All set? You bet!

Well... It's finally here! It's 4:23..AM and I'm wide awake wondering if there is anything I've forgotten for the first day of school. Do any of you do that?? I get so anxious/antsy the night/morning before...not in a bad way of course. I just get so excited! I thought I would post some pictures of my classroom since it may not look the same after today! I hope everyone else has a fabulous first day!!

I saw something like this on Pinterest and went with it. Hopefully I can keep it up all year. 

My cubbies. At the top are all kinds of inspirational quotes I found on Pinterest. I was going to put them around the door frame but it made the door way too busy. 

My best of friends Mrs. Mosley and my classroom all ready for the first day. 

Love my rocking chair. 

Love this hanging helper sign 

View from my teacher table

Play dough is always great for the first day. It keeps the kids entertained while their new friends trickle in. 

The kids will choose a basket (1 dot basket when they finish math centers and 2 dot basket when they finish literacy). The baskets typically have two choices (games). 

My writing center. I'll take a more detailed picture later. So excited about it!!

I'm also excited about the white work boxes. My hope is to put differentiated work in each drawer for kids. 

Love my treehouse. 

Ending the Hiatus...

     Wow... Sorry about the very very long hiatus from the blogworld!

     I have been really really bogged down with grad school, but good news...I'm officially finished!  In a few short days/weeks I will be certified to teach ESL!  However, I still plan to stay in the classroom.  I'm just hoping my new degree will help me better teach all of my k-friends!  Other than grad school, I've just been trying to keep up.

     This past year has been a whirlwind.  I made lots of new friends, stood by while one of my best friends got married, and joined a new church.  I forgot what it felt like to really be involved and have a church family and I LOVE it!  I've been working with 5th & 6th graders...totally out of my element, but I love it!

     I hope everyone has had a great summer.  Though I have had a lot of schoolwork, I did get to enjoy a week at the beach with my family.  We got our class lists today, and I am super excited!  I know several of my new friends and can't wait to get them all together!!  If any of you are like me, you are probably gearing up for the school year and praying away for all those new little faces.  I wish all of you luck this year!

  Hopefully more blogs to come...

Halloween Fun

And FINALLY... here are some actual centers and other Halloween fun!

How many ghosts in the haunted house?

Unscrambling color words..I think they just used the word bank with this one. :/

Patterns

Number order...

This one was lots of fun!  They counted the dots on the tens frame, then counted out the correct number of bats into the vampire box and wrote the number.  Target had so much great stuff for Halloween!  Table scatter makes GREAT counters!

Roll the dice, count out the correct number, write the number and the correct symbol: <, >, =.

Matching number, number word, and amount.

We fed Frank the correct number of bolts and then filled out the tens frame!  So much fun!

Getting ready for our school-wide trick-or-treat with our vampire teeth!

We trick-or-treat with most of the lights of and the kids always manage to start howling like ghosts.  Once you get over 400 kids howling, it's rather loud...but lots of fun!

And More...

Here are more pictures of all the fun we've had over the past few months!

I LOVED this!  We read We're Going on a Bear Hunt and made this fun map!  I drew the parts for most of this and the kids cut them out.  Then the kids got to pick their favorite setting and add their picture of themselves.

A Pocket for Corduroy.  We counted our pockets and graphed them! So fun!

The day of our teddy bear picnic, we had a lot of fun "learning" with our bears!

We put them in order by size...

By type...

Eating our teddy bear snack....

Teddy bear races

The football players came to read during Read Across America Week!  The kids were in awe!

Rockstar day!

Sparky!

 A fun math game I made up in .5 seconds as a time filler.  The kids had to read the number/number word and find their matching partner.

Mike Artell came to visit and taught us how to draw cartoons.  SO fun!  They did a great job!

Lots of fun!

PTO program...

Getting ready for Superhero Day...what a mess!

My best friend! Don't know what I'd do without Super Shape!

Alphabet Woman and Super Shape

Waiting for the bike giveaway parade (on pajama day)

We have a wonderful community member who donates a bicycle every 9 weeks to a drawing for students who have had perfect attendance.

SO SWEET!

I learned this from one of my professors...it's called Wagon Wheel and it is a great way to review/practice/teach each other!

The kids split up into two even groups and partner up.  Then they tell each other something that begins with whatever letter we are focusing on or any other review question I may ask.  After a few seconds, they rotate.  The kids on the outside rotate and the ones on the inside stay still.  It only took them two turns to fully grasp how to "play" and they love it!  It's a great way to do informal assessments!

More Wagon Wheel

Pretty much un-school related... one of my kids from last year brought me cotton candy when she came trick-or-treating!  So sweet!