Deck the Halls with a Jammin' Linky Party Playlist!

Good Morning!

Before I start my blog post today, I'd love to get your input on a couple things that I am teaching post-break!  Do you ever have those days when, despite all the cute ideas on Pinterest, your creative juices just aren't flowing?  I'm trying to think of a really great ways to teach my firsties about verb tenses AND character traits.  I haven't introduced these skills yet and I anticipate them being really tricky.  Do any of you fabulous bloggers have some brilliant ideas that have worked for you in the past?  Buehller?  Buehller?

Anyways, on to the rest of my blog post...during class meetings in my classroom, we share a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" (things that went great/we really enjoyed that day or things that made us feel sad/could need a little work that day).  Why not start with a "thumbs up/thumbs down" in today's blog post?

Here we go...

THUMBS DOWN to my long, blissful, sleeping-in filled Thanksgiving Break coming to an end after today.  I'm excited to see all my kiddos but not quite as excited for my alarm to go off at 5:30!

THUMBS UP to Cyber Monday/Tuesday sale at TpT !  Everything in my store will be 20% off PLUS you can get another 10% off from TpT!  This means that everything will be up to 28% off...can't wait!  Though I did cheat a little and buy some full-priced items over break (because, let's get real, it was absolutely necessary in that moment), I'm excited to make some great purchases in these upcoming days!  Love it!

I am taking part in this fun linky party hosted by Bunting, Books, and Bainbridge to share my holiday TpT "playlist" with you all!  First, you start with the playlist...

Then, you select the songs you'd like to share!  I chose to share 3 smashing hits...

First up, "Oh Management, Oh Management":

I picked my daily schedule cards for this one because they are one of my top-sellers!  Also because they are a lifesaver in my class!  "When's recess?" "Look at the schedule."  "Are we doing writing today?"  "I'm not sure...look at the schedule."  Oh, and my personal favorite, "Miss D'Andrea, how come you ALWAYS forget to put the schedule up?"  (Touching my heart for dramatic effect) "Oh my goodness, Miss D'Andrea just has SO many jobs so that we have lots of awesome learning to do at school.  Sometimes she forgets one small job like putting up the schedule.  Let me do that RIGHT now so that our day doesn't fall apart...!" Haha!

My second hot track on my playlist is "I Saw Mommy With a Science and Social Studies Resource":

First and foremost, how awesome is the title of that song?  Hilarious.  I decided to choose my newly updated "Camouflage Hunt Fun!" product for this one.  This is one of my favorite activities during my polar/arctic animals unit.  The kids love learning about camouflage!  

Lastly, the playlist ends with the ever-popular "Walking in a Math Wonderland"...

For this one, I chose my Double Digit Addition and Subtraction QR Code products!  One of them includes regrouping and the other one is without!  Fun, fun!

That's all for today, folks!  I hope you all enjoy your last day before it's back to the grind tomorrow!  

Late to the "Teacher Week" Party But Better Late Than Never!

PHEW!!  I survived and finished another first day in first grade today and it was a.....really.....long one.  All in all though it was fun to meet my new group of firsties and the day honestly went on off without a hitch!  

.....besides that one time before school when I left a trail of coffee down my dress....leg....and entire hallway.  But that seems to be a trend in my life so, hey, I'm not too surprised to have a stain on my clothes by 8am.  You live and you learn!  Or you don't learn.  And you keep spilling things.  Either way.

Anyways. I am finally linking up with Blog Hoppin' for Teacher Week!  I know, I know, I'm a little late to the party but I've been working non-stop!  All you amazing teacher bloggers blow my mind with your ability to teach at the hectic beginning of the year and still produce meaningful and inspiring blog posts.  I'm accepting any applications for teacher blogger mentors so please refrain from sending them all at once! :)

Today's Teacher Week topic is "Now Teach!" which seems only fitting with this being my first day back with the kids!  Quite honestly, I'm not entirely sure how I'm even mustering up the energy to craft this post.  I'm exhausted....and I'll probably go to bed sometime in the next hour or so and then cry a little (or a lot) when my alarm goes off tomorrow morning.  Same old, same old.

