Teacher Week 2015 Monday: 5 Fun Facts!

Yay for Teacher Week!! I'm joining the sweet gals at Blog Hoppin' for Teacher Week!


Here are 5 fun facts about ME!

{One}
I LOVE to travel with my favorite! It's my absolute favorite thing to do!









{Two}
I am addicted to Lilly Pulitzer. Every day should be a Lilly day!
Can you spot some Lilly in any of my photos?? :)


{Three}
I'm a dog mom to the cutest and sweetest little fur baby ever, Dexter dog. I love his sweet little heart to pieces and couldn't imagine life without him. He is perfect! I'm definitely a crazy dog mom... we have birthday parties, coordinating Halloween costumes, make trips for Happy Meals and go to Petco.. and so much more.. and I wouldn't have it any other way!! :)









{Four}
I live on Dale Hollow Lake. You can find us most weekends in the summer on our pontoon boat! :) 


{Five}
I have a major sweet tooth! Some of my favorite sweets are ice cream {Blue Bell is the best!}with warm brownies or peach cobbler, carrot cake, butterfinger cake, and caramel pie to name a few!  Date days/nights usually include some sort of dessert for me and my sweet fella! 

I also really love to bake!! Peach cobbler and brownies are on the rotation at our house pretty often! And I like to bake sweet treats for my neighbors too! :)



Well friends, that's my 5 fun facts! :)




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Classroom Reveal: Back to School With CTP!

Happy Friday blog friends!! I'm super excited to share with you a peek inside my classroom for the 2015-2016 school year!! Get ready for picture overload! Below each picture I have listed all the details on the amazing products I used from Creative Teaching Press to get my room all set up and ready for my new group of firsties! Creative Teaching Press is hands down my go-to place for the perfect items to get my room ready each year. Be sure to check out these amazing items and so much more on CTP's website to get your room ready for back to school! :)

First stop on the tour is my writing station area... I think it is my most favorite!

From CTP:

From TPT:
Writing Center Starter Kit Printables by A Cupcake for the Teacher


From CTP:

5 Star Sentences by Lori at Teaching with Love and Laughter

From Pacon:


To save space I used these amazing extra large library pockets from CTP! They can pick a writing activity from the writing board and get the corresponding sheet from one of these pockets! I laminated the pockets so I could write on them with a dry erase marker. These pockets are awesome! They hold up to 50 sheets of paper. I attached them to the wall with velcro. I love that it is all together and doesn't take up a ton of space on a shelf. 


Word Wall---Each week I add the high frequency words that go with our weekly story to the board. So far it doesn't have many words on it yet since we have only been in school for a couple weeks. But I will add more each week.

From CTP:


From TPT:

From Pacon:


Bubble Gum Words-- you can read a post all about how this works here



This is my little corner of the room. :)

Reading Focus Board-- I display the poem of the week and the reading focus skills here each week. Below are books in the classroom library. There is a bottom row of tubs with books that didn't make the pic. 

From CTP:

From TPT:

From Pacon:

The book tubs are from the Dollar Tree.

Listening Center-- students will use the scoop chairs when at the listening chairs. I found the chairs at Wal-Mart for like $5 each! In the tubs are listening station packs. I have the book, CD, and corresponding recording sheet in a ziplock bag.
Another view of the classroom library. Sorry for the bad lighting! I place featured books in the book shelf. Currently it's all back to school books. 

Math Focus Board-- I add standards to this as we cover them. Currently we are focusing on adding and counting so they all aren't up there just yet.

From TPT:

From Pacon:


We love the big carpet! Below the smart board are some Inspire U posters from CTP. To the right of the smartboard is my cart for my laptop, flexcam, remotes, anchor chart markers, Saxon Phonics cards, etc.


This is a view from the back of the room at my small group table. This year I have my students in groups of four. I color code my groups. I have a green, purple, red, and blue group. Last year I got a class set of chair pockets from Seat Sack and I LOVE them so much!!! I washed them this summer and they looked good as new for my new group of firsties. In their chair pockets they keep their classwork folder, books for read to self time, etc.


Each group has a book shelf beside their group. This is where they place their SAFARI Books, journals, earbuds/headphones, etc. I started this last year and loved how it worked out!

Small group table, shelf with supplies, sink area

This is the cubbies. Each student has a cubby to store their backpacks, lunch boxes, coats, gym shoes, etc. I also use the top ones to store teaching materials, books, etc. 
I love my Kohls Cares friends hanging out on top! :)


Clip Chart

From CTP:

From TPT:


Classroom Door

From CTP:

First hallway bulletin board of the year! I have 14 new little monkeys and we are looking forward to a super fun year! 

From CTP:

From TPT:


Well sweet friends, I hope you enjoyed the tour of my little home away from home.

I want to give a big thank you to my friends at CTP! They are so good to me and my classroom and have been super amazing to work with!!! I'm so thankful for the opportunity to work with them!



  Be sure to check out all of the wonderful items that I featured from Creative Teaching Press plus tons of other amazing items they offer as well!

Want to check out some more decor ideas?? Head over to Miss Johnston's Journey to check out how she used Creative Teaching Press items to get her classroom ready for the new year!


Miss Johnston's Jourey

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Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum In a Dish...Bubble Gum Words!

Hey, hey blog friends! I just finished day #5 with new group of firsties! And I need to do a classroom reveal post and share what we have been up to these first few days....But today, I wanted to pop in and share something new I am doing this year to help my firsties learn their sight words. In addition to our weekly high frequency words that go with our reading series, I am also having my kiddos learn the Fry words at their own pace. I wanted something to get them excited and motivated about learning the words.. so this summer I was thinking about ideas I could do and I decided to name the words "Bubble Gum Words!" Who doesn't love a good ole piece of bubble gum?? Especially when your 6 and don't normally get to chew gum in class! ;)  

So what are Bubble Gum Words? Bubble Gum Words are the 1,000 Fry words. I have broken them down into 10 sheets... each sheet containing 5 lists of 20 words for a total of 100 per sheet. All students will start out on sheet 1 and will work at their own pace. I will ask students the words during small group reading time and as we have extra time. I color code the lists... For example, I have copied list 1 on Astrobrights Solar Yellow paper. All students have a copy of sheet one in their SAFARI Book-- take home binder. 




As students master a list on their sheet, I will hole punch it. This lets parents know that list is mastered so they will go on and start practicing the next list.


To keep up with their progress, each student has a gumball machine. I have also copied them on Solar Yellow paper to match sheet one. Below is a picture of the display I have in my classroom. 

If you like the display check out these great items I used from from Creative Teaching Press!

Painted Palette Pennants 6" Designer Cut-Outs


Their name goes in the box at the bottom of the machine.
 
As a student masters a list on their sheet, they take a crayon and color in a gum ball in their machine.
 

When they master all five lists on a sheet and fill up a gumball machine they will move on to the next sheet and get a new gumball machine. The new sheet and gumball machine will be a new color. So for sheet two I might copy it on orange paper. The third list might be blue and so on. Each time a student fills up a gum ball machine and learns all 5 lists on a sheet they get rewarded with a piece of bubble gum! :) So far students are doing great and seam super eager to their "Bubble Gum Words!" I look forward to them. I'm excited to add an extra way of learning sight words and help build fluency. 

If you are looking for a way for your students to learn extra sight words and like this idea, you can check out Bubble Gum Words in my little tpt shop. This pack is jam packed with everything you need to implement this in your classroom...word sheets for all 1,000 Fry words, three different tracking options, award certificates, and some editable pages!

  


Have a great week! I will be back soon with a classroom reveal post! :)




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