The First Week

So today marks the end of the first week of my sixth year of teaching.  I cannot believe that this is the sixth group of kids I have been blessed to get to know and build relationships with.  We did a lot of getting to know you activities this week and will really begin to get into our curriculum next week.  There are a couple of activities that we did that I wanted to share with those of you who have not started school and might be able to use them when you begin school next week.  You could also use these even if you have begun school to help students get to know each other better OR to get kids to see that they are mathematicians and see what they are capable of.

Activity One--Lion Glyph

Our mascot is the lion, so when one of my colleagues found the lion glyph we decided to use it and we are going to have it displayed for open house next week.  I love how they turned out and the kids really enjoyed making them.  I had them write a sentence on the back about the first week of school.

You can get the templates here for FREE (this is NOT my TPT store--I just really liked this activity):
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lion-Glyph-Craftivity-ZooSafari-693244

 

The second activity we did was a mathematicians activity.  The students brainstormed ideas of what a mathematician did, used, or were.  Our students sometimes get so nervous when it comes to math we want them to believe that they ARE mathematicians and that they CAN do math--they just may have to work hard at it.  We made the anchor chart and then they each made their own mathematicians.  The first picture is a picture of our anchor chart and the second picture is a picture of the chart with my student's mathematicians around it. 

You can get your own copy here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Lets-Get-Started-Beginning-of-the-Year-Math-Activities-297895

 

 

 

Here are my student's mathematicians where they also copied some of the ideas about mathematicians.

 

 

This is what my the outside of my classroom looks like now :)

 

 So this is just a glimpse into my first week.  I love my students and it is always good to see former students around the building and see what they are doing a year, two, or three years after they were in my class.  I am so blessed to have been called into this profession and I am so thankful that I get to influence students' lives in a positive way!]

 

 

~Kristy

CLASSROOM REVEAL 2014-15

Sorry I have not written a post in a while.  I was away in New Jersey visiting family and then New York to house and dog sit for my aunt and uncle who were in Virginia at Busch Gardens with their children for a mini vacation.   When I got back home I hit the ground running to get my classroom organized and put together.

Setting up my class this year was MUCH, MUCH different than last year.  Last year I had back surgery on Aug. 1st so setting up my classroom I relied on other people to do what I asked them to do.  I am so thankful for their help last year but it felt SOOOO good to get back into my room and be able to really make it mine again this year and do things myself.  It is great knowing you have amazing friends and family but it is another thing to feel like you do not need them to do everything for you.  

I am going to do a classroom reveal--I have lots of pictures and I am going to put a short caption with each picture so that you know what each part of my classroom will be used for.  I really wanted my classroom to be a happy, colorful place again this year and I wanted to feel proud of it.  I definitely feel proud of it and it is full of color!!!! :)

Here we go (descriptions are under each picture :).....

 

Here is my door--we are going to sparkle this year and have a wonderful year together!!!

 

This is my birthday board--the birthdays are listed on the stars.  The rest of the board is going to be used to display my Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt Journey's Focus Wall each week.

 

 

This is my carpet area--this is also my meeting area during our whole group for Daily 5.  The Genre posters under my smartboard were given to me by our Title One teacher and my good friend who moved to Wasilla, Alaska this summer.

To the right is the cart with my computer on it but it also houses my document camera (not a traditional document camera though it is more like a webcam).  The downside to this particular camera is that there is not a light attached to it so the lamp that is there is to shine light on things I place under my document camera.

 

Here is my class library.  The black bookshelves have my leveled books and the white shelf has my student's book boxes but I need to get more because I do not have enough of them.  The ottomans were from Wal Mart they can store things inside of them.  The pillows we purchased with school funds.  The bench I purchased off of craigslist and I then spray painted it to match my classroom.  I really hope that my students enjoy reading in this cozy area.

 

Word Work Area this is where kids get supplies to complete their word work during Daily 5.  They take the items back to their seats.

 

This is where I will write their homework to copy into their agendas daily.  The PAT chart is to give students minutes of preferred activity time.  They earn minutes and they can lose seconds off of their time that they will be able to participate in on Fridays.

 

This shelf houses my leveled readers for our HMH Journeys curriculum.  This is also where I am going to be housing my center activities.  I am doing the Daily 5 this year so I am not going to be using the centers that I have used in previous years so these will be used if my students need activities to complete when they are finished early.

 

I purchased these tables from IKEA.  They are normally $10 but they were on sale for $5 if you were a member of the IKEA family (which is free).  I got 4 of them.  These two will probably be used for my listen to reading area where students will listen to examples of fluent reading.  The towels are for kids to sit on--they were purchased from target last year during our end of year "Camp Learn A Lot" unit.

