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!:)

I didn't last long today:(

 We got to go into work today from 10-3:30. Well of course I got there later, around 12pm. And I wasn't even there 20 minutes before I tried to hurt myself. I dropped a table on my toe! Ouch I know. I am still feeling the pain now. I am just praying that when I go to the doctor that it won't be bad, I just want to hear "ice it". I have the best team too because the "mommas" of the team made sure to take care of me and that I didn't do anything else to hurt myself. I had to dunk my whole foot into a bucket of ice... COOOOLLD! But once I found a system of making wrapping my foot, I was able to hobble around and try to get some work done. So out of 3 1/2 hours was able to put empty folders into my new portfolio bins, put supplies in my students' table buckets and to hang up 1 bulletin board.
 To me I feel very pitiful. And if we are able to go in tomorrow, I can't be much help to myself with my injured foot... This sets me back so much because I have so much more to do before I would even consider my room complete.
 Oh and my giveaway winners, I will make sure to put your things in the mail this week. I hope the week won't get too crazy but note that I haven't forgotten about you.
 I hope everyone who is currently setting up their classrooms can learn from my "rookie" mistake and protect yourself first over anything in the classroom... This time the score for me is Classroom 1   Desiree 0.
Night, Desiree

Reflection and WINNERS!

 Well after a most exciting day yesterday, we experienced an earthquake right in the middle of new teacher's training. How did everyone else fair? I can't stay up too late, I have to prepare for the next day of training. Yes I said training. I went up to the table yesterday thinking that the staff was going to tell me that I did not need to stay for new teacher training since I am no longer a new teacher. But since I was hired during the new teacher training last year and only stayed for one hour of training, I have to go through the process with everyone else. BUMMER! I just want to get into my room and get this moving process done so I don't have to feel so overwhelmed. Oh and the new teacher coming to our grade just found out this morning (at training) that she was no longer teaching her grade from last year but will be teaching kindergarten. Can you believe it? The morning of new teacher training one of our colleagues (not an administrator from our school) told her where she was going to be. And my kindergarten team knew she was going to be with us in the beginning of July. Wow, what a way to find out huh?
 Have you ever experienced this? Is your school district pretty good about communication with their staff? New things are happening this year so I am sure that this break in communication will change or be fixed... *fingers crossed*.
  I am sure you are wondering about the winners of my giveaway. Not many of you entered... and I am in the celebration mood because it is my BIRTHDAY today. Everyone who entered: Kelly B aka Queen Bee, Jody at Camp Kindergarten, Jennifer @ Herding Kats, B Roper @ Really Roper, Barbara @ Grade ONEderful, and mcgoumar were the only ones to enter my giveaway and good thing you did.

**Sorry I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the screen shot of the random.org numbers. I guess I need to go have more Ladybug Teacher Files' training.**

#1 Grade ONEderful   #2 McGoumar  #3 Jennifer at Herding Kats #4 Kelly B  

CONGRATULATIONS to all my winners. And my last two (Jody and B. Roper) although you did not win the birthday giveaway prizes, please email me so you can get your "secret" prize. Because everyone is a winner in this giveaway.:) Email me your mailing address so I can get prizes out to you. Remember you have until tomorrow (25th) to respond.:) Thanks for joining in my BIRTHDAY celebration!
 I'm not too happy about having to go to new teacher training on my birthday.:(

Meet the Teacher

Today is Monday and that means it is Meet the Teacher for the start of Teacher Week. I totally forgot but now I am going to put my 2 cents in.

 

**I usually don't take pictures of myself so I apologize in advance if you can really sense that I don't want to take this picture. I usually turn or run when I sense a camera being pointed at me. Yup it's that bad! I'm on the right next to my best friend while we were at the Baltimore Aquarium this summer.

How long have I been teaching?

