Math Wednesday

First of all my super amazing Nanny/Photographer/Web Designer, Hillary created a button for me today. I am super excited!





Moving onto today's post. When I go back to work in January I really want to start doing Guided Math. It has taken me a few years but I feel like I finally have Guided Reading down and running smoothly, so I am hoping this step will go easily. This is kinda where I am now for a schedule. If any of you out there in blog land are using Guided Math (especially with the Envision math series), let me know if this is the flow you go with.

Start math as usual with whole group lesson, video tutorial (included with our series and my kiddos LOVE them!!!) Do a small whole group activity. This whole process should take maybe 15 to 20 minutes. Then break into groups.

That is as far as I have gotten for now. I am still not sure how I want my group rotation to go. I like the way I have it in reading but I am not sure from a time standpoint that would work. So I am looking for ideas on how to do a Guided Math small group rotation. Let the commenting begin...

Reading Tuesday

Okay so being off work I have no idea what story we are on! I know, I know I wrote the lesson plans and it's the same stories in the same order as last year, but my brain is mush. In fact I have to check my phone before I write to see what day it is. Next week I plan on working on things for when I go back to work so then I will have kindergarten reading stuff for you. This week though I am going to talk about, more like ask about my son.
Carter is my little man. He is 20 months old. He has mad reasoning skills, but still isn't talking. Now I am not worrying about it because I know boys talk later, first children talk later, ect., ect. He will talk when he is ready. That doesn't stop me from wanting him to know his alphabet and numbers. Here come my two questions! Are you ready?!

First, how should I decorate the walls of his playroom, because I have seriously considered decorating it a little like my classroom! Does that make me a crazy teacher mom? (Okay so maybe that was two questions!)

Second, I came across I pin on pinterest (and if I weren't on my iPad I would link it for you, maybe an edit will come later!) from a former teacher turned stay at home mom that has created units for her toddler to do. It is all really fun stuff, they focus on a letter for a week or so at a time, plus have a theme they work on. It is all games and such. I am considering creating my own or borrowing hers and asking our nanny to do them with him. I just feel like she could do more with him if she had a topic to focus on. So my second question is the same as my first just for a different reason, does this make me a crazy teacher mom?

I am the child of a crazy teacher mom and look how I turned out!

Management Monday

Wow, what a day! Baby girl was up almost all night! Of course it would have to bee the night before hubby's off day. We also make plans for his off day. Today's plan was to finish cleaning out our office to make a playroom for Little Man. We got a lot done but it still isn't finished!

Obviously being on leave my biggest concern for school lately has been not being there. With that in mind I thought I would share my normal substitute binder. The cover and dividers I found on a blog awhile back. After searching today I can't find where they came from. If you know please let me know so I can link and give proper credit.

This is the binder cover. Nice and bright so it quickly gets noticed on my desk.

The first  section in my binder is classroom basics. This section includes a class list and a seating chart, shown above.



The next section is the daily schedule. Here I have a copy of my class schedule, as well as, my assistants schedule.



  

 

The next section is Lesson Plans. In this section I have 3 things. The first is a sub plan (middle picture). This is the overview of the day. The second is the calendar (left picture). This shows every slide in my calendar and what to click for the songs. The third is our reading powerpoint for the week (right picture). This shows how the reading should flow for each day. I change this out each week when we change stories.








The next section is the procedure section. This has a lot of information in it. It has daily classroom procedures, center procedures, school procedures. This section also has information on the playground rules. Emergency procedures are also found in this section.




The last section of information is an overview of my behavior management system. I don't expect a sub to do things exactly the way I do, but I would like for them do follow the same idea. I like for them to understand the apple colors and to give purples rather than take away greens. See a full explanation of my behavior management system here.



The final section of the binder is not informational. It is extra work. This is for those kids that always finish everything fast. If they can't just sit quietly (and what kindergartener can?), then the sub can pull from here. It has sight word activities and other review things, such as color words and counting to 10. One of my favorites in this section is a Write 100 words you find in the room! This keeps them busy for awhile, plus they get up and burn some energy. It also keeps them quite because they don't want anyone else to get their words!!

This goes in the front of the binder in a pocket labeled please complete and leave for me. This also came from the person who created the lovely cover and divider pages I use. Please let me know if this is your work or if you know who it is I would love to credit them!

Have a great week!

Freebie Friday

This is my first Freebie Friday. I am giving away an item I made for student assessment. I glue them in file folders and let the kids color their own during our conferences. This what I send home as progress reports. I make a few changes second semester (don't worry I will post that later!). Click below for your copy!

Pinterest Thursday

Before I get to what I am pinning today I want to mention a new blogger and the give away she is having. Molly over at Classroom Confetti is having a Holiday give away for a $20 Amazon card or a $10 TpT card!! Hop over and check her out!



Okay on to my Pinterest addiction. I am off on maternity leave right now and it seems all I want to do is organize, or plan ways to organize. These are some of the great organization tools I have found. They are not all school related but don't we all love to organize everywhere!!!

Source: Uploaded by user via Markeeta on Pinterest

Source: designfinch.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Source: bhg.com via Markeeta on Pinterest

Happy Pinning!

A New Beginning

So I started this blog hoping it would make me more creative in my teaching and connect me to other teachers. Thus far I have complete neglected it. My posts have been sporadic and random. I have no focus and have not been consistent in my posting. I think it was because of several reasons: new school, new baby on the way, already having a 17 month old (when I started, he is 20 months now!). Well baby number 2 has arrived and I have been at my new school for 1/2 a year now, so no more excuses. I will blog more, create more, and share more. I will work on my TpT store and do what I set out to do in the first place, become a better teacher!

I am a complete blog stalker and have found so many I love and aspire to be like. One of my faves is Kinder Kraziness by Laura Starnes. She has preplanned a theme for each day to keep her focused and posting regularly. I am borrowing that idea! Here is my plan for posting:
Management Monday (this is a very popular thing to post about on Mondays, we teachers love alliteration!)
Reading Tuesday (I teach Scott Forsman, so most my posts will relate to that series)
Math Wednesday (We use Envision, which the jury is still out on, plus I am wanting to try my hand a Guided Math and Math Stations, so expect lots of posts and questions on that!)
Pinterest Thursday (I am so addicted to Pinterest so I will post at least one thing I find each week, I may go overboard with this one! and it may not always be school related!)
Freebie Friday (This will be a tough one for me, but it is a goal. I will create one item to give away each week.)

So that's the plan! Let's hope it works!


Saturday and Sunday belong to my family so I won't post much on those days

Teachers Pay Teachers

So I haven't posted in a while, but my life is a little crazy right now. We are waiting on baby (who could arrive any minute!) and they still haven't gotten someone to take my leave. I am screaming inside, but I will keep it in since a scream from my classroom gets about 60 people running through my door. You would think I was having a baby or something! Anyway a friend of mine convinced me I should start putting up some of my stuff on TpT. It isn't super fancy with over the top clip art (which I love to buy!), but it tends to be effective and serve its purpose. I am excited and have two items so far. I can't wait to work on some more, right now most my stuff I am working on is to supplement our math, Envision. I like the idea of Envision but it needs some support! Any way, let me know what you think and I promise I will work on getting better at posting.