Must-Haves Monday

 Well, it's that time again! Time to link up over at Blog Hoppin' for Teacher Week. I got so many good ideas from this link-up last year so I'm really excited to see all the great stuff!

Today, we're supposed to post about our teacher must-haves! So, here are mine:

1. Crayola Markers



If you like making anchor charts as much as I do, Crayola Markers are a MUST. And, I'm a snob. I'll only use Crayola. I was desperate one day and used some Roseart markers and I almost cried in sadness. It's just not the same. I used to use the fat Sharpie markers but they soaked through the pad of paper and that's no fun.



I even let the kiddos use them sometimes!

2. My Elmo

I seriously don't even know what I did without this thing! I guess I used an overhead projector. Luckily, I got an ELMO about half-way through my first year of teaching so I didn't have to go without one for too long :) It's so useful to have a way to project the worksheets and stuff my kids are doing onto a screen so I can show them directions and examples. I'll say 100% the quality of my kids' work is better when I show them how to do it on the ELMO first.

3. A Big Ol' Teacher Bag



I absolutely have to have a teacher bag. And, the bigger the better! I ordered this one from Ballard Designs this summer. It was $25 and the monogram was free! Shipping was free, too! It's HUGE! I wanted it to say Ms. Ridings, but it was too many letters. So, Lindsay had to work. I've gone through several teacher bags and really any big bag will work. It's just great to have a bag that contains all your grading materials (read: CRAYOLA MARKERS!) and that you can throw all your stuff in to take home.

4. Lots and Lots of Containers and Bins


To say that I have a lot of storage bins in my classroom would be a gross understatement. I realized moving classrooms this year just how bad the obsession has gotten. I have a TON! I'm pretty much obsessed with organization in my classroom and I need for everything to have a container. Otherwise, your room gets junky and looks cluttered. I have bins from a lot of different places. My favorites come from the Dollar Tree and Big Lots. Target has good storage bins, too.

5. Plastic Drawers


I currently have 4 of these babies in my classroom. They are an absolute must for organizing papers. One contains writing paper and computer paper so that I can grab it quickly when I need it. Another one holds all my scrapbook paper. I bought one this summer to hold all of my students' pencils and erasers. My big one has 6 drawers. I keep it on the counter and use it to store worksheets, homework, etc. It's labeled by subject so I can quickly find what I need. Oh, and I just remembered I have another one on the file cabinet by the door that holds labels, pens, paper clips and all that stuff. Really, these are just the best for storage.

6. Clothes Pins

I use clothes pins for everything in my classroom! Here are some ways I use them:


In our classroom library, the kids use their clips to mark which bin their book came from. That way, they know where it goes back.


We store them on ribbons that are hot-glued to the wall.


I use them to hang up student work on bulletin boards.


I use them for center management.


I use them for behavior management.


That's a horrible picture, but I also use them to group kids for guided reading.

7. Pinterest



This doesn't really need an explanation. I use Pinterest DAILY for coming up with ideas and planning lessons. It used to be pretty exhausting to search blogs and googles for ideas. Now, it's all in one place and easy to access. It's changed my teaching so much - in a good way!

8. My iPod and Docking Station


I play quiet music all day, every day in my classroom. It's soothing and calming and I think it's good for your brain. My playlist is quite varied! It includes some classical music, some Disney tunes without the words, some slow pop music without the words, IQ music and the Harry Potter song! I've literally had the same playlist for the last 4 years. You'd think it would drive me nuts after all that time, but it doesn't! I also have a fun playlist that I play at times when we're having fun. It's just some Disney songs and some clean music that's appropriate for kids.

9. Lamps




This picture shows two of the SEVEN lamps currently in my classroom. I have to have lots of lamps. They make a classroom more inviting. Florescent lighting is not good and lamps just give the room a more homey feel. Plus, I've discovered that turning some of the overhead lighting really helps with the noise level and calm level. As the years have gone by, I've done more and more teaching with the overhead lights off. If you have a lot of lamps, it is still plenty bright enough to see and work! I know it sounds weird, but the kids love it and I do, too.

10. My Laptop


I know it's kind of a given, but I use my laptop so much! I kind of love to make graphic organizers and activities for my kiddos on my laptop. I'd be devastated if it crashed and I lost all the things I've made on it. I really need to back it up with a flash drive. I've currently been downloading a bunch of new fonts so that my worksheets will be extra cute. Here are some things I've created on my laptop:


Me on the Map flow map


Character Books for the Wizard of Oz unit


Graphic Organizer


Writing Webs



Okay, I think that's enough examples. I kind of got distracted going back and looking at past blog posts I hadn't seen in a while. I forgot some of the stuff we did last year! Except for the first one, all those examples were from first grade last year. I'm excited to use my laptop to make some new sheets for my third graders!

