Parent Communication Logs - Sweet Surprise

Happy Sunday all!  I'm so excited my COWBOYS won!  My hubby's happy too so it's a sweet day.  I'm stopping by today to explain how I communicate with my parents.  I have been using this system 

for the last few years and it's a great way to communicate with parents!

I grab a few of these each and every year.  They are so easy.  You can check them out here on amazon.  They are so inexpensive!

So let me walk you through how I use these.  I use these to let parents know how their child is doing in class.  I will send it home if a child is being chatty or if he/she is having a fabulous day.  It's a great way to keep parents updates on what their child is up too in the classroom.

This is a fake note.  But just a glimpse of what a sheet looks like.  So what I love about this is that it has  2 parts.  There is a white copy for the parents, and then a carbon copy right under that is a duplicate of the note your sending home.  

This is important because you get to keep the copy you sent home and remember that you want the original copy signed. 

 The past few years, I have just been stuffing the notes in a drawer, completely unorganized and I would always forget if a parent signed it or not.  Typical me. LOL But this year I realized I could store it in an accordion little pocket like the one above.  I labeled the inside with the different marking periods so I know exactly what notes I sent and what quarter.  Definitely important for when you have IEP meetings and parent conferences.

If you see I already start storing my notes for the first quarter.  I had to chop off my thumb in this picture.  Haven't gotten a mani in about a month.  God my nails are just terrible right now.  LOL Moving on…. I'm excited to be a bit more organized this year with parent notes.  Phew!  LOL 

How do you communicate with parents?  I'd love to hear your ideas as well!

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So just for giggles,  as some of ya guys knows, I recently got married and moved to a house.  As I am unpacking,  and yes if your wondering, no i didn't do my packing… my mom did.  LOL So I have no clue what the woman was packing.  She really wanted me to go, I was finding things that I haven't seen in years, actually over a decade.  LOL  SO I stumbled upon my JUNIOR PROM dress!  Yes! WHAT! I was shocked, giggled a few times and then thought, why not?  Let's give it a go and try it on!  If your wondering how old I am… I'm 29.  So this is 12 years old.  Makes me laugh so hard that I found this… well here it is!

Yes thats me posing! I felt great still fitting in it. LOL I am now on a mission to find an actual picture of me in this dress in my youngin days!  Stay tuned.  

Classroom Reveal

Yes, I am late to the party….classroom reveal party that is!  I usually would decorate my classroom mid august but we weren't allowed to go back until 2 days before school started.  I seriously didn't waste time.  I got straight to work and with some help of some friends.  

I got purple fabric from walmart.  I tried fabric last year and I was obsessed.  By the end of the year it was still perfect.  I only changed it because I wanted to solid color throughout the board and because purple is my favorite color!

I'm very into neon colors this year, not sure if you could tell.  But I am obsessed with my word wall!  

This is my new objectives board. The title of the board is from Amy Groesbeck.  What I love about them is that they are editable.  So I was able to make a title for each board in my room.  It kept with the bright theme.  I got the headers for the subjects from Learning in Wonderland  

I got the subject titles from Crockett's Classroom and the "I Can" statements.

This is one of my fave things in my room!

Newho about this objectives board. Last year we kept hearing we need to put up a focus wall or objective board somewhere in the room.  I am so happy I stumbled across this one!  It's bright, cute and I think it will grab people's attention if they were to pop in.  What do you think?

So this is my BARE helpers board.  I haven't found anything neon isn that could match with anything else.  Do you know of anything I may like?  I need one asap!  I need helpers to stop me from losing my mind.  Don't mind the wrinkle.  I had that last year and it went away on it's own.  

Calendar board. UGH. Love the brightness!  I know my little ones will just love it.

Birthday Board - Straight and to the point. 

I will tell you why I love this bulletin so much.  It is loud and right smack in the middle of the room.I love the directions because they are easy enough for my firsties to understand and follow.  I also love the clip chart next to it.  They go hand in hand.  If the little ones follow directions, they will move up in the chart or if they don't make good choices they will be clipped down.  I am excited to try this different strategy this year.

Here's a close up look…

If your interested in this sweet set, I got this from the lovely Maria Manore.  The pics are so bright and cute.  

This is my reading rug.  I have been wanting to change those seat covers forever now, but I always put it off.  I should try to incorporate neon colors to match the room.  Either way I still love them and the kids just love sitting on the crates.  I make it a privilege to sit on them so they always try their best to behave to be called to the crates.

This is my fabulous desk.  I bought these inspirational posters from  A Year of Many Firsts.  I decided to print, laminate and post all around the room so my littles always know that their behavior is priority.

