Cafe, Focus Walls, and Zebra Print ...oh my!

My P.I.C. at school decked out her room in zebra this year. Adorable! I've been diligently slowly redoing my mini-focus wall to match her room for her. And I'm finally finished right in time to start our first story from the basal this week!
I think I like this one better than the one I made to use myself! Luckily I ran out of ink and did not finish printing it at school!
Scoop this up in TpT!

I also made these uh-maz-ing Harry Potter CAFE headers for another teammie at school. She's also decked out in animal print! These are also listed on TpT! If you're are interested, I have HP ones with a more Hogwarts bg too that I will list.

Feeling odd? Number line fun!

I am STILL trying to make some cutesy signs for my classroom! But I keep telling myself the walls can wait! The kids cannot!

I have a great little number line in my room that has odd numbers in red, blue in even.

I wanted to make a few little signs to hang with it but keeping others in mind, I revamped them to fit anyone’s number line! {note that the ones below say the numbers in red…blue…but the ones I am selling have 1,3,5,7,9 and 0,2,4,6,8 instead}

These are super glittery and cute! Grab some up on TpT!

We’ve been playing a game my teammies told me about all week. One kiddo stands at 100 (or however high you want), another kiddo at 0. A third has a secret number and calls on classmates to guess it. Then they say, “My number is less than {or greater than} …whatever the guess was. If it is less than-the kiddo at 100 moves to that guess. If it’s greater than, the kiddo at 0 moves…for example

*Is your number 56
*No, my number is greater than 56
so the kiddo at 0 moves to 56 and the class knows to guess something between 56 and 100…

it has been wonderful for greater than, less than practice and speaking in complete sentences! I called it Monster in the Middle because I could not remember what is was called! I was also the secret number (or the monster) for the first 2 times we played. They beg to play every day!

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Showin’ Some Love

First off, let me say that my entire summer was spent blogging…it has completely changed my thinking and decorating!

I want to thank Monica at the Schroeder Page for naming my blog in her Top 10! Yay! I also want to share my top…even though I am sure they’ve been nominated cause they certainly rock!

These 3 blogs changed me in many ways. I am always inspired by Cara…I really don’t know how she does it all. First Grade Parade was the first teaching blog I came upon. I buy everything the SOS Ladies put out there. It is so thorough and laid out so well. They are awesome. And Amanda is simply a doll and will help you in any way!

 

Favorite Blogs from my Grade Level

Lindsey seems so well-rounded and positive! And her blog is so clean! I aspire to design like this chic!

Amy shares everything-and for free!

Other Grade Levels

Jodi is an organization guru! I love her ideas!

Christie just cracks me up! I think we’d get along swimmingly!

Jena is so sweet and is an amazing blog designer! Maybe one day she’ll do mine!

Well, these are certainly not the only blogs I stalk. See my favs over --->

Our Week in Pictures

I wanted to share a few activities we did as get to know yous, intro to Daily 5 and Café strategies, etc. We also used lots of activities from Babbling Abby’s Super in Second Grade

and Lesson Plan SOS’s Back to School Bash {wonderful resource} I LOVE these girls! I am doing the kids of smarts next week and cannot wait!

Day one we covered lots of things about Mrs. Lamb and my many stories, but we also used Christina’s Back to School flippy to reflect on the day!

Here are a student-colored rules displayed over the from board. They are from Whole Brain Teaching. Read my post about how we started it last week here.

We also reviewed the rules with a great foldable from Amy over at Step into 2nd with Mrs. Lemons!

 

On Day 2 we read Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon {so sweet}. They LOVED it. I used this book for check for understanding, and ended up using back up and reread because I messed up a little felt they could handle 2 mini-lessons! haha!

