help!

Here is the before picture of the back of my room. My desk was off to the left, computers on an old ugly table in the middle, and a hodgepodge of colors on the bulletin boards. 

I changed all of the bulletin board paper to blue which will go with my rainbow border theme (from this post). I also got rid of the ugly table and put one of the white ones with the green legs where the computers go. I changed the right back corner into our art center with our easel and one of our art tables. All of the art supplies are  on the shelves back there. I also changed how may desk faces and moved my kidney table to the left for guided reading. I wanted so badly to just get rid of my desk but my principal said I had to keep it because there was no more room in storage :( One of my goals this year is to have a clutter free classroom (or as clutter free as possible) and it would've helped to have that big old hunk of junk out of my room! Oh well... here are the pictures!

Notice my two file cabinets that are back to back on the right side, I can't wait to paint them and hang up cute fabric and border on them like the picture below from Pinterest. One of my many projects for the weekend!

As I was leaving I took one more picture of the whole back of the room. As you can see, I definitely still have my work cut out for me!

I also made a pit stop today at Party City and picked up some of the pre-made pom poms to hang up in my room:

I also picked up this book at Lakeshore that has thematic plans for every week of the year. It had plans and handouts for all of my major units that I teach. It was a little pricey but I think it will be totally worth it!

There will be more pictures to come once I get more of my room finished, I promise!!

Alaska and a Little More Back to School Prep!

You know you are a blog addict when you are on vacation and can't wait to get online and post to your blog!! We did not have very strong internet access on our cruise (and it was SUPER expensive) so I had to wait until we got to our lodge in Talkeetna, Alaska to post and I have been going a little bit crazy! Well first let me tell ya'll that if you have never been to Alaska, you have to come at least once in your life. It is absolutely beautiful and so much of the nature up here is still untouched and unaltered. So without further ado, let me go ahead and share a few pictures!!

 This was the view from our hotel in Vancouver, B.C. where our cruise took off. The floatplanes that you see out in the harbor are EVERYWHERE up here. One of our tour guides joked that the floatplane is Alaska's state bird :) I also thought it was so funny that the building out in the middle of the harbor is a gas station to fill up your boat! I have definitely never seen that before!

This was just a pretty little creek we passed while walking from where our ship docked into Skagway, Alaska. I thought it was pretty and I would share :)

And then this is the beautiful Hubbard Glacier that we woke up to one morning off the side of our ship. I feel so blessed to be able to see a part of God's Earth I've never seen before. I have about three hundred more pictures (literally!) I could post but figured I would spare ya'll the family photos and move on to what's next...

What I've been pinning! Yes, even though I've been on vacation, I've still been pinning... I need to go to Pinterest Anonymous! Anywho, here are some of my favorites:

This is an adorable gift for parents that the kids can make for Open House. It is a pizza box that can hold some of their projects and has their handprints on it. Cheap and adorable? Yes, please!

This one doesn't have much of a picture but it is a great game. Every day there is a "Hundred's Chart Thief" who comes and steals a few numbers from the chart. The other students have to raise their hands to tell which numbers are missing. I can only imagine the excitement over being the "Hundred's Chart Thief"!

Well let me just say an huge THANK YOU to Ms. Pasqua for this post because ya'll, you can buy pre-made pom poms! This just saved me a lot of grief because I am not nearly as crafty as the rest of ya'll!! I have attempted and failed quite a few pom poms and was stressing about how to make these for my classroom. She got them from Party City.

And last but not least, "Fishin for Addition!" I don't think that is actually what the original pinner called it but I thought it was catchy. Your students catch two numbers using a magnet and add them together. So simple yet so fun!

ABC Back-to-School Pamphlet

Hey ya'll, as I get ready to leave for the airport I wanted to send out a little post about one of my best selling products on TPT as it may be VERY helpful to all of you getting ready for back to school. My ABC's of Kindergarten pamphlet is a parent's guide to everything back to school. It has a cute graphic for every letter of the alphabet and a school rule or helpful hint next to each letter. 

For example: A- Arrival:  Students may arrive between 7:15 and 7:55. Late arrivals go to the front office to sign in before being walked to the classroom.

