Friday Font Find

Hi everyone, I am back from a nice relaxing break in the Carolina Low Country.  I hope everyone is having a nice, relaxing, pampering your self :) summer!

I am back to creating and craftivity mode (back to school unit, Journeys units are in the works)!!!

I stumbled upon the most adorable free font.

This is called Waves Font.  My preppy self can't get enough of it.

You can download it yourself by clicking here.

Bulletin Board Storage Upgrade!!

My last day of school was this past Friday, so summer has officially started for me :) 

 While packing up my classroom (everything has to be off the walls/floor for "maintenance purposes") the cardboard box I normally store my bulletin board sets and posters in started to break.  This was my second cardboard storage box that has started to buckle and refused to hold its shape.  One of the handles had also split and broken off.  I think some of the breakdown of the box is due to the heat and humidity here in Florida.  My classroom is a hybrid (an upgraded portable) so that doesn't help the heat and humidity situation.

I decided to cave in and purchase these bulletin board storage bags from Carson-Dellosa.

They are awesome !!  I bought two of them  (side note...the cardboard box met the recycling bin).  One to hold my bulletin board/decorative sets and one to hold posters that I use for teaching and for students to use at workstations.  They are expandable and have a handle.  The best part is that these 2 storage bags take up a lot less space than my previous cardboard box.  Since storage is very limited in my hybrid classroom (only one tiny storage closet) I am always looking for ways to improve my organization and storage.  

Multiplication Fun

Hi everyone.  I am so jealous of everyone who is already on summer vacation.  10 more days for me.  At least all of my end of the year testing is done!!! :)

My room is getting a little more under control as I have been trying to neatly put things away and pack up my classroom.  Even though this year is not yet over I am thinking about how I want to decorate for next year.  This is some cute trim I just picked up at my local teachers store.  I can't wait to use it next school year.

It's from Creative Teaching Press.  Most of the items that I use for decorating my classroom are from them.  I loooove their stuff!!

In math we have been working on multiplication.  I recently read my chickadees:

This is a great book for teaching repeated addition or multiplication.  After reading the book my students created their own story problems.

I can tell I have the beginnings of a shop-a-holic in my class :)

They did a pretty good job overall.  I am so proud of how far my chickadees have come!

Classroom Explosion!!!

Okay, my classroom has not literally exploded but it certainly looks like that.  In my quest to start taking things down and packing up my room for the summer it looks like something exploded in my room.  Everything has to be off the floors/book shelves because everything is taken out of my hybrid so the maintenance fairies can wax the floor.  I am trying to pack things away in an orderly fashion so I will be able to find them when I return in August. 

My school already found out we will probably only have 1 day to get our rooms ready during our pre-planning week in August due to required district professional development.  It makes it awfully hard to "mentally" wrap up and enjoy the rest of this year with my chickadees when my mind is in hyperdrive over what I need to do to get ready for next year (now).  What will my "theme" be?  Should I make my parent packets now? What copies should I run off now?

I know it will all come together in the end (I keep telling myself) :)

17 days to go!! How about you?



Teacher Appreciation Sale

Have you heard?  TpT is having a Teacher Appreciation Sale May 6-8th in honor of Teachers Appreciation Week.

Items will be up to 20% off and Tpt will be kicking in an extra 8% off.  Holy guacamole you can save up to 28% off!!  I have many items on my wishlist I plan on purchasing.

If you click {here} you will be able to pick up my newest unit "I'm Ready for 2nd Grade {summer themed unit}".  It is $4.00 now, but during the sale it will only be $2.88.

Your little ones will be excited and engaged to use this summer themed unit as a wrap up to First Grade or even starting Second Grade. There are 5 literacy and 3 math activities. Each activity comes with a recording sheet and sentence extension (literacy items). 

Happy Shopping!!

Making Big Books

Hi everyone!  It's been awhile since my last post, but school has been really busy and it doesn't seem like it will be slowing down anytime soon.  Usually it seems like this time of the year usually goes by soooooo slow, but not this year.  My chickadees and I will be practicing for the SAT 10 that we will be taking next week as well as getting ready for field day, FAIR testing and ORF testing.  I feel swamped :(  Anyone else feeling that way??

I wanted to share with everyone a class made big book.  Do you make big books with your students?  My students love it.  We read many different stories that had the same overall theme:  "The Enormous Turnip", "The Enormous Potato", and "The Enormous Carrot".  Then my chickadees created their own story following the story line but gave it a new twist.

Hence, the birth of The Enormous Apple!

Their story had a cowboy, cowgirl, tiger, and an alien (to name a few) trying to pull an enormous stubborn apple off a tree.  To make this big book each team in my class worked cooperatively to choose a character, write their page of the story, and create the illustrations.  I find creating big books, that are based on multiple stories with the same theme very helpful to my ESOL students.  I usually store my classmade big books and ones that I have purchased in a hamper.  The big books are available for students to read during their rotation through Read to Self during our literacy workstation time.

I hope everyone has a great start to the new week!  I can't believe it will be May in a few days!!!

And the Winner Is...........

Drumroll please.................................

Congratulations Mrs. Richling!  You've just won my Mother's Day Craft project.  Look for an email from me really soon!