After reading this we discussed how Molly Lou beat the bully with smarts and humor. She always kept her head up! I then read a poem shared by Amy Lemons from Scholastic. I typed up 4 on a page so we could make it our first poetry journal entry of the year. We also made sunflowers out of construction paper {they really resembled Black Eyed Susans…} and wrote all about ourselves on the petals

But what really got them was this! a Sunflower! Yep, that’s me with the seeds! It weighed over 6 pounds! This was a great lesson in schema-we live in a very rural area with lots of farms so we could see how the small stem {like Molly Lou} could really stand up to the petals and fruit.

 

We also launched Read to Self this week. I am truly not sure if they were ready-did I mention previously they are extremely talkative and lack self-control!? Well, our first 3 rounds over 2 days lasted a minute or so. But the second round on Day 2 {after I had introduced them to the online stopwatch on the big screen} we actually read for over 9 minutes. It made my heart smile…

For this past week {and next} I am still having them choose books from the baskets I fill at their tables every other morning. We haven’t had library orientation to check out books, and I won’t teach about my classroom library til this week {thanks to the wonderful lessons for the Lesson Plan SOS ladies}. They are actually sneaking books out of my baskets…hilarious! The caution tape it going up for this week though!

 

our I-chart and J reading to Wicket, our mini lop rabbit!

 

great job picking a spot boys!

And here are a few pictures form around the room. They are terrible. The lighting is less than perfect in our room for taking pics! There are still so many areas I would be ashamed to show! Eek!

behind the Guided Reading table-Reading Street leveled readers

Attendance board that will start after Day 10-right now teachers do not take attendance at our school. We do a daily head count for 10 days…Students will move their apple to the graphing question on the white board next to this

My nonfiction area of the library. I split the library into three areas this year to cut down on traffic Monday mornings when we go book shopping. Harriet the tarantula is keeping watch. Though I just found out it’s a boy---maybe Aragog, maybe?

My leveled books still waiting for their bins from IKEA…free shelf someone threw out spray-painted and backed with scrapbook paper. And good ole Einstein watching over us

Our Spotlighted book-signage courtesy of Amanda from One Extra Degree, Target lamp, and Dollar Tree placemat!

Our Word Collector still waiting for it’s border that on backorder…and the sign I haven’t printed! But we did add this word on Friday…hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia! I have a little darling obsessed with this word! I think it’s from Wizards of Waverly Place. Guess what it means..click the link to find out!

Long time, No post, and teaching the whole brain

So I failed to realize remember how tired I am the first weeks of school. I am so pumped about setting up my classrooms, dreams of fresh starts each year. Nothing’s better! Until I get a brand new batch of kiddos and I am slapped back into reality that they are really 1st graders and I am still a teacher with high expectations about behavior and independence! I love my kiddos already, but I am pretty sure I have never had kids that talked this much!
This bring me to my post topic…Whole Brain Teaching! I discovered WBT’s site when our reading coach recommended Super Speed 1000 and 100 for fluency. Last year I began really looking through the site and watching the videos. My 2 year old and I were both hooked {we spent a few late nights watching You Tube! It was a huge DUH! moment! I began using the expectations in late March and my class and I were loving it. So upbeat, quick-paced, loud…, just like my teaching style! I knew I would start with it this year, but it seems I am having to move quickly through the levels with this bunch.

Here’s what we’ve done
Day 1: Began using Class-Yes {the best thing ever!}
Day 2-3: began learning the rules {check them out here}
Day 4: Began using my flip cards for behavior {I just did not like the practice cards and haven't had time to remake them, so we are using green, yellow, orange, and red NEON index cards}
Day 5: Intro to scoreboard
Day 6 {tomorrow}: first day using scoreboard, cards, and rules {if I’d used scoreboard from Day 1-I would have clobbered them!}
Hopefully we will not be moving to LEVEL 3-No Guff…but that is a bit up in the air in this point
Do you use WBT strategies? The goodies are all free-you just have to register. The Crazy Reading Professor is probably the best reading lessons I did all last year with my 2nd graders!
Leave me a comment and let me know what works for you! fyi-I tried the clip chart and could not remember to “clip up” or where they ended the day-so it just was not effective for me.