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What Will You Do?

With the new school year beginning for most I thought I might collect some ideas from you to share with new teachers.  With this new month starting, I'd like to start a "What Will You Do?" series that gives you the opportunity to share what you are going to try to do with your students that is something NEW and therefore maybe a little scary for you.

For example, are you starting a new behavior plan, a new series, a new way of teaching?  I'd love for you to share what you're doing and how it goes.  My hopes is that through your reflection new teachers can be helped as well as some of us who are new to our position.

What will I do?  This month I am using Interactive Journals with my social studies students, and I'm hoping they use these as their study guides.  I'll see how that works when they take their first test.

My first INTERACTIVE JOURNAL

 I'm excited about my first interactive journal.  I have worked hard to create a 7 week unit that centers around animals (The Amazing Animal World-2nd module in the CC first grade model) and now I'm adding interactive journals to those lessons.  These are just a few of the pages that are available.  I included reflective pages and can't wait to hear how they work!

New Bulletin Board Idea!!!

I'm excited about my new bulletin board idea!!!  I'd love to know what you think.  I'm using this to showcase great work from my students.  The movie theme of it lends itself to the title "Feature Presentation."

Happy Birthday to My Students!!

My goal was to have ALL of my students' birthday card and gift done the first week of school and I made it!
This was about $1.00 a student.

I taped a KRAZY STRAW and KOOL AID packet to the back.

I wrote their name on the front with the date of their birthday for the upcoming year.  It is my plan to tell them to have  a "Krazy Kool" birthday.

There they are all snug as a bug in my birthday bags!

Open House

We had Open House last Thursday, and I wanted to share some pics from it.

Here's my "giving tree" in which I beg for donations of supplies.  

Quick poem I wrote in attempt to be cute and get more donations. 

I had a separate sign in spot for each grade.

I put this out so that parents could let me know what they hope for their child to accomplish this year.

This is just a little something I had out for the students who came to open house.  They loved it.

Click on the picture above and head over to my TpT store for a product to help you do this for your open house.  I have them available for K-6.

New Classroom

   

Making Lemonade!

A couple weeks ago (2 days before staff was to report back) I was told that I would no longer be teaching 1st grade, no longer be on the same campus, and would have to move 15 years of my things in 1 day.

I cried, and then cried some more, and then I cried some more.  Oh, and did I mention that I found this out while I was dropping my daughter off at college.

If you've kept up with my blog at all you have seen that I renovated my classroom.  I was about 5 or 6  hours from having it "kid ready" when I was told to move.  

When I got to my new room it was NOT pretty like the room I had just renovated.   There were rust stains on the wall and drawings of male parts.  

I enlisted the help of my mom and we painted.  It took me 3 days total, but I got it painted.  I've worked nonstop for 2 weeks while going to in-service during the day.

I thought I'd share some pics of my new room and invite you all for a glass of lemonade.

The books were just on the shelf in ABC order.  I bought some bins at The Dollar Tree and have labels to label the bins by author or subject.

Here are my birthday bags.  My plan is to have ALL my students' (around 80) birthday cards in the bags by the end of the first week.

My class rules.  Nothing special I just thought the colors were so pretty together.  :)

This area will be for intervention time for students to work in pairs on things they need help with.  I plan to use the container in the corner to hold things that will help them.

 Just some views of my room.

I made the chart you see below before I got moved and wasn't sure what I would use it for, but yesterday I figured it out.  I'll get a pic of it and update.  

Tomorrow is the first day of school for me, and I no longer teach 1st grade.  I am a history teacher for grades 5-8.  I can do this, but not without a HUGE glass of lemonade.  

Back-to-School SALE

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BACK TO SCHOOL!

FLASH FREEBIE in honor of SHARK WEEK

Your students are going to love this shark game!  This game is FREE to the first 20 downloads!

click the picture below to take a look...if you dare to go in the water 

BACK TO SCHOOL GIVEAWAY

So many of you are heading back to your classroom to plan for the new year.  I want to be part of that and help you at the same time.  

