Catching Up in Google Reader

As I am sitting her stuck in bed with a cold. Yeah I know it sucks! I thought I would catch up on my google reader items. I can get Google Reader on my phone but sometimes I need to use the computer so I can download items and look at all the wonderful activities up close. I LOVE Google Reader because it allows me to star items that I find that I can view over and over again. Especially if I don't want to miss out on the great things it tells me.

I found a HUGE giveaway from The Moffatt Girls. If you have never been to her blog, check it out. She is giving away her Ready2Read Units 1-8!!! I grabbed some of her color by number sight words that are in her units but I really want to win all her units.:) Each unit is sold separately over at her Teacher's Notebook page but just imagine if you could win all the units and you wouldn't have to pay for them! Giveaway ends October 2nd. Good luck!

Sunny Days in Second Grade is having a Dollar Tree: To You, From Me Giveaway which ends 9/30.

I also noticed that Johnny Appleseed's birthday is this week and while we are not officially studying apples I am going to try to fit it in. Of course you could do all kinds of things with apples but on top of all that we have to teach this week I think I will only do a little. I found from Mrs. Wills Kindergarten a FREE (Yup you read right) ABC activity. As we just finished assessing our students on their letters I know how much more practice my students need in recognizing the upper and lower case letters. I can't wait to print out the activity and let me kids have at it. And with our upcoming PALS testing in October, I would love for my kids to have as much practice as they can. And if you have never been to Mrs. Wills's blog you need to go! She offers up wonderful ideas that you can share with your students at any time. If you want to add some "spice" to your lesson plans, head on over to Mrs. Wills's blog. 

Mrs. Patton shared her post about her magnetic word wall.  I went back and forth about my word wall this year as last year it was non-existent. And I wanted to make sure I used my word wall a lot more this year. Over the summer I found some things on word wall detectives; about how students could read the room for word wall words or any word but to just get them recognizing and writing. Today I found Mrs. Patton's FREE word wall words for kindergarten and first grade.

I also found on Live, Love, Laugh Everyday in Kindergarten her October Read the Room. And I am actually motivated to try this because it seems simple enough and easy enough that even I could do it. All I need are different color pumpkins and leaves, which this reviews with my students the color words and has them looking and writing the words to match. Exciting! And I just got her new post all about ABC books and check out the FREEBIES!

Little Miss Kindergarten is having a Goodbye to Summer sale over at her TpT store. Head on over there and check her out.:)

And so show that I love shopping... Kinderpond gave a shout out to Just Love Teaching's ETSY store. So I headed on over and just fell in LOVE with the cute aprons. I so want one! But I have to think what would I really use the 6-pocket apron for and would I really use all the pockets? I like the Leap into Learning apron, it matches our classroom theme of Frogs and Monkeys. I have to slow down on my spending since I did purchase myself a kindergarten binder from zazzle.com and I've been shopping on Tpt and Teacher's Notebook. But I do love this apron. And maybe it will help me when I walk madly around my room looking for where I put my SHARPIE, when I know I just had it. I know you guys get moments like that too.

And here is another FREEBIE to close out my post. Miss Kindergarten has posted her pumpkin math center.

I am so excited about October. All the wonderful things I have been finding on my Google Reader from all the bloggers I subscribe to. Thank you all so much for all your posts and ideas. I now need to go out and get me more printer ink and cardstock to make sure I print up all that I've found.:) Enjoy!

Pete the Cat Giveaway

I was in the Barnes and Noble bookstore the other day and I ran across one of the Pete the Cat books. It wasn't the original but it was PETE THE CAT. I have been hearing about Pete all summer and I still don't know who he is yet. I wanted to order the first book to see if I could read it to my class but I haven't done that yet. But if you head over to Lesson Plan SOS they are having a giveaway for an autographed copy of Pete the Cat! Giveaway ends Saturday so hurry over.

Some Reflections

Oh yes, my kindergartners have stepped on the block and they are fierce. With each year comes a new group of students from different backgrounds trying to interact with each other. Then you have students who have never interacted with kids their own age. So they you work on those communication and socializing skills while also trying to teach the curriculum.
I have found myself so worn out that I didn't even feel like sharing it with you all. I bet you all have been going through the same thing. And to top off my first month of school, my beloved uncle was in a fatal racing crash. So last week was just a LOOOOOONG week. And this week I spent most of it playing catch up. Because as I was at work and teaching my students last week, I don't quite remember it all. I guess I was in a fog because of my uncle.
But today I have gotten some renewed strength. I was at a faculty meeting with a wonderful speaker who got me excited about teaching and made me want to share all of what I learned with my colleagues and especially with my students. As the beginning of the month was a rough start I am determined to finish the month better than when I first came in. You know that saying "in like a lion, out like a lamb."
And who knew you could get tired of practicing for the fire drill...

Happy Labor Day!

 Today I am going to try to take it easy and relax... well I did say try. Tomorrow will be the FIRST day for my new kinders and I don't even know how many are on my roll yet. The first time I saw my roll I had 9 (and I only sent 9 letters out) but then I got a chance to peek at my roll and I had 13... so I guess I will find out how many are there tomorrow.
 I know I said I would try to take pictures of my classroom when I was finished but of course I am still not done. I know, they come tomorrow but the building is open early in the morning. So I will get myself to bed early and then get up early to prepare my room for my class. The only thing really that is left is to find places for all my containers and put them out of sight/ out of mind. But I do have some teasers, things that add color to my room and that are complete enough to show to others. I do apologize in advance for the poor lighting.

Bulletin Board says "Leap and Swing into Room 105!" I don't know if I should add my frogs in there for leap too. But the monkeys are holding up the letters for "Swing"

We are doing Student of the Month in our school and since we also talk about citizenship in social studies I thought to maybe display the students who earn student of the month here at our front door. 

Our reading board which will have the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom letters that we study. And a listing of other words we learn. The cards at the bottom are our station cards which will be located on the wall next to this board. 

This is our Math Work Stations board. I feel as if I am missing so much more on this board. After this picture was taken I did staple a number line at the bottom. What else should go there besides the station cards and students (those are coming)?

These are my helpers (sorry for the lighting). I have one helper for each student up to 20 jobs. I got the jungle background for another teacher blog, if this is yours please let me know so I can give you credit. If you click on the picture you can get a better view of the classroom jobs as well as the monkey magnets. I found a guy, Dereck West, earlier in the summer who makes inexpensive ($12) number magnets  up to 36 which you can tell him what you want on them. I got a set of jungle numbers, monkeys, colored bears, black/red bears. You can email him (located on his page) and tell him what you were thinking of and he will send you back an example until you are completely satisfied with them. I bought a few sets so I could have my kids use them in patterning and number order.

I gave these cute bags to my team. I got the template from Mrs. Gilchrist's Class, check out her post and she was even willing to give me the not flipped version so I could do it on dark fabric. Inside the bags I made sure to include printed and laminated ideas/activities that I found from other teacher bloggers. So THANK YOU teacher bloggers for creating and posting your wonderful ideas!! My team greatly appreciated them!

So after all the craziness of the first week passes me by hopefully I will be back on here like regular. I hope everyone who will be starting tomorrow has a WONDERFUL first day. And for those who have been going strong for a while, I hope you have a GREAT day tomorrow. And to everyone have a AWESOME week!:)