Reading at Home: My new incentive chart this year!

Well...With just 2 small weeks until the start of school, I have broken into my classroom and started setting things up and getting it ready for my new kiddos! Many of my classroom management systems from last year have stayed, but there were a few that I knew I wanted to change this summer (usually because I didn't like how they worked last year).

One thing I am changing this year is the way I keep track of students' reading progress with their home reading assignments. My 2nd graders are assigned 20 min. of reading at home each night and are given a new Reading Log every month for  a parent to write down what they read, how many minutes, and circle whether it was read to self, read to them, or read with a parent. I like to see what my kids are choosing to read at home because it lets me know what types of books interest them and also whether they're reading at all! Their faces light up when I ask them about the book they've been reading at home and they love to tell me all about it!

Last year, I gave my students 1 sticker for every 100 minutes read at home (one week of 20 min per night). By the end of the year, {most} had a bee hive chart full of stickers and were proud to take it home. There was no reward...and surprisingly, just the act of putting the sticker onto the chart each week when I checked their log was reward enough! They loved it. This year, I am just plain tired of using stickers...and I happened to have this adorable tree pocket chart that was unused!

I decided to use the pocket tree as a level-up system for my readers! Every 100 minutes read at home, students earn a bookworm (so.cute.) and move their bird up one more branch! They get a nice visual of how much reading they have done throughout the year and can really feel proud about their hard work. I am loving it! We'll see how it goes. Do you have other ideas for tracking the reading your students do at home? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Back to School Prep and Desk Helper/Name Tag Freebie!

Well...it's August! Which means every day feels like a Sunday from now until the ACTUAL first day of school! Where does the time go, people?! I know many teachers will be going back to school in the next week or so, but here in New York, we usually don't begin until early September. So I still have time. However,  I am of course planning, preparing, and getting excited (in a way) for the first day of school!

One change I am making this year is an update to my desk name tags. I made them myself last year and they worked out well except that they were not multitasking as much as they could be. They simply had the students' name and a print alphabet. Simple is good, but I found throughout the year that I was adding things to my kids' desks because I wanted them to have more visual reminders! I added a cursive writing helper, a few math visuals, and I often had to bring out the number lines for kids who needed them! I know that you can buy desk helper with all of these things...but what's the fun in that!? They aren't even cute! See my new and improved desk helpers and name tags below and click HERE to download and print your own for free! I apologize, but they are not editable. You will need to hand write the names after you laminate the tags :)

Another change i'll be making is going back to keeping those pesky name tags on the desktops. Last year, I tried keeping them on the back of student chairs with velcro. It was nice because they were removable if a student needed to look at them, but not a distraction during lessons. Now that my kids will be using them more as a math/writing visual, I think I will go back to just taping them using packing tape. I know there will be picking, peeling, and sticky dirty spots on the desk (yuck)...but I have yet to come up with a better solution yet!  I'll keep you posted on that one. Any suggestions?

What updates and changes are you making to your classroom this year? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Peek at My Week!

Hi all!

I start school tomorrow (I know many of you have started already!) and I am so excited and nervous at the same time! I still get those "back to school" flutters in my stomach every year! I'm sure I won't be able to sleep. Anyway...I decided to link up with DeeDee Wills over at Mrs Wills Kindergarten to show you a Peek at My {first}Week! I am not sure how to add links yet...as I make my plans in Apple Pages... but I will add links below if you're interested in finding some of the resources!

Write the Room September Edition- Myself!
Fallin' Into Fun Literacy Centers- Amy Lemons
10 Addition and Subtraction Math Stations- Amy Lemons
Reading Response Booklets- Amy Lemons
Rock On Fluency Station- Cara Carroll
Super in Second- Abby Mullins

Happy First Week! Good luck to you and your students! I'm off to do a massive amount of grocery shopping!!

Don't forget to click over to Mrs Wills Kindergarten and take a peek inside other classrooms this week via the link below!

Classroom Tour 2014-2015!

Hi friends,
Whew...I have officially deemed it {mostly} DONE! Come on in and take a look! Also, please pardon the poor picture quality!

The attendance chart (they place their bee into the hive on arrival each day). Classroom jobs clips, and schedule (freebie schedule cards from Cara Carrol! You can grab them here). Also my little "first day frame" ready to go for the first day of school!

View of the rest of that wall (facing the door). Sorry for the poor lighting! We have a lot of natural light in my new room (which I love, but it's not great for pictures)! Also pardon the ladder!!! 

I have two white boards...I only felt that I needed one, so I used the other as a word wall! I did this by attaching super strong magnets to the backs of my letter buttons (available as a freebie in my shop btw!). I then used hot glue to attach all of the words. It pops right off of the white board without leaving a mark or residue! 

My teacher area! The day of the week bins are from Big Lots (love). I will be using them to place my materials for the following week. A great tip in case you need to be absent on short notice...your sub can quickly find everything they need. 

View of the back of the room from the word wall. I sewed the skirt on the desk using fabric from Walmart! The back closet door shows our reading charts (they earn a sticker for their hive for every 100 minutes read at home). Lanterns from Schoolgirl Style and Christmas Tree Shop! The corner round table is where I will do my guided reading. 

The pencil center! Oh, pencils. They can be the source of so much stress! In my class, we use a "pencil management system." It works wonders! They may only use yellow number 2 pencils. We all share pencils (no pencil boxes, zipper cases etc). When we have a dull pencil, we simply place it in the "sharpen please" bucket and take a sharper one! One of the classroom jobs is to sharpen 10 pencils first thing in the morning! Done! 