I love the posters right by the buddy reading area.  Totally will put my little ones in check.

I took advantage of the free spaces and added them wherever I could!  But I think they look so cute.

This is the bulletin board I share.  We decided to do something easy.  Think it came out so cute.

I STOCKED my treasure chest for the year.  I went throughout the summer and kept picking things up as I saw.  I'm excited to give away things to my sweeties.

There's wands, jump ropes. large pencils, bouncy balls.  

What's in your chest?

My favorite thing of all?    My new name!  As you know, I got married this summer and this was a gift from my fabulous mommy - in- law.  Cutest thing ever.  

What do you think of my room?  Love to hear your thoughts!

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This week we have a lot planned with my littles.  We are going to start my Grandparents Day Craft

Full of cute crafts and printables for your little ones and grandparents!  

Great activités for your firsties and their grandparents to do on Grandparent's Day this Sunday September 7.  

How do you and your little ones celebrate this day?

*side note*  I am doing a happy dance… I am almost done with my Space Bundle.  Stay tuned!!

Organizing with Stackables!

So as you know, I have been slowly packing up the school year.  We still have until June 26th but slow and steady wins the race!  Besides I am getting the itch to just pack and go!!!  

Usually my packing goes well at the beginning and towards the end I just stuff things where there is room.  I wanted to avoid that this year because I tend to lose things and don't end up finding it until  I start packing again.  So this year I went on a hunt for some organizing bins.  I found this at  and decided to give it a try!

I got these tubs from Really Good Stuff.  They come in all different sizes.  I ordered the medium but and large.  These stackables come in 3 for 19.99.  If you order 3 or more sets, you get a great deal of 14.99.  I love me a sale!

 It's seriously perfect for what I'm packing and what's even better is they are stackable!  You can keep lining them up on top of one another and it will fit perfectly.  This is what my markers looked like before in a regular bin.

Yes.. it's messy and I actually forgot I had my markers in there so I didn't even use these markers this year.  I hate that!!  So I had to change this.

I organized them a bit and then tossed in my new stackables, along with some other bins and crafts.  This is how perfectly it lines up!  And I hope I don't forget they are in there this following year.

As you can see in my other bins, I have clothespins which I am always in need of and popsicle sticks.  

I can't wait to order more.  I  will need to buy labels and stick them on the stacks just to be extra organized and know where everything is!  

Look how it fits just perfectly in my closet.  

How do you organize your things at the end of the year?

Packing Up Another Year!

Okay …so don't judge me, but I started cleaning my class for the end of the year.  Is it weird that school ends June 26th?  

I get slight anxiety just the idea of starting to clean up in June.  I like to move slow and steady and make sure I am not rushed towards end of year looking for things to store and find room for.  I like to make sure things are neat and orderly for when I come back to set up at the end of summer.  

So where did I begin?  Happy you ask!  I started small.  I just gathered some poster boards.  

Before you think, I'm just awful by taking away these posters…. my little ones have a copy of their own in their class word folders that they refer to on their own.  So I think they'll handle it just fine.

I like to store my poster boards nice and neat in my sweet little bag from Really Good Stuff.  It's only $14.99 and such a great way to store and organize your posters without feeling forced to tossed them somewhere because there's no room or space.  

Here's a shot of it …

Make sure to grab this as it will make your life much easier at the end of the year.


and just for giggles!  This is a shot i took last year using the bag!

I'm such a pro!

Out with the Old & In with the New- Bulletin Board Style!

Happy Wednesday!  So happy the week is going by fast!  So close to Spring break I can almost smell it!!

  Spring is finally here and it's almost end of the year.  But instead of trying to clean up a bit and put stuff away, here I am creating a new bulletin board for my class!

This is what my bulletin looks like now…

I got these last year from Clutter Free Classroom and mixed it up with Rockin Teacher Materials.  It was an awesome set with tons of different choices for the board.  If you want to read a bit more about how I set it up and planned to use it, click here to take you to that post. 

It's not that I don't love this board, I just think for my class this year, it just isn't for them.  I will definitely try this again next year and see how it works with my new babies.

Okay after thinking..not hard of course…I came up with a sweet idea!  I have been seeing this kind of idea lately on pinterest and thought it would be perfect!

Okay so picture this...

I don't have kids of my own but I can kind of figure out that this is how the conversation goes when my kids gets picked up from school. 

Mom:  Hey honey, what did you learn in school today?

