Kid Bloggin' Wednesday: Northview School

Here is our post from last Wednesday, August 20th. It took us a while to get a picture of the playground with no other kids on it.

This week we went to the library. We played outside. We like playing. We play hide and seek. We made new friends at school. We like to play with our friends. We made new book buddies. They read to us.


This is a picture of name-tags. They help us with math. They have shapes. They help us with colors. They help us with our left and right. Coloring. About our hand writing. They help us measure. They help us with our numbers. They are all different colors.

This is our math board. They have mathematicians on it. Don't forget to be a mathematician. It helps us with math. It has pictures of paper on them. The people on them are mathematicians. The mathematicians have glasses. It's green.

 There is flowers. Flowers and teachers. This is my teacher's desk. This is my teacher's flower. It's a fake flower but it's pretty. They are very beautiful. We like it. They are very lovely. It's fake. And it's so pretty.

This is the playground. It's very fun. There are slides and swings. There is this spinny around thingy that people stand on. There's another spinny around thingy that you can jump on. At lunch recess we get to go there and at special recesses too.

Kid Bloggin' Wednesday: School Smarties

Today we did mathematicians. They are awesome. Mathematicians:
-are smarties
-They are really, really, smart and they talk about stuff.
-They are talking about math.
We made them by paper. We used crayons and we colored them. We cut them out and glued them together. They are very pretty.

This is our morning work. We like it. It helps us with math. It helps us read. They are very good at it drawing. We like it. They are brilliant.

These are our book boxes. They help us read a lot. The book boxes are pink. They help us count because there are numbers on them. There is cool books. They help us read.

Here's to book boxes helping us read and count and keeping our brains awake, our teacher helps us learn a lot

The end!

It Has Begun!

That's right! School has begun! Since my last post I've spent a lot of time in my room. Not only do I feel better organized but the room has a good flow. It definitely underwent a lot of changes. (How did I think I'd have my engineer friend over and NOT come out with a ton of changes?)

Notice the name change! I found out there was another first grade blog with the same name and it was getting much more attention! I don't want my students wonderful work and ideas to get looked over. So, after some thinking I decided to simply change the a to my and viola! Now our blog is free to be ours :)

The other big change this year was the movement of my calendar. I stepped outside the box, the box of a bulletin board that is. This year we will be having calendar on the wall. That's right, the wall! Today we tried it out and it worked exactly the same. Imagine that! :)

Calendar

 Another major change that happened affected the entire school. We welcomed Dr. Morton! She is an amazing ball of energy that has already brought energy, focus, and unity to our school. Her theme for the school year is Choosing Excellence: Unleash Your Superhero Powers. This works perfectly with the direction I wanted to take our room. I am really focusing on the positive this year. We are going to learn to build ourselves up and how to build others up as well. We are going to learn how to be the best versions of ourselves.

Classroom decorations

Another major changed involved how I prepare what I am going to teach. I am a big believer on not having a ton of information up until I've actually covered it with the students. The only materials I have up year round are our alphabet, numbers, and different sound posters which cover multiple sounds. This means I usually start my year with empty bulletin boards. Not this year, however! I've gone ahead and put up the concepts we will be covering (at least in the beginning). I've got them flipped over so the kids can't see it yet. As we discuss the different items I'll flip them over. The white acts as a reminder until I've covered it. Now I know I'll cover all of our problem solving strategies and math strategies. I have a daily reminder.

Our Problem Solving Board

The Beginning of Our Math Board!

 While a ton seems to be changing there are a lot things that haven't. Our room is still Owl themed. We are still by the library. We will still be sitting in groups. We will be learning lots and having fun.

I can't wait to see what this year brings. Today was a great beginning and we definitely learned a lot about each other. Starting tomorrow we will be as close to our normal schedule as possible. (It's helpful to keep students on a schedule, even at the beginning of the year. We may not be doing our normal activities but our subject times will stay the same.) This means that tomorrow we will be blogging as a class! I imagine this will take some getting used to but it promises to be a load of fun!

Here's to routines, practice, and learning.

P.S
Teachers: What are your must do's on the first day of school?
Parents: Do you do anything to commemorate the first day?

No, I Didn't Spend My Friday Night At School

Hi! My name is Ashley and I have a problem leaving school.

The beginning of the school year is fast approaching. Before I know it, there will be a classroom full of 22 little adults. We'll be focusing on working together, learning lots, and being awesome (Our goal this year!). While I am getting super excited to see all of my kiddos, I am also a little worried about getting everything ready. There's moving furniture, organizing, and planning. Here's what I came back to:

I always start by getting the furniture where I want it. It's easier for me to get organized if all of the big stuff is where it is supposed to be. Bonus: I feel super productive once I've moved some desks! This year I am facing my carpet a different direction. This pushed all of my desks closer together. We'll try this out for the first month and see if we can manage it.

It's a good thing they are little people!

My next stop is a to-do list. This is a must! It helps me to vizualize everything that still must be tackled. Now, let's not pretend that this is a one-and-done list. This is a working, breathing, living document. I constantly add to it. That's OK. It gives me a central location to keep my thoughts and it is a crazy motivator once I start crossing items off.