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7 things to do with a shower curtain or tablecloth!

As summer winds down we all begin to head back to our classrooms to prepare for our wonderful little kiddos.  As summer winds down a lot of stores are trying to get rid of summer items so they put them on SALE!!!  Woo Hoo for teachers.  Well, I went to our local Dollar General and bought 3 great on sale products. I found 2 tablecloths and a beautiful shower curtain just waiting for me to snatch them up.  I also found solid color table cloths on sale and snatched them as well.  I found a lot of uses for these items that I wouldn't have thought when I first purchased these beauties so I wanted to share.

If you have a use I'd love for you to let us all in on a great secret by leaving your idea in the reply section. Thanks!

This was all done for less than $20!!!!!

1.  Cover something that is UGLY!

Before the shower curtain.  Yuck!

After!  And I can use another smaller section of another shower curtain or table cloth next to it to give the illusion of two bulletin boards.

2.  Make cushions!

I used the 2 tablecloths I found on SALE to create the cushions for my crate seats.  I love this because it was cheap and you can clean them so much easier than fabric.

3.  Make a chart!

I used the beautiful shower curtain I found to make a back for this pocket chart that I'm going to use for smaller version of anchor charts.  My walls can't hold all those larger ones so once my students have seen the larger anchor charts for a while I'll put a smaller version inside the ziploc bags for them to refer to.

4.  Dress up an old bin!

That is one of the tablecloths.  I had a poster board template that fit the front of the bin.  I wrapped it up in the tablecloth, gave it a little tape to hold it in place, and presto changeo there you have it.

The other tablecloth worked great for my smaller drawers too!  

5.  Dress up containers!

That's a Pringles can covered in a tablecloth and filled with my rulers.

6.  Dress up your center table!

 Simply use the tablecloth as intended to dress up your center.  Not sure how long it will last but thankfully I only gave 75 cents for it.  :)

7.  Use for bulletin board paper!

That is a purple tablecloth that I picked up for 50 cents, and it won't fade as fast as paper.

These bulletin boards were done with black a tablecloth that I picked up for a dollar.

Money Saving Monday

As we begin our trip back to school I thought we should give some ideas for saving money in the classroom.  This is a post that I am super excited about because I really need some great ideas so let's hear 'em everyone!

My tip:  A lot of people are making the milk crate seats.  Instead of expensive cute fabric I spent $2 and got a big table cloth that I will use.  You can't get a yard of fabric for that!

Kind of Proud!

I worked on this new product and finally posted it at 3 a.m. the other morning.  I was really excited to see it finished and wanted to share it with you all.   I'd love to hear your opinion, 
and
if you are one of the first 5 people to email me about this product, I'll email it to you for FREE as a thank you!!  

Who doesn't like FREE???

email me at mamapearson76@gmail

for your FREE copy

100+ Follower Giveaway!!!

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Thank you to Tiny Toes and Twinkle Toes for my beautiful picture!

I love my Teachers Pay Teachers and "Owl About Us" followers!!!  I'm having a giveaway to celebrate the 100th follower of my TpT store.  

There will be 5 winners!!!

There are 5 categories of prizes...

 5 products for  k-2 

5 products for 3-5

5 products for 6-12

5 products for clip art

5 products for back to school

If you aren't a follower of my TpT store yet head on over there and hit that wonderful little red "Follow Me" button so you can be a part of EVERY giveaway that I hold.

I LOVE MY FOLLOWERS!!!

"Time Saver" Tuesday

I thought it might be nice to do a post to help people with a very precious thing...time!  I hope this will go nicely with my post about advice to new teachers.  

So, here goes...please give your best tip or two about saving time in the classroom or preparing for your students.

I keep 5 file folders on my desk filled with EVERYTHING I will need for the week.  Each folder is labeled with a different day of the week.  This is a HUGE help if I have to be gone without notice.  

At the beginning of the year I put my first graders in a "line order" and it saves a lot of time because there is NO arguing about who gets to stand where.  I, of course, have a line leader.  I change it a little throughout the year, but I leave it alone for the most part.  It's very helpful for subs too.