I've been teaching for 7 years. I first started in preschool and absolutely loved four year olds. I went to school and only wanted to teach 2 year olds... yes twos. But I landed the four year old job and LOVED it! I thought I would have been still there but someone suggested I go for my elementary degree. I did and now I teach Kindergarten. This year will be my 2nd year in kindergarten. WOW, I went from twos to 5 and 6 year olds.:)

You might not know...

That I am a published writer. Not counting blogging because our writing gets "published" every day. But in my "spare" time I like to write poetry and when I was in high school and college I had some things published. Nowadays I can usually come up with a great song instead of writing poetry like my Astronaut Song (tune of "I'm a nut" that my grade level sung at our Community Helpers performance last year. Here is part of the song:

I’m a little astronaut on the moon.

My little rocket goes zoom, zoom, zoom.

When we get to lift off, do you know

The man on the speaker says “off we go!” (can get louder on "off we go")

~kindersontheblock~

What am I looking forward to this year?

I am looking forward to having a good class and teaching them some of the things that I have learned this summer through all the teacher blogs I am now following. It was like I was in class again but I have gained much more valuable information to share with my kinders than I could have if I just sat in a classroom. 

What do I need to improve?

My organizational skills are LACKING big time. I have some ideas on how to collect completed work, when to take the time to grade papers and where to put papers when I am finished with them. This I did not know last year and my room became a complete mess. I want to make sure everything has its place now. 

What can I not live without?

My laminator... greatest buy this year!

My smelly markers, the kids LOVED them and I love getting a whiff too.

Post-Its!!

And my school notebook. I write everything down in there, staff/team meeting notes, ideas that pop into my head, notes from books I am reading (still reading the Math Work Stations book).

I can't wait to meet some other teachers too, so become a BLOG hopper and join the linky party! And don't forget to join my Field Trip linky party too!

Before I Forget...

  I just realized something today.I don't think I ever showed you what I received from zazzle.com. Oh I absolutely love it and I have already tried to use it. I love zazzle.com and if you have never been then you should go because you can design your own projects or use the templates given to you. I decided to use the templates but add myself to each notebook I bought. I bought my notebooks during one of their many percent off sales, this one happened to be $8 off each notebook. Sweet. Currently they are having a sale of 15% off ALL PRODUCTS so hurry over and see what you can find!!

 

This is the front of my Kindergarten Rocks notebook that I plan on using as my school notebook. If you click on the picture you can see the way it looked originally. 

 

Here is the back of my Kindergarten Rocks notebook. On the template it left the back side blank where you could add your own quote. It is hard to read but it says "A teacher takes a hand, opens a mind, and touches a heart~Author Unknown". It was one of the quotes I found online. 

 

Oh and when I saw this notebook I just had to have it even though I didn't know what I was going to use it for. But I did find a use for it... all my Girl Scout stuff I seem to be collecting. Isn't he cute?;)

And these notebooks are AWESOME because they come with DOUBLE inside pockets. And you get to choose whether you want the inside of your notebook to be white or black and I chose black. 

 I also went to my classroom for the first time... even though I have been trying to get in there all summer this was the first time all my stuff was there too. I didn't take any pictures of what it looks like because I didn't really do much, just cleaned. Who knew how dirty a classroom really can get? And since it is my new room I thought a heavy duty clean was in order. Yeah the custodians only mop and wax our floors, maybe clean our windows and doors, bathrooms, but that is it. We have to do all the nook and cranny stuff. 

 

View to the left of my back door

 

View from my back door (back to front)

 

View from the back looking to the right side

 

Picture of my windows near my back door

 

View from my front door looking towards the other side of the room. And woo hoo, we get a bathroom in our room. I haven't had one since I student taught in kindergarten (3 years ago).

I will try to add pictures of my room as I get in there on Wednesday and am able to move things around. I felt  overwhelmed today because over break I had planned out where all my furniture was going to go but then when I got in there today I didn't think it all was going to fit plus house all the things I bought too. But when I got home and took the time to work it all out (before my brain exploded) I felt better about my room. And with me trying to put in a math area (last year everything was under a table and I just pulled it out when I needed it) and a reading area (our reading program has TONS of stuff we need to house for the whole year. But I don't know if you noticed but I do have storage on the tops of my cubbies (yay) because the storage at the sink is so tight and nothing big could fit in there. And like I told my colleagues we could always but stuff in the bathroom...