Thanks for reading my teaching must-haves. If it's your first time reading my blog, feel free to look around!

My Neurotic Little Puppy

I know, I know. That's not a very nice thing to say about your dog.

But, it's honestly true.

Finley is nuts.

Nuts, but adorable. Right?

She has so many weird little quirks and funny things that she does and I wanted to write them down on here so I'll remember them. She's hilarious and  always keeps us laughing :)

1. Before she will eat, she runs up to her food and kind of grabs at it. But she won't get any in her mouth. Then, she runs away and lays down. She goes back and forth and does this about 20 times before she eats. I have NO IDEA why... but, it's the funniest thing I've ever seen.

One of my favorite pics :)

2.It's even funnier when she's in her crate because she has nowhere to run! So, she just takes her head and dips it into her bed really fast. I can't even describe it. I've tried to videotape it... but, she stops if she sees me watching. I'm telling you... she's a weirdo :)

I found this picture yesterday on my camera from the first day I brought her home. She weighed a pound and a half!

3. When she finally does decide to eat it, she quickly grabs a mouthful and then runs away. She drops the mouthful on the ground and then eats one piece at a time. I think this is fairly normal... but, it still makes me laugh.

Finley and Jackson. He goes to my school and he and his big sisters watch Finley for me sometimes :)

4. I've been giving her these little puppy bones that are lamb and apple flavored. They're especially made for puppies and are soft on their tummies and teeth. She LOVES them! But, she won't just eat it. She tries to bury it first! I guess it's just a dog instinct. We'll be on my bed and she'll have the bone hanging out of her mouth and she will dig like her life depends on it. When she's made a little tunnel out of the blankets, she'll leave her bone there. Then, a few minutes later, she'll go get it and eat it. So funny.

Livin' the life...

5. She hates thresholds. She will literally stop at the point in the room where it goes from carpet to hardwood. She doesn't like hardwood floors because her feet slide. So, she'll just sit at the threshold and whine. She's gotten better with this the last few weeks. But, she WILL NOT touch my parents' marble hearth on their fireplace.

I was thinking she was getting so big! Then, I took this picture of her yesterday and changed my mind :) She weighs 4 pounds right now.

6. If I set her down somewhere unfamiliar, she will just lay there with all four legs spread eagle and not move a muscle. I took her into the powder room one time when I needed to run upstairs for a few minutes and was not able to watch her. When I came back to get her about 5 minutes later, she was in the exact same position just looking up at me like "How DARE you?"

Looking out of her travel crate....

7. She gets the zoomies bad! You know what the zoomies are, right? When puppies just kind of go crazy for no apparent reason and start running around? Well, she does this daily. She'll start off playing and then she'll just work herself up and then she starts sprinting around the room in circles making noises that I can only assume she learned from Cujo himself. It's hysterical.

Sweet little profile

8. She HATES ice. But, she LOVES ice. One day, I was working in the kitchen and I gave her an ice cube to play with. She went ballistic. She would run up to it and touch her nose to it. Then, she'd run away making the pig noise (see number 9). Then, she'd run back it and touch it and run away again. On and on and on. She eventually got it in her mouth and carried it into another room and dropped it on the floor in there. Then, she proceeded to continue the game for another 15 minutes. I took it away from her once it was small enough for her to possibly choke. But, it was quality entertainment for a good long time! (Mostly for me.)

Snoozing....

9. She sounds like a pig sometimes. When she's playing, especially anything aggressive, she'll make this deep grunting noise that sounds just like a pig.

Another oldie, but goodie :)

10. Her two favorite toys are a hanger and  a water bottle. I'm not even kidding:

See, I told you!

You may be thinking that she's a beast after all the things I just told you, but she's totally not! She was pretty much completely potty-trained after about 4 days. She has, to this day, never had an accident in her crate. She is sweet as the day is long and loves to cuddle. Right now, she's doing this:

and, I'm a happy girl :)

She's my buddy and I pretty much adore her.

Even though she's totally nuts.

The honeymoon is over!

If you teach at my school, you know who that quote belongs to! If you don't, you can read all about her right here. Love you, Sexy Flexy :)

Anywaysssss....