What Every Teacher Needs!!

As I was working in my classroom today trying to organize things I realized how much I had that I wish I'd known about when I began teaching 15 years ago.  So, in an effort to try to help out any new teacher some help I thought I'd post this and offer advice from teachers to teachers.  Maybe there will be something that teachers who have been at it a while can use too.  :) 

Please look over the ideas and add your own advice.  Please don't put products that you are trying to sell.  You can leave a signature so others can hop to your blog, but please do not use this blog post as a commercial for your products.  

Thanks!

A must have for your classroom is the always versatile plastic bag.  I keep about 20 of these on hand.  Lower elementary teachers never know when an accident may occur.  There also great for carrying things home when a backpack has been forgotten.  I didn't think of this until I'd been teaching a couple of years, but they're great to have stashed somewhere.

Ibuprofen, Tylenol, or your favorite headache reliever.  You never know when a pounding headache will attack.  

A set of screwdrivers.  I keep a flathead and phillips in my desk drawer.  I couldn't tell you how often I've used them.  

Ziploc bags!!!  Loose teeth go into the smaller ones and I've found about a million uses for the gallon sized bags.  Buy several boxes and you WILL use them. 

I can't wait to read what else is what every teacher needs!!!

Complete renovation of my classroom?!?

Thanks to my new found addiction to Pinterest I am going to attempt to renovate my poor classroom.  I will work on it over the summer and update my blog as I go.  I hope you will take the ride with me and allow me to pass down tips on "what not to do" or "wow, why didn't I do that first" as I begin this adventure.  I will have A LOT of before and after pictures, and I hope that I can spark your imagination as some of you have sparked mine.

New seats for my reading table:

I am going to make covers for milk crates as I've seen on Pinterest.  I'm having trouble finding crates as I've only been able to get 1 so far, but I found the best idea for covering them.  Rather than spending $4 or $5 a yard for cute fabric I spent $4 each and got table cloths that I LOVE and I'm going to use them for covers.  I like that they have similar covers but will be different too.  I'm not one to have EVERYTHING match.  It's great if you do, but I like a little mixing it up.

Stay tuned...



Ever start a project and then realize that you opened a HUGE can of worms???

I asked if I could pull the paneling off of my classroom wall.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Almost 40 years ago when my school was built they put paneling over sheet rock.  And to add to the fun it was just tacked down...TONS and TONS of glue.

So, I pulled it down, ripped the sheet rock, and found a wet wall.

 I make a phone call and our head of maintenance shows up.  They are now going to hire someone to come in and fix the issues.  Catch?  Do I hear a catch?  I have to move EVERYTHING out of my room because he will be ready in 2 days.  I realize a lot of teachers have to move things from their rooms, but we're usually allowed to leave our bookshelves along the wall and just pile stuff up.  I can't do that because they are going to fix the walls and make a great mess while doing it.

Here's a little of the mess before I started working.  I had already moved the book bins off the shelf so I could pull the paneling off the wall.  That was the 2nd time I'd moved them.  :)

After 7 hours of moving EACH item out.

Stay tuned...

Today I got to go into my room (the floors finally dried from the wax) and put all my stuff back.  Next, I get to go through ALL of this stuff and put it where it actually belongs.  

This is the 3rd time I've moved this stuff.

My student computers will go back here eventually.

I found out yesterday that I WILL be getting a new water fountain soon.  That one is 30+ years old.  I also painted this wall a sage green as a focus wall.  The trim hasn't been put back yet, but I like it. 

What do you think?

This will be my reading area soon.  Wait until you see what I have planned!!

This is the place on my newly painted wall that I get to retouch because when they were putting my computer counter top back the wall was a casualty.

I'm not sure if you can tell but the wall that has my board is two shades darker than the rest of the room.  I read studies that said doing that would help ADHD/ADD students focus.

I got in there again today and hung some of my bulletin board (aka ceiling tiles) and I'm beginning to get excited about the progress.