Spelling, OWLS, school buys, daily 5... CATCH UP TIME!

Wow, I have been a little MIA lately! I have been trying to soak up all the summer that I can before I start working on my (new!) classroom next week!

First off, I just have to say that I. LOVE. SAN. FRANCISCO. My best friend and I went for a few days a couple of weeks ago and I absolutely fell in love!! And it didn't hurt that the temps were between 50 and 60! Such a nice break from the 30 some odd days of triple digit heat we have been having here. Bleh.

ANYWAY. I have been in school mode more this summer than I think I have any other summer. I think that is because I have all of these woooonderful blogs to look at that have really inspired me :) Here is what I have been working on schoolwise lately!

Spelling

Yesterday my friend, Amy, and I totally re-did our spelling! We wanted something that was more effective than what we feel our reading series provides. We felt like some of our kids were just memorizing for the test and not really learning the skills. We used the poems I use in my class and this book as a guide/reference to come up with the chunks we will be focusing on.

Each week, we will have a focus poem and we will pick out words from the poem that have the 3-4 chunks that we will work on (in this book she uses anywhere from 3-5 chunks per week... more for 2nd graders, less for younger kids). We will do lots of word work, games and activities during the week to really learn those chunks. As for spelling tests, our plan for the first semester is to give our kiddos 10 words each week that they will study, then on test day, 5 more words that follow the chunks we have been working on (but they won't study these at home). This will let us see who can really apply what they have learned. We are really excited about the work we did and I really think our kids are going to have much greater gains in their spelling! Especially our at risk kiddos. Yay.

OWLS

I have been obsessing over owls lately. I have never really had a theme in my room.. just random stuff. I have been keeping with a lot of light blue and lime green stuff. But I found THE. CUTEST. owl stuff at Mardel's educator sale and just HAD to have it.

*I am using these nametags for my book bins*

Just TRY and tell me those are not the cutest little guys :) So since I am having an owl theme in my room I had to make a new go-home folder. I used to have a FROG folder (For Really Organized Guys & Gals). I have used that for the past few years, but now it just won't seem to fit. So I came up with the OWL folder: Organized & Wise Learners. I would upload my documents on here buuut I am still unsure how! I know the contents and rules are very similar to what many of you probably have in your take home folders :) I am really excited about incorporating the owls into my room!

Our Rockin' School

Our school theme is "Our Rockin' School." I know, I know. I decided to do an owl theme for my own classroom. But outside I always decorate for our theme. Mardel had some cute rockin' stuff, but I knew everyone would probably have it and I like to do something different :) I really wanted to find some records to decorate with but did not want to pay a fortune! And then I just happened to stumble upon a big box of 7 inches while garage sale-ing! I got about 75 of them for $3! I put various green and blue scrapbook paper on them and will write the kids' names on them to display for open house! I am really happy with how they turned out!

School Shopping

I have been doing lots and lots of school shopping throughout the summer. I was super excited when Target put out their dollar bin school stuff. And you gotta love Staples' penny sales! Our poor workout room/junk room has become my school storage room... it has all of my book bins and all of the goodies I have been purchasing all summer :) I know the hubs is just counting down the days until I can get that stuff outta here :)

Target dollar bins! WOO!

Soooo excited about my penny pencils, highlighters and notecards!

Random stuff for centers and math tubs.

Can ya believe summer is almost over?!?! Enjoy what little time you have left :)

DonorsChoose

Last year I was funded through DonorsChoose and Limeades for Learning. I was so fortunate to receive class sets of books and literacy units for Where the Wild Things Are and  Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. These were two books I really enjoyed growing up so I just HAD to have them in my classroom! The kids LOVED these units!

I just posted another project requesting different materials to include in my math rotations and literacy rotations. Please visit my teacher page at www.donorschoose.org/lynesl to make a donation :) You may have to click on Project Requests.

Oh and here's something I made yesterday!

I will use a dry erase marker to keep track of my To-Do list. I always seem to have a gazillion sticky notes stuck to my computer and desk and this is a cute way to keep track of what I need to do! I got the frame for super cheap at Ikea and just made the paper in word. And you can see I am slooowly working in an owl theme into my classroom :)

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 :)