1st Week of School, My Room, What I Made! & Mini Me!!!

I have finished my 1st week of school, and it was a wonderful week with the kiddos!  I have been so busy these last few weeks...I have so much I want to share with you!  First pictures of MY kids first day of school...can't believe they are as old as they are...time flies!

I had a parent who took pictures of each of the children for me with my '1st day of 3rd grade' frame.  Right now I have 34 children...whoa!...but this group has been WONDERFUL so far...last year was a VERY challenging group & we spent most of the year in rows {YUCK!!}...this year YIPPIE...back to groups!!! :-D

For 2 years I have wanted to make stools out of the 5 gallon buckets...I have made 4 so far...here are a few pictures...

I also made over my two stools in my room...I DO love that staple gun! I used Scotch's colored masking tape for the legs on the one stool...didn't have the tape or time to do the other one that way!

Here are a few more pictures of my classroom...more to come soon...I hope!

Our school got rid of several small trash cans and gave us this one mondo trash can... :-( ...oh well...in the upper left of this board I have my 'In this class we...' poster I made through Vistaprint.

This poster from Vistaprint didn't look that great...it was dirty and had tape marks all over it, so I just cut out the elements from it & stuck each of those up...actually like it better this way! :-)

Here is a close up of the Love & Logic poster.

On my fire extinguisher box are the girls & boys restroom passes...magnetic frames...tried acrylic frames last year early in the year but they got busted...this has worked much better...on the picture below are the girls & boys hand sanitizers... they leave them on their desk when they sign out for the restroom.

More pictures to come!!!

I am SUPER DUPER THRILLED with my 'mini me' by 'The Library Fox'!!!!!! It was worth EVERY penny!! Now I just need to research how to redo my 'signature' at the bottom of my posts!!
Have a great week everyone...I will try to post again soon!!

Made it Monday...I've been INSPIRED by others! :-) & Two Blogs You Should Follow if You Aren't Already!

Another Made it Monday!!! I can't wait until NEXT WEEK :-D  I'm working on some things I am SUPER excited about!!! But here is this week's items {I'm pretty excited about them too! :-)}

Oh...my...goodness!!!! I have been SO inspired by Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera!!! She has made the CUTEST "Brag Tags"!!!! Here is a picture from her blog...click it and it will take you to the post all about them!

She has these two as freebies in her TpT Store {Here for Homework Club} & {Here for Perfect Attendance}

She sells several different sets; {Here}, {HERE} & even one that you can label {HERE}....Well I've been teaching for 25 years and there are a bunch of specific ways I could see these working in my classroom & I have so many graphics that I really wanted to use... so I began creating a bunch for my room!

These will be on their ball chains the first day...their name, their book number & their 'beginner' card...more about that one in a bit!

At the end of the 1st day they will get to add this one!

I use Whole Brain Teaching...{I can't WAIT til' Saturday to go to the conference!!!...here is a post about Saturday's FREE conference in Southern California} and last year I began with the 'Super Improver Stars' {I didn't do very good with it :-(...planning to do some improving myself! :-) }...these are the first two levels...I will make the others later...I guess I could have done the diagonal word the opposite way...but...I wanted them to look down and see what level they are on!

For several years I have had a 'required' amount of reading for homework each night & a column for how much they DID read to encourage them to go beyond the minimum.  Have have given certificates in the past, and thought this would be a great addition!

I also give a 'Spelling Bee' certificate for those that score 100% on their weekly spelling test...once again a nice addition!

I use a behavior clip chart in my room & purple is at the top...I thought this would be special for those students that have had every day in a week end on purple!

In the past I have used a 'Shiney Apple Award' in my room...I will have to post pictures of it later when I can get at it!...I wanted to start using it again this year so this, along with the certificate, this will be given to the student when he or she earned the award.

I decided it would be nice to give these to the students on their birthdays...my daughter, who has her birthday in June asked me what I was going to do about the summer birthdays....

We will celebrate it on their 1/2 birthday!!...so if it was for my daughter...she would get the half birthday tag & birthday tag on December 20th since her birthday is June 20th!!

Now...I think I am a little nuts, because here I am getting ready to launch my stores...{goal is within the week!!} & I have been obsessed with busy with creating, printing, laminating, cutting, & punching all of these & they WILL NOT be in my store...this is Miss Nelson's thing & some of the graphics are ones that I can't sell items I've made using them.

My next Made it Monday was also inspired by another blogger Mrs. Gilchrist's Class...she has a robot theme for her back to school goodies & larger labels...I wanted to tie in apples & I have the smaller labels {got a TON of them with Office Max's deal of only a penny for a box of 3000 labels!! You pay $27 dollars but get $26.99 back on your rewards!!} so I used what I had!

Mrs. Gilchrist's version

My version

I need to work on getting the printing right...the Avery labels have not been lining up exactly right...there is supposed to be a apple ribbon at the top & bottom of the sticker.. :(  I'm sure the kids will love it though!

There are two pretty new collaborative blogs with some of my favorite bloggers contributing that are both giving away a lot of GREAT resources for your classroom!! I honestly don't know how these women are doing it...I've been on this computer a WHOLE LOT this summer & I still can't accomplish every thing here that I want to!!  Anyway...click on the buttons to take you to these fabulous blogs!!!

Five for Friday & Currently

I am so glad that Five for Friday is back!!!! :-) I love her new logo for it!!!

My principal is leaving! :-(  We found out on Wednesday that our principal is moving to Maine.  Yesterday a group of staff members met at school...we had heard through the grapevine that his wife had stage 4 cancer; PRAISE GOD that was INCORRECT!!!!...but we were grateful that it got us down to school at the same time to pray for him and his wife.  There were about ten of us that prayed for his journey ahead, thanked God that his wife is doing well (she did have surgery at the end of the school year & has had radiation), prayed for our next leader, and for the future of our school.  It was such a blessed time!....If you are an elementary teacher in Maine & you are getting a new principal from California...YOU ARE BLESSED!!!

Today we found out who are new principal will be.  He has been principal at another elementary school in our district for 12 years.  He is a good friend and I think he will be a good fit for our school.  I am glad our superintendent let us know so quickly!  I'm looking forward to a terrific year!

I was able to get into my classroom today.  This is what it looked like...pictures go counter clockwise.

This is my room a few hours later.

I feel like I did make some progress! I have all of my table groups set up {so GLAD to be back in groups!!!! last year was a REALLY challenging group...part of the reason I didn't blog...and we spent most of the year in rows...booo...hissss...one of only 3 years out of 25 in rows!!}  and my fabric table skirts attached.  I am not sure when I will be back in they won't give us our keys yet...my principal (former) let me in.

I wanted to share again that next Saturday will be a FREE Whole Brain Teaching Conference in Southern California!  It is in Yucaipa and I am so excited!!! If you plan to go, please let me know, I'd love to meet you!!!

Yep...already August...August 2nd!!! (for less than an hour...I'd better hurry up!)  Here is my Currently

I love Farley's rules about leaving comments!!! Oh, and I did buy her 'Currently for the Classroom' I haven't opened it up yet, but I can't wait to get a good look at it!!!! Can you believe I will be the 371st one linking up!! Wow!