The back wall of the room and reader's chair. Birthday chart and bee hive number posters by me (available in my shop). I made the bunting using just card stock and black ribbon...It is inspired by the Rainbow Chalkboard design by Schoolgirl Style! 

Literacy Center student station. The pink drawers are removable...students take them out and bring them to their work area during stations. The black drawers contain any and all supplied they may need to work at the center. It is self serve as we use spelling task cards some weeks and the supplies they need will depend on the task they choose! The top two drawers house everything from magnetic letters to legos (with letters on them) to model magic to ink dabbers! The bottom drawer is the early finisher tub. I will tell more about that in a future post! 

The magazine files on top are for student work (strictly center work). They place their work into the corresponding box for their reading group...and at the end of the week, I look over all of the work checking for quality, accuracy, and neatness. I give a prize to the group with the best quality center work! This is something new I am trying this year. 

The clip chart is above the center station.

A peek inside the literacy tools drawer! Whew what a hot mess....

A peek inside my Fluency Center! Fluency phrases and ADORABLE voice cards courtesy of Cara Carroll's Rock On fluency center. Microphone from Target, whisper phones from home depot, rockstar glasses from Michaels!

The calendar! All components were made my me (and are available as part of the colorful chalk decor pack in my shop). Can we pause a moment and just acknowledge that hot mess of cords?! What is going on their?!

The left half of the library. The supply caddy on top houses "story pops," which I found on pinterest. They are quick comprehension questions which students can just pick and ask to get them thinking about what they read! It will also house the half-page quick reading response sheets I snagged from Amy Lemons! 

The right half of the library...

The opposite side of the library! Math tub area...

Already filled with some easy-prep math stations my Amy Lemons!! :)

Student "buckets." Our behavior management system--which I will explain in a future post!

Center rotation tree! AKA...I had this pocket chart tree I didn't know what to do with...so....this works!

Writing center lives below the tree....Awesome pencil freebie from The Teacher Wife! That space will be reserved for student work. 

A few more close-ups...

D'Nealian Cursive alphabet made my me. Don't mind that ladder....

I hope you enjoyed this look inside my classroom! Leave a link to yours in the comments! I would love to take a look! 

Literacy Centers. Here's my plan! What is yours?

Hello! My, this summer is buzzing by so darn quick! I have been very busy creating resources this summer to help ease my transition from K into second grade this fall. One nice thing about my new class will be that I'll be lucky to have a very small class size (14) and also another teacher in the room! I feel very spoiled :) I was so excited to be able to plan for literacy centers this summer because I will be able to devote more time to individual reading groups and my students will also be slightly more independent due to their age. I toyed around with A LOT of ideas people. A LOT. I scribbled all over notebook after notebook coming up with possible plans. I did, eventually, decide that I wanted to be meeting with all three of my reading groups every day...well...four days a week. Here is my plan!

The bee hives move down each day Monday-Friday (like my deck photo?! enjoying the summer sun while it lasts!)

I like using a pocket chart to show the kids visuals for where they'll be going. This helps them to be more self sufficient.  I have 8 literacy centers set up (see above). We'll be doing centers 4 days per week. Each day, we will do 3 rotations. Students will visit two centers... And their third center is my reading group! My differentiated groups are bee themed. The three teams are shown on the hive cards. They go to the two centers beside their card... In that order. However, they also meet with me each day for small group reading. The honey bee team always meets first, the yellow jackets second, and the bumble bees third! I am really hoping this schedule works for us and I expect that I will be tweaking it over time. Do you have different ideas about how to run literacy centers? I'd love if you'd share some in the comments! I am always looking to improve! 

P.S. I absolutely adored Cara Carrol's series of Write On write the room centers for my Kinder class last year. You can now buy them as an {amazing} bundle! Click here if you are interested! 

I searched and searched for something to replace them for second grade and I couldn't find anything that was just right... So I made my own! 

Introducing the first installment of my Write The Room packs for Second Grade! Back to School Edition! You can head on over to my store to check them out! I am super excited to use them in my own literacy and math centers very soon! 

Blast off! Back2School Sale!

Hi all! Be sure you head over to TpT Monday August 4 to Tuesday August 5 to take advantage of the Blast Off Back 2 School Sale! My entire store will be 20% off!



 Rainy day here... I'm off to get a manicure! Happy shopping!

Classroom Decorating Fun!

Last year in K, I used a "bee" theme in my classroom. I am a bee keeper, and I love bees (obviously). However, I am also the type of person who tires of things easily! {This means that I redecorate my bedroom 5 times a year!} I was already needing a change this year in 2nd! Last year, I used a lot of turquoise and yellow with grey. It was adorable! But I was ready for something new. Here are some pictures from my classroom last year...

Amazing hand signal posters--also a freebie, which I can no longer find! If you recognize them, let me know where they are from! 

Don't mind the horrible quality! Taken using my phone camera!!!

Common Core Posters!

Classroom job signs and behavior clip chart (freebie from Whitney--you can get it by clicking over to her TpT store here!)

Attendance chart with velcro bees! I actually did save this and will use it again this year. 

This summer, I decided to update my classroom, making it much more colorful and less "theme" oriented so that I could enjoy it for longer! This inspired my Colorful Chalk classroom decor set!
I spend much of this summer re-creating the elements and decor of last year's room updated with a cute and colorful flair! I LOVE color. I also LOVE chalk. Chalk art, chalk paint, chalk clipart, etc, etc, etc. Can't get enough. As of today, my Colorful Chalk Classroom Decor set is for sale in my store! Click the picture to head over and check it out! I will be back soon with pictures from my classroom tour, so you can see it in action!

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Colorful-Chalk-Classroom-Decor-Pack-1363644