What's Been Going On?

Oh my word the first 13 days have gone by so fast.  Now that Back To School Night is over for me and my two daughters' schools, I can take a breath and blog a bit.  Last week was super busy.

We have been working diligently on following directions and listening with our whole bodies.  It's been slow going this year I must say, but we are getting there. 

We started learning how to work in centers.  I am introducing a new center each day and the whole class practices the activity.  Here we are doing some spelling center activities.

Paint my words

Disco Spelling

Write my words three ways

 

We also started to get busy in the Working With Words center.

 

CVC  and CVCC puzzles

beginning sound review

 making words

 

beginning sound review

 

After reading the awesome Pete The Cat books, we learned about the art center.  FUN!!!!

 

Hopefully this week we can begin centers for real and start meeting at the guided reading table.  It's so hard to keep things slow and steady when the kids are so full of excitement.

Stay tuned  adn check back soon for the apple experiences we will take part in this week!







Back To School Night

Tomorrow night is Back To School Night and I am excited to meet all the parents even though I dread speaking in front of a group of adults.  We have been super busy getting to know each other and making our classroom look welcoming for everyone. 

Today we read  and we talked about being Peacemakers.  We passed around a big red paper heart and every time one of the characters in the story hurt Chrysanthemum's feelings, we crumbled the heart a little.  When the story was over we tried to smooth away the wrinkles, but quickly discovered it couldn't be done. That's what happens when we hurt people's feelings too.  We can say we are sorry, but the hurt is already done. 

The children were really in tune with the whole idea more than I expected them to be.  I put band-aids on the heart and told the kids if they wanted to be a Peacemaker and try their best to make their friends feel good, they should sign a band-aid.

I love the beginning of the year because we can do so many character building lessons with so many great author's books.  Kevin Henkes books are all super fun for character lessons. 

That's all for now. 

Welcome Back to School

It's time to say good-bye to the pool and the beach and hello to room 306.  I can't wait to see you all on Thursday. I hope you got your welcome letter and your secret letter that you are NOT supposed to open until Wednesday night.   Ha! We will see who really waited. 

I have been working on our room and I think it is coming together really well.  Our theme this year is Wild About.....  We are wild about everything as you will see in upcoming activities and photos.   The color theme is pink and blue.

Check out our room so far......except disregard the clutter of papers you still see on tabletops because those are still in transit to the copy machine.

This makes me most happy over all....fresh organized paper in the closet. Let's see how long it can stay that way.

Our calendar board with our Everyday Math concepts.

The zebra print numbers I bought from Sherri Peterson fit right in to the Wild theme we have going this year.  Below is the listening table with my junk on it that is in the process of being set up.  Can you see the zebra print tape I added to the table's edge?

 

The back of the room is dedicated to writing anchor boards.  On the left is the set I got from Lori Rosenberg and I love it.  Teachers, go check it out on TPT. I was going to make it on my own after I saw it on Pinterest, but then Lori made one so colorful and cute, so of course I got it from her.

 

My hubby is handy with contact paper.  A talent I never knew he had. Go figure. 

 

This is the reading table that I decided to use a table drape from the party store on instead of fabric.  I thought the chairs would slide better under the table this way.  I used material to cover the shelves behind this table that hide my collection of books.  The JUMBO book covers on the backs of the chairs are another Pinterest idea I found.  I will fill them with materials we are using for Guided Reading as the year goes along.  AGAIN, I apologize for the paper clutter on top of the table!

View of the back of the room.  What Good Readers Do anchor charts will fill the far right board after I teach them.  Far left is computer center.  In the center is the zebra paper lantern I got at the party store that has the table number hanging from it.

 

And the final photo for today is an example of my duck taping skills.  I jazzed up my table and cart edges with animal prints. 

 

Check back tomorrow for more photos.