 

This is my desk and area.  Last year my kids had to line up in front of my desk (my desk was in the back corner right across from my door) and kids would mess with stuff on my desk so I decided to rearrange this year.  The door to the left of my desk is leading to a grassy area outside of our room. the wall behind my desk is a magnetic wall so the black border that is there is just magnets (also from my friend who moved to Alaska).  My desk is a 70s mustard color so I covered it with blue wrapping paper from the dollar store.  I am also going to put up a 31 organizer on the wall on the side of my desk but the command strips I had were not heavy duty enough and it fell.

 

 

This is my reading area.  Last year it was in the front corner of my room, but this year I decided to move it to a different area and rearrange.  So it is in front of my word wall.  I didn't get a picture of my "wonderful words" sign but it is the title for my word wall.  The shelf behind the table is used for storing curriculum that I have to access often and will be used while I am in small groups.  I also have magazine bins on the shelf (they are red, blue, and purple) so that I can easily store the books and my antidotal records for each of my groups each week.

 

These are my warm fuzzies--(for further description of this reward system see this post http://kristyscrazyclassroom.blogspot.com/2014/07/warm-fuzzies-new-classroom-reward-system.html). 

 

As you can see the large box has a lot of warm fuzzies in it.  The binders hold my student's reward coupons that they can buy using their warm fuzzies.  In the little box there are warm fuzzies (pom poms) that are HUGE.  I got the variety pack and they are giant.  They will not fit into the containers through the small opening so if they get 50 warm fuzzies and want to save them to earn the 100 point coupons, they will get to trade in 50 pom poms for the HUGE sparkly pom poms. 

 

 

Here is a view of my windows and computers.  The curtains were made 2 years ago but I did not have them up last year.  I just used Stitch Witchery to iron the hem down.  I like them because they go with my color scheme and they brighten up the room.  They have white outlines of daisies on them.  The desk to the right is my time out or "think about it" desk.

 

These are both pictures of my writing area.  Students will go here when they go to the work on writing part of Daily 5.  Again these are 2 IKEA tables that I got for $5.  The mats under the tables are bathmats also from IKEA so that students have a comfy thing to sit on.  Above the table I have some posters of ideas that they can write about as well as some other posters that may help them with their writing.  I will add to this before they start going to the writing area.

Here is my room from the door.  The bins on the end of my tables have the student books in them.  They also will house their journals and word work notebooks so that they have less stuff in their desk and those students who move between classes have less to carry.

 

 

 

So this is my classroom for this year.  I love how it turned out and I cannot wait to have a wonderful year in my classroom.  I am excited about how my kids will like it and I am proud of it and am so excited for my kids to see the final product on Monday morning.

 

Let me know what you think of my classroom this year and what is your favorite part of my classroom :)

 



Warm Fuzzies--New Classroom Reward System

Today I am going to blog about something new that I have decided to try this year and they are called  warm fuzzies.  I got this idea from Mel D at Suesstastic Classroom Inspirations and I am going to try my best to describe this as best I can, but I will also link to her post on warm fuzzies.

Suesstastic Classroom Inspirations--Warm Fuzzies

What is Warm Fuzzies?

Warm Fuzzies is a positive reward system.  The actual warm fuzzy are just craft pom poms that you can get at Wal Mart, Michael's, or any craft store that is local to you.   There are two kids BIG fuzzies and small fuzzies.

Students earn "warm fuzzies" for doing all sorts of things--passing AR tests, getting a good grade on a test, being a bucket filler to their friend or classmate, NOT bombarding the principal when they come in the door, being quiet in the hallway, getting a complement from another teacher, ect.

Students can also lose warm fuzzies by not doing something you expect of them--my favorite example was that they lose a warm fuzzy for forgetting their name.  My students often forget their names on papers and this is a way for them to remember.

Now there are 2 different kids so you may ask when they earn what.  They earn big warm fuzzies for big things--Mel D. gives them a big one for passing an AR test, for getting a "wow" on a test or quiz, doing something really nice for a friend, ect 

They earn a small warm fuzzy when the whole class gets one for getting a complement, ect.

There is a better, more detailed list on Suesstastic Classroom Inspirations check it out at the link above.

Now you ask--what do students get? Students get to earn coupons based on the number of warm fuzzies they have.  The BIG warm fuzzies are worth 5 and the little are worth 1.

Mel D. has 2 coupon sets on her teacher's pay teacher's store and they are on SALE right now.
Coupon Set 1
Coupon Set 2

She has several ways to store the coupons and I tried to cut them apart and store them in a binder in trading card page protectors in a binder, but I found that the coupons were a little to tall and they would fall out of the page protectors.  So here are picture of how I am going to store them.

