Family Project

October flew by! We were so busy. We spent most of the month learning about making connections, addition strategies, finishing up our personal narratives and learning about pumpkins!!!! We even had a family project for our students to do. We love family projects because it's a way to let families become a part of our classroom. Our October Family Project was a pumpkin decorating project. We supplied each of our kiddos with a paper pumpkin for them to decorate at home with their families. Then they had to write about how they decorated them. Then we had one of our famous museums. The students put all of their pumpkins and writings on their desks and their parents came in to see all of their hard work. Our big fourth grade reading buddies came and last year's kindergarten teachers came too! That was by far the most exciting part!

Here are a few of our pumpkins: 

A Robot Pumpkin

A pumpkin made with Orange Powder!

Check out his hair!

Super Glittery!

A Triceratops!

All of our Pumpkins!!!

We can't remember where we found the template for our pumpkin project. If it is your template please let me know. I'd like to give credit where credit is due!


On a personal note:
I am in the middle of a big move! I am moving out of my parents house and into my first apartment! Exciting, I know! The most exciting part is that I'm currently in the middle of renovating said apartment. It's an in-law apartment at my boyfriend's parents house. The apartment hasn't been renovated in close to 30 years. We thought when we took on the project that we were just going to be painting a few walls. Ha! Joke's on us! Sure we're doing that....but we're also completely updating the kitchen (counters, sink, dishwasher, disposable, etc.), taking down wallpaper, stripping wood areas, etc. The best part to all of this is that my future in-laws are paying for everything. I mean EVERYTHING!!!! It's crazy! Any time an idea pops into someone's head my boyfriend's father runs out and gets the supplies. It's awesome! But between renovations and school I am quickly getting burnt out and need a super break!

*Phew* 

Linky Party

After counting and sorting all of my books I discovered this amazing linky party! It was so much fun blog hopping last night! There were some really great surprises! Please check it out and support some of these amazing teachers!

Free Books!!!

The most amazing thing happened last week! I received and e-mail from The Used Book Superstore. For those of you unfamiliar with this store it is the greatest place on Earth! They have used books, in good condition, dirt cheap! The place is huge and they have close to 6 locations now. They are amazing! Anyways here's what the e-mail said!

October is Our Teacher Appreciation Month!

We're giving free books to our favorite educators!

For the rest of the month of October, we're giving away free books to teachers! Come in and show proof that you're an educator (your MTA card or a copy of a paycheck), and help yourself to as many free green labeled books as you can carry! That's right; any of the over 15,000 green labeled books in the store! Grab some kids' books for your classroom, or treat yourself to some reading material for yourself. We have tons of green labeled books spread throughout our store, in every section, but they're sure to go fast. So, stop in soon, and let us say thanks for all you do!



Amazing right?!?!?! Well, teaching in a district that provides no supplies (we don't even have a math program) I took full advantage of this program!!! I left with 143 free books!!!!! I know..... I know.... some might call it an obsession. I just call it using my resources wisely (I am a Girl Scout after all). After getting all of these free books I just had to lay them all out. It took over the entire living room. Oscar wasn't quite sure what to make of it all but he knew he wanted to help out and be a part of the excitement.

Monster trucks, Cowboys and a Bear!

Wow! It feels like forever since I've posted! Life has been so busy! My little firsties are finally starting to come around! They are starting to remember rules and how to treat each other. I think this group might actually transform into true first graders by November 1st! *Fingers crossed* We are finishing up learning about apples and now we're moving on to pumpkins. The kids butchered struggled with the apple life cycle but did really well with the pumpkin life cycle today. I guess practice makes perfect! 

In other news! Life has really been in the fast lane! I'm moving in to the in-law apartment at my boyfriend's parents house. Packing has become my second full time job. Who knew I had so much stuff! I think in the last month I have tossed 5 full trash bags of stuff and I've donated at least 10 bags to goodwill! Crazy! I'm only about half way done with packing/going through stuff. Yikes! 

Last week was our county fair! I LOVE THE FAIR!!! I volunteer in our rabbit barn and only left with one teeny tiny battle wound this year! My friends and I had a blast this year! I'm also in charge of the float for the big parade. The theme this year was Make Time For A Great Time. How on Earth do you incorporate rabbits into that?!?!?! Well thanks to my brilliant father and $75 dropped at the Salvation Army for tea party stuff, we came up with a 3rd prize winning float!!! 

 Here's the front of our float!

Here I am with the Mad Hatter!!! AKA my friend Tara!

For the first time ever our fair had Monster Trucks!

