Three Years :)

At this time three years ago, I was getting my hair done for my wedding :) Happy anniversary to my wonderful hubby!

A little of this, a little of that!

So, July will be here in just a couple of days! I cannot believe it.  It has been SO. STINKIN'. HOT. the past few weeks, as in triple digits almost everyday! Therefore, I have been spending lots of time at my parents' pool. I have also been trying to take Lulu to go swimming some because it is just too hot to walk her some mornings.... and I do not do the whole waking up super early in the summer thing very well.... But anyway, Lulu looooves swimming :)

I've also been spending lots of time with friends and family, seeing movies, going shopping... I have gotten back into working out regularly (woo!). I have been cooking a lot more than I do during the school year, and my house has been staying a lot cleaner and more organized, haha.

I have also been working on stuff for school here and there, but I have tried not to get too into school mode quite yet. It is still too early in the summer :) As you know, I finished my BIG task of organizing my class library. It feels soooo good! I brought home our new math series and started making the games that go along with the different lessons.

Annnnd I have begun the school shopping....

I love owls! That is an owl whiteboard eraser and notepad! I am seriously thinking of having an owl theme in my room. We shall see :)

I finally found cute pockets for my kids' library sticks and bucket fillers. I will tell you, I looked everywhere for some cute ones, and luckily (and finally!) I found some today!

I found the cupcakes at Dollar Tree and I plan to cut them apart for some matching games (maybe addition/subtraction, synonyms/antonyms, contractions, etc.) The smiles and hands are for our Magic Triads, and I found the money flash cards in the Target dollar bins. I plan on using them for a money matching game of some sort.



I cannot believe summer is almost half over! Ahh!

An organized library...finally!!!

You guys, I am so excited because my classroom library is finally ORGANIZED!!!! I picked up 24 baskets from the Dollar Tree. I bought 16 for picture books (I have two left over!) and 8 for chapter books. I pretty much kept with the categories in my previous post, but did combine a couple of categories.

This process took several days, but oh my goodness, I just KNOW it will be worth it!! As I said, the first thing I did when organizing my books was divide them by levels. So I made piles of 1.0-1.9 books, 2.0-2.9 books, and so on. Then I chose my categories based on the books I had. For example, I had a TON of dinosaur books, so I have a dinosaur basket. Within that basket there are all different reading levels.

Below, you can see that the reading level is written inside the book:

I am so excited about my chapter book baskets. They are the PERFECT size! And I just love the bright colors! They can fit around 20 chapter books (give or take, depending on how thick the books are).

The only thing left to do is make the labels!

SOOOO many books!

I just have to say that I. LOVE. SUMMER. I have been spending a lot of time at my parents' pool, I went to Austin, TX with the hubs and our friends, I have gotten back into a regular exercise routine, I finally saw Bridesmaids (sooo funny!) aaaaand I have taken on the task of organizing my classroom library.

Since I was already packing up to move into my new classroom, and our school is closed in the summer, I decided to pack up ALL of my books, bring them home, and work on some kind of organization system. It has been QUITE a task. Originally, I was just going to level all the books, and put them in baskets based on reading levels. But after researching online and reading lots of blogs about library organization, I decided to categorize my books. However, I did write the reading levels in all the books that I could.

Based on the books I have, I came up with the following categories:

• Favorite Characters: Clifford, Little Critter, Froggy, Curious George
• Favorite Characters: Arthur & D.W., Berenstain Bears, Amelia Bedelia, Henry & Mudge
• Favorite Authors: Tomie dePaola, Dr. Seuss and Eric Carle
• Dinosaurs (I had a LOT more dino books than I realized!)
• Cartoon Characters (I seem to have a plethora of Spongebob and other random cartoon books!)
• School Picture Books
• The Three F's: Fairytales, Folktales, Fables
• Animal Fiction: Zoo, Farm and Forest Animals
• Animal Fiction: Dogs, Cats, Mice, Pigs, Bugs and Fish
• Animal Nonfiction
• Misc. Nonfiction
• Misc. Fiction
• Biographies, History and the USA
• Mystery Chapter Books
• Magic Treehouse Chapter Books
• Favorite Character Chapter Books: Junie B., Arthur, Horrible Harry, Flat Stanley, American Girl
• School Chapter Books
• Chapter Books About Friends
• Chapter Books About Animals
• Misc. Chapter Books

Depending on the size of baskets/bins I buy, I may be able to combine some of my categories. I know this is probably not my final list, but I feel like it's a good start. My goal is to have it figured out early on in the summer so the hubs and I can have our office back!!