Scraps from lamination

Pile of Lamniation

Coupons after I cut the extra lamination off

Scrapbooks with coupons stored inside

Scrapbook opened with coupons inside


 

I am only going to use warm fuzzies with my reading class because I cannot imagine keeping up with warm fuzzies for 3 different groups of kids.  I am excited to start this project and how my kids are going to want to make good choices to earn warm fuzzies so that they can earn these coupons!!!!


Don't forget to check out my TPT store--I have assessments on there as well as a few free items.


Kristy's Crazy Classroom on Teachers Pay Teachers

Morning Work and Number of the Day

       Over the past couple of years I have struggled with how to incorporate morning work into my classroom.  I teach a heterogeneous, inclusion classroom.  In the morning depending on the year I have had anywhere 11 (which only lasted one week before I was transferred to my current school) to 18 students.  This upcoming year I will have 21 students in my class (as of now--that number may change).  My school district is also a very transient area, our kids often move to several schools throughout the year and I receive several students each year.  This past year I had 1 students transfer in about a month into school and a month later she transferred out.  I had another student transfer in about a month and a half into school, 1 transfer in the beginning of Feb, and 2 transfer in during the same week in March or April (this year is a blur)!  My morning work has to be simple enough to be easy to get a grasp of quickly so that my new students can pick up on it quickly.  We also do a lot of switching in my school (yes--in 2nd grade).  We have an accelerated math class and an accelerated reading class.  This means that I have kids coming and going all day long.  This has made it difficult to do journal writing, dlr, or other language arts or even math practice in the mornings, at least practice that I would need my whole math or reading class to participate in.

       Oh, and did I mention that I always have several kids who bring their breakfast to class in the mornings, so that takes out more kids that are not completing morning work.  So for the past couple of years my morning work has consisted of reading from their book bins (if they weren't in my reading class and didn't have a book bin they would just take out a library book or get a book from our class library).  AR is also always open in the mornings.  My famous phrase in the mornings was "you are eating or reading" because they would always ask to do something else.

     So I have had this dilemma, but Pinterest helped to solve that problem.  I saw lots of posts about morning work and so I decided to start a project--morning work/number of the day folders.  I saw this idea in a binder but I didn't want another binder for each child that takes up even more space on my scarce bookshelves.  So I made Morning work/Number of the day folders.  I made and printed activities that students will complete each morning and then placed those sheets into a page protector.  I then took those two page protectors and put them into a plastic folder that has metal prongs inside of it.  Students will use dry erase markers to complete these activities each morning with our number of the day that I will have up on the board in the front of the classroom.  This will allow students to work at their own pace and if they are eating breakfast, it is okay if they do not get to it.  It will keep students engaged who are not eating their breakfast but the students who are eating breakfast will still get the benefit of reviewing the number of the day each day.

        Here is a picture and a link to my TPT store where you can grab your copy of the Morning Work and Number of the day printables--there are more challenging sheets besides the ones in the picture below.  I am going to put some manipulatives and a dry erase marker into the pockets of the folders so students will be able to write and complete the activities.  I will put base ten blocks and counters into the folder.  I also am going to buy cheap wash cloths and cut them into fourths and that will serve as student's erasers (another brilliant idea I saw on pinterest :) !!  Please leave feedback on the morning work/number of the day printables if you use them :) 

Click on the picture to go to Kristy's Crazy Classroom on TPT!

My name is Kristy and I teach 2nd grade in Lynchburg, VA.  My principal told me about 4 years ago that she could see me being one of the teachers that have a blog and I just brushed that comment off.  Well 4 years later, I guess I have proved her right.  I have been teaching 2nd grade for 5 years and I love it.  This past year was interesting because I had back surgery and began the school year using a walker.  My experience this year made me realize that I take a lot for granted and I want to be able to share my ideas with teachers that are new to the profession and get ideas from other teachers who have more experience than me. 

I enjoy doing things on the computer and with technology.  The other 2nd grade teachers in my unit encouraged me to put my things up on Teachers Pay teachers--tests and other activities that I have made for our unit.  our unit works very well together and we all have our unique talents and strong suits.  My strong suit is using technology and making tests, worksheets, activities, posters, ect.  I bit the bullet so to speak and began my Teachers Pay Teachers account this week and thought I could go all the way and make a blog to go along with it and to share ideas through this avenue. 

I hope you enjoy my blog and the ideas I present.  If you have helpful blog tips, please share, I am not used to having a blog and sharing my ideas in this venue!!! :)


Check out my TPT store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Kristys-Crazy-Classroom

This is a picture of my nephew, Liam, and I at Christmas this past year!