Superhero Themed

With the new school year approaching me very quickly; I am putting together my Superhero Themed classroom.  This year I am going to be moving up to 1st grade with most of my Kindergartners from last year (YAY!!).  

I began my journey by finding some basic classroom decor.  I altered my word wall set for the Superhero theme.  Although it is posted for Kindergarten I am using it for my 1st grade classroom.

Superhero Word Wall

I also created & found some fun miscellaneous classroom decor for my Superhero Classroom.

Name Tags

Classroom Signs

My student love any activity that is interactive and incorporates technology.  I created a fun "Signal Spelling" activity to go along with my Superhero theme.  

For this activity:

1. Print out the ABC mat for each student (I would recommend laminating also).

2. Make signals (I used yellow pipe cleaners)

3.  Edit the following slides with your words.

4. Project the slides and have the students use their signals to spell their words.

Signal Spelling

Summer Vacation

With summer vacation officially begun, I find it funny how many people come up to me talking about how nice it must be to have 2 months off.  2 months off?  When did a teacher ever have 2 months off.  I already have a laundry list of things to do.  This upcoming year I am moving from Kindergarten to 1st grade so I find myself with a longer list than usual.


1. Classroom Setup :)

Before summer even began I had to get my old classroom taken down and my new classroom set up.  

Lucky for me I had time during post planning to get this done.  This is a huge weight off my shoulders and one less thing I will have to do before the next school year begins.  If anyone knows any blogs or sites for 1st grade please let me know.

2. New Curriculum!!!

Moving up to a new grade level means a new set of standards and new curriculum.  I am looking forward to setting up a curriculum map for the upcoming school year and starting to find some outside resources for the new topics

3. Conference

This summer my CLO (Chief Learning Officer a.k.a. principal)  is sending me to the Renweb conference.  YAY!! trip to Miami.  After returning from the conference I am going to train the new and returning teachers on what I learned.


4. Fun!!!

This really should have been #1.  I am looking forward to spending some time with my baby girl over the summer.  We are going to spend much of the summer playing in the water and TRYING to stay cool and running some errands.  She will most likely join me by going into work every so often to do some little things over the summer.

5.  Read

The last thing I want to do is read the book my CLO wrote this summer.  It is about the public school system; the past, present, and future of it.

Classrrom Set-Up

With the new school year about to begin, I find myself struggling to get back onto routine of getting up before 7 am and getting my now 4 month old daughter ready for daycare.  However, before all of that begins, I get to set up my room and spend some time prepping for the school year with my other grade level teachers.  Over the summer, my room was made a little smaller :( so I had to rethink how my room was going to look.  

Here are some pictures of my room (and yes they are not done cleaning up).

After spending all day working on my room, I have to say that I am pleased with the outcome.  I have some last minute additions to add next week but those are small things.

My reading corner was the biggest challenge.  I decided to reorganize and label my books.  I found these really cute labels from Missing Tooth Grins and decided on her chalkboard labels.  After my books were organized and labeled I did a little decorating.  I fell in love with my new chairs when I saw them at Walmart.  I was getting tired of my old beanbags.

My students will also have specific leveled readers chosen for them each week.  These books will be placed in the red pocket chart.

I then moved onto my writing corner. This is a relaxing part of the classroom where the students can free write.  There is a word wall posted for them to reference to.  I love the alphabet cards I got on teachers pay teachers. 

Here are some of my storage areas of my room.

I have a few finishing touches left to do, but I am so happy with how my room turned out this year.

I hope everyone has as much fun setting up their room as I did. 

Back in Action!

     It has been awhile since my last post.  A lot has been going on these past few months.  My husband and I are expecting our first child any day now and we have been busy preparing for her arrival.  I have been busy preparing for my maternity leave.  Lets just say that it has been a crazy past couple of months.

     Yesterday and today my school had two 'snow days' in a row.  Now that I have all my maternity plans done I decided to make a few more "Match em" readers.  With the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday almost here, I decided to create a "Find the Gold" reader to go along with the holiday.

"Find the Gold"

"Getting to School"

"Big or Little"

One crazy month!

     A lot has been going on since my last post.  I had my first month of school.  I have a great class this year who are eager to learn (a teacher's dream come true).  I have had to differentiate my instruction more than ever this year.  I have some students on grade level; however many of them are above.  I love being able to challenge my students.  

     I am also trying to balance my work, moving in into a new apartment. and finishing my last two classes to complete my Masters degree in ELL.  Like I said it has been crazy.  Now that I am have a rhythm in order (or at least I think I do).  I hope to get on more often to share what my class has been up to.

    Below are two activities that I created as extension, or homework assignments, for a couple of our Social Studies and Science topics.  My students loved doing these at home and come back to school and sharing them with the group.  I hope your students enjoy them also.

Countdown

I have 2 weeks left until I got back to work to start pre planning and preparation for school to start.  I am excited to get back to work and start another amazing school year.  With the new school year rapidly approaching us, what are you doing to prepare yourself for the upcoming year? 

New "Match em" Readers

Well it is countdown to the beginning of school.  I decided to create some new "Match em" Readers for the beginning of the school year.   I tried this reader out with a summer school group of students; and they went crazy.  They love when I create new readers.Currently I have a freebie available on TPT titled "At School"; feel free to check out a fun new interactive reader for the beginning of the school year.  I also have a Color Bundle available.

The first new reader is titled "First Week of School".  This is a fun reader about some of the fun things that the students can look forward to when entering school.   The second reader is titled "Fall".  This is a reader about my favorite seasonal pastime, playing the the leaves.  I also created a reader that is focused around the different colors that are seen during this season.  This reader is titled "Fall Colors".  These readers would be a great addition to a fall unit.  

I had one follower who requested a reader with number words.  Well here it is.  This last reader focuses on the number of objects on each page.  

Well I hope everyone enjoys the new readers.  I know my students will.  Please leave me a comment with any topics that you might like a "Match em" reader on.