Child:  Nothing

LOL  I figured, this bulletin can help kids remember what they learned that particular day. We can discuss in class all the new topics we covered and the things we reviewed.  That way when they walk out, they have been refreshed with what they learn?  Are ya with me?  Okiee..

This is what I was inspired by on pinterest.  This was created by Teach from the Heart

Cute right???

Well I started to make it mw own.

This is mid progress…

I use the letters from the previous bulletin to help me set up this one.  I whipped this up so quick.  

Final product…

Side view…

If you squint your eyes, you could see what I wrote! LOL

Here is a before and after shot.  I just realized I have been doing those a lot lately!

My plan for this is,  at the end of the day, I will ask my little ones "What Stuck Today".  The point is for them to backtrack and think about all the things we reviewed and went over.  Everything they come up with, I will put on a post it and slab on the "What Stuck" wall.  I think it will be a fun way to get my little one's minds going, even if it is the end of the day.  This way when their parents ask them what they learned, they can remember this!

It's worth a try and I am excited to get started!!

Have you guys tried this?  How has it worked for you ?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Organize that Classroom!

So I am always trying to find different ways to organize the class.  I feel like I fix one side of the class then the other side falls apart!  Can I just have a robot that fixes everything? LOL

While waiting for that robot, let me show you what I have been up to in my class!

Now, I personally don't think it's that bad.  I just think it's messy and could be a little more tidy and put together.  So I did a little research and found such a cute book bin from Scholastic.

I loved it and ordered it right away.  I had one of the custodians put it together when he got a chance and organized it.

Tada!!!!!

Doesn't it look much more organized and put together than before?  Take a look up close…

I feel so much better now just looking at that corner.  If your wondering what all those books are …well the red spines books are from our reading series. Treasures.  They range from everything from transparencies to home instruction workbooks.  I try to incorporate them as much as I can so I need them to be nice and neat if I need to grab it.    The blue are folders filled with student data and test scores.  And the workbooks in the middle.. well….

my monthly idea books!  Yes I have all of them and yes I use them ALLLL the time.  They have such useful resources for the little ones to complete during centers, homework or buddy work.  It's definitely something I am happy I purchased.  

To see more on these books, click here to take you to the September month.  These books are from the Teacher Store over at Scholastics.  They are $17.99 but so worth it.  It's 144 pages full of just awesome printables and resources to use for years to come.

………….

So look what we were surprised with yesterday!  

Yes…cute little caterpillars!  They are busy as can be trying to slowly transform.

It actually came unexpected so I quickly had to pull out my Bopping for Butterflies Unit and start copying….

I  know my babes will just love it!!  

OMG!!  Have you check out Farley's Currently today?  Guess who the sponsor is?!?!!?  

It's ME!!  I am the sponsor.  I can't believe it!  I am so excited to even be mentioned or considered to be a sponsor!!   

So here is my currently!

Stay tuned for a pretty sweet Space Unit coming soon!

Off to watch my Yankees home opener!!  Ahh Love them. =) 

Organize that Word Wall!

Hey friends!  Happy Thursday.  

I'm here with some tips on how to organize your classroom and most importantly your word walls!

This year we were told we needed to have word walls.  Thankfully,  I was already a step ahead as I have had a word wall since I started teaching.  This is my word wall in the beginning of the year.

Of course this is how it looked like in the beginning.  I slowly started putting up words that I know my little ones would need assistance with.

Last week, I bought these cute little things at the $1 spot at Target.  Seriously, $1?  I couldn't pass it up!!

Aren't these little accordions so cute?  I am obsessed with chevron right now so thought this would go perfect with my theme in the classroom.

So I was thinking of how to incorporate this into the classroom and ding ding ding!  Lightbulb!

I searched at the bottom of my drawer for those cute little word wall cards and came up with a "duh" kind of idea.

 I could organize my word wall cards to make my life a bit easier!

This is what the little accordions look like.

So I put them together neatly.  This is the final outcome.

This is the other set.

All together, I used 2 of the accordions and labeled each pocket with 2 letters.  The last letters, I combined together and labeled those letters W-Z.  

I think they came out perfect!  This should definitely make my life a bit more organized. 

I put the pockets in a cute bin and put it right next to the word wall to make it easier to take down old words and put up new ones.

Here it is!!  Fits perfectly with the other bins.

I have 3 left over accordions to play around with.  Any ideas on what to do with them?  Love to hear what you think. =)  

Oh yes!!  If you love the word walls I use for the board, you can check them out by clicking here.  It's from a lovely bloggy gal who has awesome products!  You can also check out her blog My Silly Firsties.  She has lots of ideas that you can use in the class right away!