One more week. Yikes!

Hello Friends!

I have one week left before I get too meet my new first graders.

So it is now crunch time!

I have been busy at work in my classroom so I have a few pictures to share with you.

Here is my student classwork board

I am in love with it.  My friends over at Instagram helped me with the title and it looks amazing!

Here is my board with my phonics posters.  

After I got to school to laminate I realized that I was missing a few of them.  Ugh!!!!

Here they are if you are interested.

Just click on the pic.

 I have also been busy working on my Take Home folders.  

I love having this form of communication with parents because everything is all in one place.  

I made this in black and white because I can print it at school but I also have it in color for all you fancy people out there.  

Click on the pic to check them out!

The last project I have accomplished so far is painting my stools.  

They use to be a chevron pattern with white, black, and red which looked great with my Hollywood theme.

Since I am changing everything else I decided to spray paint these as well.  

They look great now just waiting to dry.  

I am headed to school on Monday and taking some final class pictures I cant wait to reveal evrything.

Have a great weekend!

 

BTS Sale and a little Giveaway!

Have you heard of the Back To School Sale!!!!!

I am so excited! 

I have so many things in my wishlist already and am adding more today.  

I better hide the bank statement from the hubby.  sshhh!

Well my little store will also be 20% off so just click on the pic to head on over and check it out.

I have hit a 300 follower milestone on Instagram and I thought what better way to say thank you than to give away a TPT giftcard.  This way you can do more shopping and not have to hide the bank statements like me.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Vacation, Classroom update and some freebies.

Hello Friends!

It has been a busy two weeks at my house.  So get ready for the rundown peeps.

Last week my family and I went on a little vacation.  We packed up the car and drove down to San Diego.
We went to Legoland and had a blast!

While in San Diego we enjoyed the beach.  We live in Las Vegas friends so whenever we get the opportunity to see the ocean we take it.  My boys had so much fun that I literally had to beg to leave.

                                  

Then we packed our little sunburned booties back in the car and drove back home!
We had a blast California until next time.

So the very next day I drove to school because I have issues and I stress about my classroom not being ready.  Like many of you do!

This my friends is what I found waiting for me.  My  husband put up my student work board before we left and my alphabet but everything else was a hot mess!!!

So I got to work!

This is my Birthday Bulletin board.

My word wall and color posters.  

(Im still working on uploading my word wall)

My writing board.  The punctuation posters are from my store. I got the writing center printable from A Cupcake for the Teacher.  

The writers eye printable are a little freebie that I remade from The First Grade Parade.  Just click on the link  or the picture to head on over to my store and download my updated version of the freebie.  

This is the front of my room.  I just love how bright and cheery it looks.

Alphabet line.  

Daily Schedule

I reached my first 200 followers on instagram so I made this little freebie.  Just click on the pic to head on over to my store and download.
If you are not following me already on Instagram head on over!

Back to School Soon!

Hello friends!

I know some of you are back to school already and I am sorry!  I still have a whole month left which is not enough for my never ending to do lists.

The first thing I needed to do was get my fabric for my classroom.  I had a Hollywood theme last two years so I had a lot of red and yellow fabric and I was over it!  So I made a trip to Joann fabrics and was overwhelmed to say the least.  After an hour or so of debating on fabric I decided on these:

I love how they tie in all my colors.  So excited to get my crafting on and attempt a curtain for my room.  

Next on my to do list was to finish my wardrobes and clean off the top because when I left school I literally just shoved everything up there.  So today I got up early and headed into my classroom to find this:

The janitors cleaned my room last week and moved all of my stuff right in front of my wardrobes.

What!!!!

So I spent an hour moving the desks out my way.  Not the way I wanted to spend my morning!

So I covered my ugly wood panel wardrobes with this beautiful wrapping paper. 

I know that there is contact paper out there I can use but let me tell you I tried it and I do not have the patience for it.  I detest air bubbles and they were popping up left and right.  If you have the patience then more power to you.  As for me I looked in the party supply section at Walmart and found this wrapping paper for $3 and I laminated it and mounted taped it onto my wardrobe.  No air bubbles and it was super quick to put up.  I just lined it with sparkly duct tape and voila I was done!

I redid my word wall as well.  

I love the pop of color.  

I redid my weekly drawers.  Look how cute they came out.  They are from Learning in Wonderland just click on the link.

The last thing I did today was update my table cubbies.  They were looking pretty boring so I decided to cutesify them.  

             

Today was a pretty productive day.  I will go back to school tomorrow and get some more done.  

Im trying to get as much done this week because next week my family and I are heading to Legoland.  

We are so excited!

Ok goodnight friends.

 

Back to the Grind and lots of Freebies!

Hello Everyone!

So I am back to school.  

I actually started last week and let me tell you I was exhausted!  

I literally came home everyday and I just wanted to crawl into my bed.  

My students are great this year but I totally forget how much work it is to set all your routines.  

Another exciting thing that happened last week is that my little guy started kindergarten.

Just look how handsome he is.

He was so excited to get to go to mommys big kid school.  

All I could do was hug him and be super excited with him. 

 Let me just be honest, I totally lost it when I walked away from the kindergarten playground.  