Yes. The honeymoon is officially over. The room no longer is sparkling clean. It has that worn-in look... you know what I mean. The little darlings who didn't say a word last week are getting more comfortable and that means MORE TALKING! If you had asked me last week, I would have told you that moving to third grade was the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't think I've ever experienced such a easy first few weeks. And, that's still true. I love, love, love my kiddos. They are awesome and very well behaved. It's just that... the honeymoon is over. I'm realizing what a big change it is to move from first grade to third grade. I'm realizing how much more work it will be. I've been struggling with feeling confident in what I'm doing. But, it's just because it's all new. I know that. And, it really helps that my team is AWESOME!

So, want to see what we've been up to in third grade?

Disclaimer: I will STRAIGHT UP tell you right now that I really have no clue what I'm doing in third grade. I felt reasonably confident that the first grade stuff I posted about last year was good stuff because I had 5 years of experience behind me. I seriously thought about just stopping posting about school stuff for a while until I feel better about what I'm doing. But, you know what? I like to post about my classroom. I love to go back and look at past posts and read about school stuff. I'm not posting this for everybody else... I'm doing it because I like to. So, if you don't want to read about our misadventures in third grade... feel free to skip this post and any others :)

Okay...

Let's start with Me on the Map!

 

It's such a great book for introducing the kids to their place in the world.

This was a neat activity to do the first week of school. I thought it was a great way to start our map unit and it was also great for Open House! The parents loved seeing their little cuties holding up the world :)

There are a lot of really cute Me on the Map ideas out there. We just tried to make one that didn't take up all of our construction paper. I hoard that stuff, I admit it.

Most of them did such a good job! Plus, just sayin... it took them forever and a day to finish them. And, we all know that's a good thing when you have to do Running Records the first week of school.

Before we actually made them, we filled out these little flow maps. They were really helpful in making sure every body's information was accurate.

In math, we've been all about some making numbers. We've focused on place value, adding place value and making numbers different ways.

Not. That. Exciting.

We have been doing a lot of work in our math journals. Can we all just take a moment to notice that this little girl filled out an entire PAGE to answer a word problem?

I especially love this little gem: " Now you're wondering, where did I get 400?" Ha!

Reading has been lots of fun! We've been focusing on character traits. We read  A Bad Case of Stripes on Tuesday and we filled out a bubble map with some character traits. But, the kids had to provide text evidence for the traits. The kids had so much fun trying to prove how they knew she had the traits. They provided quotes and actions.

FYI: The kids wrote some of those. I know how to spell stripes. Promise :)

 

Ohhh, and this is an awesome book to read at the beginning of the year because it's great for talking about being yourself. But, you know that....

My amazing teammate Kate made a graphic organizer to help the kids provide evidence for the traits that they claimed the characters had. So, we read Strega Nona and the kids told me allllll about her. We came up with the traits together and they had to prove them to me.

Isn't it just amazing that third graders can write? HOLY COW.

Then, the next day, the kids had to read a story with a partner and fill in their own! I'm not gonna lie... some of these were great and some were so not great.

The only reason I'm showing this one is because it made me laugh. Is readful a character trait? Is dancey? I'm just glad they were using their amagination :)

Today, the kids filled out a graphic organizer about Stephanie from Stephanie's Ponytail.

It was really good for character traits! And, it was also perfect for the beginning of the year because it's all about being yourself!

I found this graphic organizer on Pinterest. I LOVE it!

The one thing that kind of worried me? 3 kids said Stephanie had black skin. Ummm, do what? They actually wrote the words. I can prove it...

1.

2.

3.

So, yeah, I guess we may be going back over character appearance next week :)

We made a rubric today for their writing. I really let them make the decisions. I'm pretty sure we'll have to change it once they realize how hard it is to write 11 sentences that are PERFECT! But, it's important to aim high, right?

My biggest after-school project this week was setting up the class library after the Great Chapter Book Purhcase of 2012 :) I worked my tail off setting this up.

I labeled all the bins.

Here's the other side...

 When they get a book, they attach their clip to the bucket so they know where it goes back.

It's a good system so far. Hopefully, I won't have to mess with it any more.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering...

this would be my new teacher bag... FULL of papers to grade and go through.

Jealous?

Yeah, didn't think so.