And my all time favorite.....The Rodeo!!!! It's my absolute favorite part of the fair. Cowboys, buckin' broncos, and PBR! I'm never happier then I am when the rodeo's in town!

 

Special treat at the fair......LUMBERJACKS!!! What?!?!? Craziness!!!!!

We also had live bears at the fair this year! What a wonderful surprise! I love black bears! Especially this silly ole bear that loved to eat peanuts! PEANUTS!!!! Does it get any cuter?!?!?

So between teaching, packing, and the fair I haven't had a moment to breath! I have so many new products to add to my TPT account, I just have to find the time to do it!!!!

Ranting and Raving :/

Warning! This is a rant! I'm so sorry to purge on here. I usually try to be so upbeat and positive but I just have to get this out!

What a crazy week and we've only been back for two days!!!! So far this week we were sent our new lesson plans. They are crazy! I have been working on them for two hours now and I'm not even half way done! Yikes! Does anybody else have lesson plans that take this long? I feel like I'm back in college writing out 15 page plans all over again! Yikes! We were also told last week that due to the fact that we were forced to add and extra hour and half onto the day and people need to get paid that we are not getting any math supplies this year. But we can photo copy anything/as much as we want. With that being said, we were also told that we are only being given one ream of paper a month. Hmmmmmm! 

This week we were informed that also due to people needing to get paid for all of this extra time we have no money left for our grade levels to order supplies. Bye bye pencils, paper, markers, etc. To top it all off nobody ordered any lamination for the machine so we can't laminate anything :(

YIKES!!!! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!?!?!?

First Week

Well we've been in school for a little over a week now. Lots has happened! This year our district decided we needed a longer school year (Started on Aug. 21) and a longer school day (7:45-3:30)! Not only has the time been a "wonderful" help in kicking off the school year it's been close to 90 degrees outside every day! My kiddos are melting by the end of the day! Which means they're also whinny and not willing to do much of anything including play. It's so sad to watch them in the afternoons! On a brighter note....my kids, in the morning, are wonderful! They love to listen to stories, follow directions as much as one can hope for, and they are super funny....shhhhhh don't tell them that! We've done one listening activity that was cut and paste. I know, I know. I hate them too! But I needed to see if they were able to use scissors and didn't want to find out in the middle of a big, wonderful, fun project. Anyways, they did great! They cut wonderfully annnnnnd there were no scraps of paper on the floor!!!! My custodian didn't believe me when I told him we used scissors today! 

With all the busy beginning of the year happenings I wasn't able to post! But I did set up my own TPT account! So exciting I know! I have my first product posted! It's not as bright and colorful as I had hoped but it's still my FIRST PRODUCT! Now I just need to learn how to create my own backgrounds, clip art, and fonts! It seems kinda hard but I'm determined to figure it out! Please go check out my first product! http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Backpack-signs-852301

I'd like to thank Miss Stanford for her backgrounds and tutorials on how to create products. Please make sure to check out her blog! It is fabulous! You can find her blog here! 

I'd also like to thank Michelle from Well, Michelle?!?! for linking me up with multiple tutorials!  Including to Ms. Fultz's tutorial on how to lock PDFs. So helpful! You can find the tutorials here!

Classroom Set-Up

After a week of hard work my room is finally ready for my new firsties!!! 


This is what you see when you enter my room! I love my room this year! It's a zoo theme!!! The things hanging from the ceiling are monkeys!!! 

  

If you turn to the right as you walk in you'll see my birthday "board". The fire department hates loves me! Silly five foot rule! How does one not utilize this amazing wall space? Anyways, the "board" is almost done. I just need to add the student's cupcakes with their birthdays on them!

Here's a close-up of my library! I'm a little OCD about the library and I bought the labeling system from reallygoodstuff.com to help keep the library in order. 

Don't you love the bare tree? Each time we read a book we'll be adding a leaf to the tree. By the end of the year it'll be so very full!!! Here's a picture of the other side of my library....my section! I found the chair cushion at the Home Depot the other day! I was so excited!!!

Just behind my chair is where my students keep their belongings. There's not enough space on the hooks for the kids to keep backpacks and coats so they also have these wonderful backpack bins to toss their bags in. No big deal, right, since the bags always end up on the floor anyways!

On the other side of the library is my new listening center! Last year our schedule didn't allow us time for literacy centers so my listening center was completely underutilized! This year I made certain to make it a very special place!

 This is the view from the other side of the classroom!

As you move around the room a bit more you'll see my little corner of the room! I love they way my "personal" space turned out! 

The kiddos come tomorrow and this is the first thing they'll see when they walk in!

Time to hit the hay.... it'll be a very exhausting busy day tomorrow!