Slowly but surely working my way through it all!

Today I tackled the teacher area by my desk. This was pretty much done but I had to declutter from everything I smashed over there as I was packing up my room at the end of last year. C'mon....I'm not the only teacher that does that. One day I'll be so advanced that at the end of the year I will simply put everything in its place.....That definitely wasn't last year. Maybe it'll happen this year!   :)

My Space!

I also tackled my computer center. I love to take pictures of what the center should look like. It helps to do this before students have even entered the class. This will give you a "best-possible" look. I then post the pictures by the centers so students know how I want the center to look when they leave it.

Computer Center

I am one to bounce around the room when I start organizing, cleaning, sorting.....I'll be honest. I always bounce around. I was, however, able to get my reading table organized. The ottomans were an investment last year. Students are able to store their books in them for my guided reading groups. This puts the responsibility on them to get their materials when they come back to see me. I keep colored bins behind the table for each group. Most of my other necessities are in the storage on the easel and behind it.

Here's hoping we can keep it this nice!

 The last thing I tackled was our "extra" space. This has been the area I changed up the most. I've moved our "Proud Wall" around and add more space for our "No Name" area. I also made it where students could more easily reach it. This puts all of the responsibility in their hands. They are responsible for posting work they find that is nameless. They are also responsible for grabbing their papers if they see them. Because it's lower I no longer have to even touch that section. They can run it themselves.

I also finished our "Early Finisher" drawers. This has been a work in progress for an entire year. I currently have them filled with word building, sight word, rhyming and other language arts activities. I'll switch these out with different topics as the year goes on.

There are also bins for their poetry. Who would have thought it would be smart to put those materials by the actual center? This will help during centers!

I've definitely worked my bum off today. I rewarded myself with a mini apple pie.....I earned it!

Here's to more work days, organizing, and flying through my to-do list.

P.S
Teachers:  What do you tackle first when you come back from Summer?
Parents: What do you do to get ready for school?

A Little Dancing Never Hurt Anyone

As I've started preparing for school my mind has drifted towards music, dancing, and recess! The last couple of years I've utilized Youtube. There are so many videos out there that can be used for help with instruction, brain breaks, and of course indoor recess. There are always those kids who are going to be leery of participating. This can be overcome with teacher participation. Nothing gets kids more pumped than their teacher jumping around acting crazy with them. I love music. I love to dance. My kids always learn this quickly!

While laying in bed, playing on Pinterest of course, I ran across a dance video. This sparked my interest to look for more videos to add to my school dance playlists on YouTube. One video undoubtedly turned into 10 videos. An hour and a half later, 10+ new videos, and countless songs stuck in my head, I was finally forced to head to sleep.

While this playlist is a work in progress, I know that I've got a great group of videos to start with. There are videos I can use to teach following directions and ones that are purely to get some exercise in.

Here's dancing, new ideas, and the internet!

P.S
Teachers: What's your go to for brain breaks and indoor recess?
Parents: How do your kids like to get their energy out?

A Prelude to Preparing for School

As summer camp starts winding down I've had more time to let my mind drift towards the upcoming school year. Usually this entails to-do lists, updates, and Pinterest. Let's be honest, how many of us don't have a Pinterest board dedicated to at least one aspect of school? For me, I have multiple. There's the one for reading resources, reading centers, math resources, math centers, general resources, fun videos, and more! Feel free to stop on by and check them out. I'm always finding more great projects to pin!

Pin, Pin, and Pin some more!

I always start by making a list of what needs to be done in my classroom. An organized room that looks put together helps me function better. Happy rooms = happy teachers! This time, however, I started by planning my parent events for the year. I am making parent involvement a huge priority. I am going to have a parent night each grading term, as well two parent-volunteer months. I'll be sure to post more information as the school year gets underway! A little preview to look forward to: Poetry Party, Art Auction, and a Science Showcase!

Another new addition to my classroom will be the use of Remind101 or Remind.com. This service lets you text/email parents without using your own personal number. I recently found out about this fabulous tool during a Wednesday #TeachChat session. These are hosted by Really Good Stuff and happen every other Wednesday on Twitter. Simply follow the hashtag to join.

I finished today by working on my family packet that is handed out at the beginning of school. Here I list all of the important classroom details parents will need. I detail topics such as morning procedures, curriculum, behavior expectations, birthdays, and more. It seems done now......I'm sure I'll find more to add.  :)

Here's to cool days, note pads full of ideas, and dreams!

P.S

Teachers: What kind of information do you make sure to send home at the beginning of school?

Parents: What information would be helpful to receive at the start of school?

Fairwell to the Uppers

This week I said fairwell to teaching our upper grades in the mornings. It's only been two days but I already miss seeing them tackle through their challenging projects. It definitely took many of them by surprise. Nevertheless they continued to work together and with the help of the wonderful Miss Katlen and Mrs. Ortiz they were able to finish their engineering projects. Below you will find their masterpieces.

Tomorrow they move on to new science experiments. While I've still got work to do with the camp I have now turned my "teaching brain" over to preparing for the up coming school year. If I can pull off even a fourth of my current list I know my kids and I will have a blast. 

Until next time, here's to field trips, lists, and pool-time fun!