Anyways, I know I posted some classroom updates as I was setting up throughout the past couple weeks but I thought I'd post some finished product pictures that go along with today's topic of "Organizing for Instruction."

I think this picture of my library area is one of my most organized parts of my room.  I was never much of an "I'm crazy, OCD and obsessed with organizing" type of person until I got a classroom.  And here I am...being a crazy, OCD and obsessed with organizing type of person.  It's exhausting!  This year I hot glued these new library labels that I made onto my bins and I think they are going to be perfect!  In the past, I have taped the labels on with packing tape and it was MUCH more time consuming.

I fell victim to the amazing crate seat idea all over pinterest a couple years ago and they truly were one of my best classroom creations.  I don't have too much storage in my room and the amount of paper towels that comes flooding in with the kids and their supplies is....completely overwhelming.  I couldn't go through all of them even if I actively tried to use paper towels for everything.  Cue the crate seats!  These things have seriously saved my life (and my kids' lives because otherwise they would be forced to have paper towels in their backpacks, lockers, desks, for lunch, etc, etc...).

I posted this picture in my last blog post but I want to include it in this one too because I'm really happy with how I am storing my big books this year.  I stumbled upon the idea and just had to adapt it and use it for my own classroom.  

Another one of my organizational lifesavers was an idea sparked by my coworker and good friend.  This picture below shows some tables I bought from IKEA a few years back.  They usually house my student laptops, but the picture was taken before school started so the computers hadn't been whipped out quite yet!

So I started using these tables (which I absolutely love), but was constantly plagued with the headache of charger cords falling behind the tables and the kids crawling all over the ground trying to find them and ending up bumping their heads all while tangling up the cords.  Which naturally led to tears and trips to the nurse to get ice packs.  Need I say more?  Well, my coworker used these AWESOME wire holders from The Container Store.  See those little white things on the table?  Yep, keep looking.  Look closer.  Yeah, I know it's not the best picture but I don't have a close up one.  My chargers stay in place and the kids know where to put the laptops when they are finished.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like The Container Store carries the same ones anymore, but these look similar!  

So that's that!  I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my tips and tricks for organization now that teaching has picked up again!

I do have one question for all you bloggy people, though.  I really want to post some pictures of my first couple of days soon and I currently don't have parent permission to post photos.  I'm in the process of drafting a contract to send home with the kids in hopes of obtaining permission but I'm not entirely sure where to start.  Has anybody used a permission form/contract that they were successful with and, if so, what are your tips?  If you are able to help at all I would greatly appreciate it!  Just shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment here!  Thanks! :) 

Classroom Progress Day 3/4

Hey there!

I have been in my classroom almost non-stop the past couple of days, so I'm taking the day off today!  The countdown is officially at less than 2 weeks until the first day with the new kiddos!

Here are some pics of the progress I've made in my room!  If you already follow me on instagram at @happilyteaching, then you've already seen some of these!

Here goes...

This first picture is of my "Awesome Authors" wall, where we hang all of our published writing after each unit!  Pay no attention to the shelves to the right...I want to re-organize those!

Next up is a close up of my new chevron clothespins for my author's wall!  I just LOVE the way they turned out!  All I did was print off chevron paper and then cut it into strips to fit the clothespins.  I modge podged them on and then modged podged over them!  Perfect!  

Here's my math wall for the year!  Should be filled with lots of new Common Core-y things in no time! :)

The last picture I took in my class when I left yesterday was a picture of my word wall and my new "First Grade Rocks!" banner that I made and hung in the bare space on my wall!  

More pictures to come!

Monday Made-It/Classroom Update Day 2 and Happily Teaching Instagram!

So....a very LONG day two of setting up my classroom is over!  I felt productive and like I got some stuff done today (and not just walking around talking to my coworkers...though that also took up a big part of my day)!

Here are some pictures of the progress I have made in my class and that fit perfectly into 4th Grade Frolics' Monday Made-It linky party!

My big book holder needed a total rehab, didn't it?!  So, I stole a bunch of blogger's ideas out there and ordered these awesome shelf liners off of Amazon.  The aqua and white chevron print is PERFECT for my color scheme.  Do you love it as much as I do?!  I took the big books out of the holder and pushed it up against the wall.  I plan on using it for my phone and parent communication binder so that all my materials are right there and ready for parent phone calls!  Because who doesn't love parent phone calls, am I right?