B- Birthdays: Feel free to send in treats for your child’s birthday. Please check food items with me first in case of allergies.

Box tops: Our school is collecting “Box Tops for Education.” Each label is worth 10 cents… it adds up quickly!

It is saved as a Word document and can be easily changed to fit your schools rules. Any elementary grade can use this, especially any of the primary ones. So if you are looking for an easy way to keep your parents informed without overwhelming them, check it out!

Next time I post it will be from Vancouver, British Columbia!! Woohoo!! Expect to be overloaded with pictures!

What I've Been Pinning...

Since I have had more time over our summer break I have fallen back in love with my favorite time waster- PINTEREST! I can spend hours on pinterest easily and not get bored, it is dangerous! It is getting me SOOOO pumped up to go back to school!! I have seen other bloggers posting about their favorite recent pins and I thought I would share with you some of my favorite pins I have seen recently too (just in case ya'll weren't already as pumped up about going back to school as I am!)

I love this adorable idea for a new way to celebrate birthdays. Instead of giving out another pencil (our front office gives out pencils too) you can give out a crazy straw with a cute little birthday sign attached to it. They look so adorable and the kids will love just them!

This adorable center is a much better way for me to use my super cheap magnetic letters than what I had been doing. Last year I found some magnetic letters in the dollar section at Target and they were not very strong magnets. I had my students use them on the chalkboard (which is magnetic in case ya'll didn't know that, and yes.... I still have a CHALKBOARD in the back of the room!! Chalkboards still exist!) Anyway, the magnets were not very strong and kept falling off the board when my little ones were trying to spell their sight words. This way, on a cookie sheet that is laying down, we don't have to worry about them falling off!

This one I love because it will help me to make my hideous file cabinets less ugly AND functional! I am super excited about that!!

And this one may be my favorite just because of how adorable it is! What a cute way to make your pocket chart center fun! It is so simple, but adds so much! 

Now my only problem with pinterest is that there are too many cute classroom decorating ideas. Just when I think I have found the perfect theme for next year, another even cuter one comes along! My current love is the rainbow theme from below:

I love the double border around the cloud background paper and the beautiful tissue paper pom poms! I am just loving the tissue paper pom poms I am seeing all over pinterest lately. I saw tissue paper pom poms in this classroom below too and loved them:

Now with all of these super cute ideas I've found the only problem is going to be finding the time to make all of it!! I am leaving for a cruise to Alaska on Thursday and will be gone for two weeks (woohoo!) but when I come back it is right back to school! I may have to put my mom and sisters to work with helping me :)

Have a great day ya'll!

My Summer So Far...

Hello blog friends! I don't know about all of you but my summer so far has been FANTASTIC!! My birthday was right at the end of the school year and one of my birthday presents has been doing a fabulous job of keeping me company since we got out of school... my sweet new dog Tucker!

Look at that sweet little face!

Sitting in the back of the car with my boyfriend on our mountain trip :)

Playing with his toys (more like destroying them...)

Other than spending my time with Tucker, I have been working on a gigantic packet for TPT. I finally finished and am happy to be done with all 41 pages of it- whew! I am a big fan of doing glyphs in my classroom. The cutting and gluing are wonderful for fine motor skills, it shows how well they are able to listen and focus for a (somewhat) extended amount of time, and they kids are always excited to make a craft! Well this packet is one seasonal glyph for each month of the school year. Here are a few of the pictures of the completed glyphs:

The beginning of the year school bus 

The Christmas Tree with presents and ornaments

This one is probably my favorite although the picture doesn't do it justice. This goes along with the book "The Grouchy Ladybug". One of the steps of the glyph is to have the child either make a grouchy face or a happy face for a camera to answer one of the questions. Then you print the picture of their face and cut it out in a circle to glue onto the head. They love to see their silly pictures on their "grouchy" ladybugs :)

For the life of me I cannot get this one to rotate, oops! But as I'm sure you guessed, this is for Thanksgiving! Our Thanksgiving turkeys is another suer fun glyph, probably my second favorite :)

If you get a chance, stop by my TPT store and check it out. I hope you are all having a wonderful summer! I love checking in on your blogs and reading about all these book studies going on!!