BUSY BUSY.

I have been crazy busy packing and unpacking the past two weeks because I am moving classrooms. I am so excited because I will have carpet (no more noisy chairs!) and I will have a window!! And I will no longer have to deal with a room that leaks everytime it rains :) Amy and I will be closet mates and we are so excited! The only downside to this move is that we will not be with the other five ladies on our team.

We are having to move our stuff into one classroom for the time being while we wait for my new classroom to be totally vacant. This is what Amy's room looked like with both of our stuff on Saturday....

WHAT. A. MESS.

I got really overwhelmed, but we made a LOT of progress Sunday (even if I did get a little ADD)! I took today off to lay poolside. Tomorrow after our professional day I hope we can get even more done :)

In other news, Friday was our last day of school with kids. I am going to miss them, but now my classroom will be in the 3rd grade hall so I will get to see my kiddos pretty often! HELLO SUMMER :)

Ocean Dioramas!

We have been learning about different animal habitats the last week or so. I had my students make a flip book for the land habitats we studied (forgot to photograph!). The front had a detailed illustration of the habitat. When you opened it, the top had a detailed description of the habitat, and the bottom included at least two animals found there. They turned out cute.

Now, I am not going to lie. I have almost zero motivation with it being the last week of school. I am also trying to get my room all packed up because I am moving out of the basement and into a room with windows next year (outa the "dungeon!"). But at the very last minute (like, as in, last night), something in me decided that we should do an ocean diorama with homemade play dough! We read and discussed fresh and salt water habitats, compared and contrasted, etc. Then we made our ocean dioramas. I will say it took a lot of time and A. LOT. OF. PATIENCE. But my kiddos really enjoyed it and were so proud and excited of their work.

Here are a couple of their creations. They made sponges, an octopus, a sting ray, an eel, and a starfish with the play dough. Some of their animals turned out rather large :)  I do know that when I do this again, I do not need to make or give them as much play dough as I did. Learning experience for me!

They molded the play dough into animals and put them on a sheet of cardstock first. We let them dry about 30 minutes or so, but they were not hardened yet. They painted with water colors on the soft-ish dough and it worked out just fine! **The play dough will harden over night** It was a fun project for the kids... made for a tired teacher though! :)

RECIPE:

I made 2 1/2 batches of  the following recipe for 23 kids. I think 1 1/2 or 2 batches would be PLENTY.

         -2 c. flour
         -1 c. salt
         -4 tsp. cream of tartar (VERY important ingredient!)
         -2 tbs. oil
         -2 c. water

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan. Put on stove at med. heat and stir. Play dough will begin to harden and stick to spoon. When dough is in a ball aroud spoon, remove from heat and let cool. Knead when cool enough to handle. Place in ziploc bag when cool. Do not use food coloring in dough.

Eric Carle & Butterflies!

First, I have to say that Teacher Appreciation Week has been fabulous! Our wonderful PTA has provided snacks, Sonic drinks, lunch, breakfast and other goodies for us! And my kiddos have showered me with sweeeeet cards, flowers, gifts and TWIX :) 

Okay, onto my unit :) Two weeks ago we did a unit on Eric Carle. He is one of my favorite authors!! I love the lessons and morals that he teaches, and I just looooove his artwork! :) We were able to integrate so many subject areas during this unit. Love it!

For reading, we read several of Eric's books and discussed the moral of each story. We recorded them in our "poof" books.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar a few times for fluency. I split the kids into three groups and they practiced and presented a reader's theater. So cute! The kids also sequenced the story on these cute caterpillars that I created.

In math we worked on story problems with the foods the caterpillar ate (forgot to photograph!!!) We also made Mrs. Carroll's Fractionpillars! They are so stinkin' cute!

In science we learned a lot about butterflies (and many other insects). We read a lot of nonfiction books about them. We created this cute life cycle illustration using pasta!

(I have NO idea why this is loading sideways! I have tried to fix it like 8 times and it won't! Sorry!)

For one of our writing projects, we read The Mixed Up Chameleon. I love the moral--just be yourself!!! I had the students write their own mixed up stories and illustrate their new, mixed up selves! They were adorable!!

**I did not include the illustrations because I used the students' photographs for part of their illustrations. If you do this activity, take a photo of each student, and then they can add animal characteristics to themselves! My students LOVED this activity!**

Eric Carle week is one of my faves, and I think my students really enjoyed it as well!!

I hope everyone survives their last few days of school! I am counting down!!! TEN DAYS :)