It so bittersweet to watch your little guy be so big now.  

Well anyways let me focus before I go down memory lane.

The first week we do alot of All About Me activities, classroom community, and routines. 

Its alot of fun activities to help us get acquainted.  

This is a free little superhero hunt we did last year to help the kiddos get acquainted with the school.  

Our school mascot is a superhero so it fit perfectly.

This week we are starting to set more of a routine and get the ball rolling.
We are starting our Math Journals this week.
The kiddos love these and they love to challenge their thinking.

Check them out in TPT shop.  

During Math we use Investigations and the first unit is all about number sense so we always talk about number lines and so on.  So I looked online for something good to intro number lines and I found a really good anchor chart.  Which didn't let me click back to the owner on Pinterest so if it is yours please let me know so I can give credit.  

Now I do not know about all of you but I don't have a lot of wall space to hang anchor charts unless they are made with my kiddos.  

Its prime space people so I have to make it meaningful.  

So instead of hanging on a wall I decided to remake the anchor chart so that I could display on my smartboard.

This is another anchor chart I found to help me teach sequencing.

When I clicked on this it took me to some crazy website that was not teacher related. 

Can I just rant for a minute.  I love Pinterest but sometimes its so hard to find the original owner of the work because they have been pinned and repinned so much that it gets lost in the mix.  

Ok focus!

Here is what I made:

I also made this to use this week.  

Just click here to grab your three freebies.  

This week we are also learning about Germs.  

Here is a little mini unit I made a while back.

Hope you can use it.

Now I am off to bed.

XOXOXO

Cindy

Back to School Freebies

Hello Everyone!

Before we get to the good stuff I wanted to remind you about my 100th follower giveaway. 

 If you haven't entered hurry up and enter so you could win $25 gift card to TPT.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

OK so now lets get down to business.
My kiddos don't start school until Aug. 26th but I am trying to knock some things off of my never ending to do list.
The first day is always crazy!
The kiddos are super excited and there are supplies still coming in and then you have the occasional tears ( sometimes from the parents, Ha!)
So I always like to have something waiting on the students desks to keep them busy while I take care of business.  I really like for the first thing the kiddos do to be kind of fun and easy so that they can do it independently while I am running around.

So this is what I came up with a little welcome mat.
click on the pic to head on over to my TPT store to grab your freebie.

I only made it from K-2 because I figured it was way to simple for the upper grades.  I have never really taught the upper grades so I don't know what you guys do on first day.  

I also have another little oldie to remind you of and its free!

I use these in my classroom at the beginning when I am introducing poems.  There is a poem for each letter of the alphabet.  I put them in a folder and we go through a letter every couple of days.  We read the poem and then I have the students illustrate it.  The next day we re-read the poem and highlight or underline sight words, short vowel words, or anything else we are working on.  As the year goes on I add different poems to the folder.  

The students love looking back at these poems.  

Hope you enjoy and I would really appreciate feedback if possible.    

I will share my first week lesson plans with you tomorrow.  

I know have to go play Legos with my little guy.  

XOXO

Cindy

Back to School Goodies

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to share with you some of the goodies I have found but before I get to the good stuff I wanted to share a new clipart set.

It includes 24 png beautifully colored images.  It includes the apple cycle, apple pie, Johhny appleseed, and more!  Definitely go check it out!

Since you are all so amazing I decided to offer a little freebie to go along with the apple theme.  Just click on the pic to head on over to get this freebie.  Please leave me some feedback!

Ok so now I have to tell you that the dollar section at Target is slowly making me broke.  Its sad when we walk in and my family drops me off in that area so that I can shop.  My son already knows mommy needs some time in her favorite area. Ha!

I love those dry erase pockets.  I can't wait to use them during reading groups.  I keep stalking the dollar section for more because they keep selling out. UGH!!!! 

I also got some super cute nametags for the first day because I don't know about you but I end up calling the kiddos sweety a lot because I can't remember their name for the life of me.  

I also stalked up on some tin cans because this year I am going to have communal supplies at each table.  Last year each student had a pencil case and they were suppose to keep their scissors, crayons, and pencils in there.  Well most of the year the kids couldn't find their pencils or scissors or they argued because so and so took their pencil and it was just a pain.  So this year they will just keep them in the the bucket at the table and done. 

I also got this really pretty fabric.  The chevron fabric I bought at Hobby Lobby and the other at Joanns. I can't wait to see them up in my room.  I will be going in on Friday so stay tuned!  

Right now my library is pretty organized but I have all kind of different baskets and it was driving me BANANAS!  So I found these baskets at dollar tree and I can't wait to put them in my library.  

I also bought folders! This is just one pile.  

Do you guys buy your own folders or do you have the students bring them in???

I had students bring them in one year and they were all different and I just couldn't handle it.  So I decided to just buy my own.  Why does Target need to put these labels on every folder!!!!!

So I sat and took these labels off while enjoying New Girl on my DVR.  I love that show!  I can't wait to show you the finish product of what I am going to do with these folders.  

Well I am off now to finish revamping up this unit.

If you already purchased it I will be adding a lot more activities and many more countries to learn about.  If you haven't go and check it out by clicking on the pic.  

XOXO

Cindy