Weekend in Gleason

My mom, Finley and I went to my grandmother's in Gleason this weekend. It's always fun to get to go see her and spend time there. There's not a lot to do there... so, we spend a lot of time just lounging around, watching tv and now playing with the puppy :)

We did venture out on Saturday to a couple of flea markets. I hit the JACKPOT! I've been looking for cheap chapter books for my classroom library. This was pretty much a necessity since I moved from first grade to third. I bought 83 books and the grand total was... $35! Not bad at all! They were good books, too. I got some Harry Potter, Judy Moody, Junie B. Jones, Babysitter's Little Sister, Cam Jansen, Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. Plus, a ton of "no-name" books that the kids will love, too. It was all very exciting. I'm working on making some labels for the library and organizing them and then I'll show you... along with some other stuff about school. Maybe later this week :)

Books, books and more books.

Miss Finley was a pretty funny puppy this weekend so I took a few pictures of her.

This is her "Maybe if I make this sweet face, you'll get me out of my crate" face. It doesn't always work, but this day it did. So she spent the whole ride to West Tennessee snoozing in my lap. And, I didn't mind one little bit :)

When we got there, we spent basically the whole time on the porch. Because it was nice outside and because it was not nice inside. You see, my grandmother keeps the air set at about 89 degrees. I keep my air on 70. So, I'm usually basically miserable at her house. It's so hot I can't breathe. My aunt and I took turns cutting the air down a little at a time. I think when we left we had gotten it down to about 75 which is much better  than 89!!

A neighbor's cat came up to the door and we had a little stare-down. It may or may not have lasted about five minutes.

But, Finley finally started barking and the cat took off! Finley was feeling pretty proud of herself after that :)

But, she kept her eyes on the door the rest of the night.

On the way home this afternoon, Finley didn't even make her "get me out" face. She just layed down and slept the whole way. And, now she's laying on my bed asleep again... I guess we wore her out!

She's going to the groomer for the first time next Saturday. I realized this weekend that she's starting to look a little rough! Ha. Her hair's basically out of control. She looks like a mad scientist.

All in all, we had a great weekend.

It was nice to get away for a few days.

Teacher's Fashion Linky Party

So, there's a Teacher's Fashion linky party over at From Blood to Books. It's all about what teacher's wear! Sounds fun, so I'm joining in :)

1. What's your favorite store to get your "teacher fashion?"

I really shop at a lot of places. But, I'm a simple girl so the majority of my clothes come from Target and Old Navy. I also shop alot at Loft, Gap and Francesca's. I usually steer clear of the big department stores because I never know which department to find good stuff in! I'm still drawn to the Juniors section... and yet it's all too junior-y. But, in my mind, a lot of the other clothes seem too "mom-ish." It's quite the dilemma.

Seriously about to order this from oldnavy.com!

2. What are some of your favorite accessories?

Right now, I'm into bangle bracelets. I like to mix and match them. I've bought several different kinds of colorful beaded hoop earrings in the last few weeks. And, I always adore a good long necklace. Honestly, though, I have a ton of jewelry that I just don't wear. For some reason, when I put it on, it seems too much. So I usually end up taking most of it off. I guess I like one good piece instead of a lot of little pieces. Ohhh, and for some reason, I'm all about a side ponytail.

Love these bangles.

And, love this necklace from Anthropologie.

3. What kind of shoes do you teach in?

Um, cowboy boots! Maybe not the most professional, but I LOVE them! I think they're so cute with a little dress. That's for sure my favorite look right now. I also wear several different kinds of boots in the winter - rain boots and Steve Madden's are my faves. When it's warm, I wear little sandals if I'm not wearing my cowboy boots.

Be still my heart.

4. Do you have a "go-to" item in your closet?

I have a bunch of little cotton dresses that I pull out all the time when I can't find anything else. Dress and cowboy boots. Every time. And, 99.9% of them are black. I adore black.

I have a million dresses similar to these. I can't stop buying them. I wear them in summer and winter. They're seriosuly the best.

5. Have you ever had a fashion "uh-oh" at school?

I'm a mess. A better question for me would be "Have you ever NOT had a fashion "uh-oh" at school?" I get dry-erase marker on basically every pair of pants I own. I even have a marker streak on my beloved boots. How sad is that? Last year, a strap on one of my sandals broke in the middle of the day and I had to walk around all day with my shoe flapping off my foot... that was a particularly bad one :)

On an unrelated note, we had Open House tonight. And, the sweet secretary at our school volunteered/begged to watch Finley for me tonight during Open House! How nice was that? I totally took her up on it because a) I could never tell her no and b) the poor puppy had already been in a crate all day. 4 more hours would have been miserable for her. I just adore my school and all the wonderful people I work with.

I'll post some of the stuff my third graders have been working on this week a little later. I'm just too tired. And, I've got some puppy cuddling to do :)