  Tomorrow is the LAST DAY to enter in my giveaway. Giveaway ends at 10pm EST. Remember to join the linky party, it gives you 2 entries for the giveaway. Share in my love in reading and try to win the prizes. Good luck to you! My hope is to have the winners announced before bed tomorrow but we shall see if it goes into my birthday hours... 

See ya, Desiree 

Teacher Appreciation... and deja vu!

   Yesterday I had all my dates mixed up. I thought I had to get up early to catch the Staples and the Office Depot's Teacher Appreciation Sales. But alas, Staples was the only one having their appreciation period (not day) from 9am-1pm and it was only at select Staples. So while the one by my house was appreciating teachers until 1pm the one in the West End was not. But I took that as a sign to go find out about Office Depot, to even find the one that is closer to my house.
  I did find it, I did notice that there was no Teacher Appreciation stuff going on so I decided to go online and check out what happened to my planning. Well the appreciation stuff will be starting today and the breakfast is scheduled for August 27th. So I now have it all in my calendar and I hope that I will get it right. And what I felt bad about was I was adamant that Office Depot's stuff started yesterday and I sent one of my colleagues out on the wrong day. And when I tried to get in touch with her to tell her of my mistake... I couldn't. So I felt pretty bad but I hope she got my message(s) to start shopping today.
 So let me help you guys learn from my mistakes... check Office Depot online and type in Teacher Appreciation. Then click on "Find My Event" that way you can find out if the store that is nearest you is even having an event and if it is this week. I hope that helps and good luck to you.

  Don't forget to sign up for my birthday giveaway... ends Tuesday! And my Field Trip linky party! 

   And today is technically my LAST day of my summer vacation as tomorrow I will be going into my classroom (along with many of my other colleagues) because we couldn't get in any earlier than that. But I am not complaining because as I was reading some other bloggers' posts they noted that they only had 3 days to put their room together before the kids came for open house. WOW!
    That is like deja vu for me last year when I was only able to get into my room the third day after all those meetings and that was only because I was "dipping" out from the professional development sesssions. The first time I stepped foot into my room, I cried because I walked into an empty room with only 1 table, 2 filing cabinets and a teacher's desk. I met up with another teacher who introduced me to the other teachers and helped me to scavenge my current furniture. Then when I was able to spend the whole day in my classroom, I had a visit from the big wigs who said "she has done a good job with what she has but she's going to need more of this, this, and this." Phew without that visit from that big wig I don't think I would have really gotten anything in my classroom. So the higher ups are not only there to push us for performance but there to get us help when we need it. But I did get my room halfway decent in time for the parents and kids to arrive for open house but it was no where finished. And since I had that feeling I think I stayed late everyday during the school year just so I could get a handle on all the stuff that was thrown at me late and I just stuffed in a corner somewhere when the parents and kids came. I am hoping that this will not be the case this year.

Don't Miss Out!

 I don't want anyone to miss out on the chance of my birthday giveaway just because it is now hidden among other posts. You have until Tuesday August 23rd to enter the giveaway. So hurry up and enter, you even get bonus entries!
 And I have my first linky party going on right now. Tell me about your favorite field trips or some trips that you plan to take this year. It sounds simple enough to remember your fond memories. And if you don't have a blog feel free to leave your memories in the comments section.
 Another giveaway that is going on and ends TONIGHT @ 9pm... 3+3 Giveaway from Really Roper and Frogs in First. Three lucky winners could win 1 item from Really Roper's store and 1 item from Frogs in First. So head on over to enter into the giveaway. Remember FOLLOW (2), TPT (2), BLOG. Five entries to put your name in the hat so you can win! 
 Enjoy Desiree