And...since I had to fine a place for all those big books after I emptied my big book holder, I got a cheap big tub and stacked them all in there.  This actually might turn out to be an easier solution, as my kids can just flip through them and see all the covers.  This picture also shows the backs of some of my shelves that I finished today!  My shelves face outward and hold some supplies and materials and I hated despised how the backs of the shelves looked in my library.  Well....nothing a little wrapping paper and borders can't fix!  Love it!

And here's another picture of how I used that amazing shelf liner in my classroom.  This bookshelf houses some of my leveled books.  It was an ugly brown and so I took the shelf liner and lined the backs of the shelves.  I think I just love the way it turned out!  Now I just need to make/find some new cute level labels!

I also put up my green and blue daily schedule cards and my lunch count board today!  I'm trying something new this year and am going to have the kids move their name magnet from the "What's For Lunch?" pan to their lunch selection for the day.  I like the way they turned out but I can't figure out what to put in that awkward white space above.  I already have my calendar up...any thoughts about what could be put up there?

And last but not least....drumroll...I finally created a Happily Teaching Instagram account!!!  I've had a personal Instagram account for a while but am now finally creating one for my classroom!  Come follow me at @happilyteaching...yay!

How is your classroom set-up coming along?  I can't wait to check out everyone else's classrooms and continue posting with mine!

Fabulous Freebies!

Hi All!

I am excited to have stumbled upon the Fabulous Freebies on the Fifteenth linky party that Lucky to Be in First hosts!  I can't believe I've never seen this before.  What an awesome way to share freebies with other teachers and to snag some up myself. :)

This freebie is nothing too exciting but it worked really well with my first grade readers.  They thought it was so cool to do a "book report" after they finished reading a non-fiction book.  It also aligns well with all the new fun non-fiction text standards in common core, so I am excited to use it next year as well!  Just click on the picture to be linked to it...I hope you all can use it with your kiddos as well!  

I also just created all the materials for my "brighten up your word wall!" pack on TpT, so why not provide part of that as a freebie!?  I'm loving the whole set of brightly colored headings and words and how each level of words is on a different colored background, but I'm especially loving my new A-Z circle letters to match my room!  Grab these headers for free below!

You can check out the full word wall file complete with my bright colored and leveled words in my TpT Store by clicking on the picture below!  

Well, I hope that you guys can use my freebies and I'm excited to check out everyone else's products in the linky party!  My weekend plans are to watch the Blackhawks game tonight and go to the racetrack tomorrow for Father's Day!  Even though I'm not a huge hockey fan, I have to admit the spirit can get contagious living in a city with a team in the finals.  I mean, how cool is this?  I love this city!!

That's about all for now but I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and a very Happy Father's Day to all those dads out there!

My New Daily Schedule Cards

Hey everyone!

Well we have been super busy working on common core for next year and I'm not gonna lie...I'm a little nervous about how different everything is going to be!  Since it is kind of our kick-off year it will be interesting to see how the kids do not having had the same intensity and format of instruction in kindergarten.  But, I guess that's what pilot years are all about, right?  We have a couple more days before summer work is over so hopefully we can squeeze in tons of productivity these next two days.  Oh and then maybe I can soak up a little bit of sun during my days off because I sure need it!

In an effort to feel somewhat accomplished and not totally overwhelmed by all the changes next year, I wanted to check off one of the many things on my to-do list for the beginning of the year.  My first year teaching I made some daily schedule cards and they were definitely on their last days this year!  I decided to make some new ones to match my color scheme in my room.  My classroom matches my blog template (all bright green, bright blue, pink, and white) so these schedule cards will be perfect for my board!  They make it super easy to just quickly switch around everyday depending on what we will be doing and they work as an awesome reference for the kids throughout the day.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I LOVE hearing "when's lunch?" 1000 times before 9:00am, but having a schedule up just makes it a lot easier!  I've uploaded my new schedule cards to my TpT Store and you can get to them by clicking on the picture below!  

 

My next thing on the to-do list is to create all of my word wall words and letters in my bright colors for next year and to recreate my behavior chart!  Stay tuned!