Monday Made It

Good Morning! I'm linking up with 4th grade frolics for another Monday Made it. I don't have too much to share this week. A lot of this week was spent cleaning my classroom and spending wayyyy too much money on shopping with friends!

This had to be #1 this morning. The past couple of nights have been rough. I haven't been able to stay asleep throughout the night because I have five million thoughts running through my head - mainly things I need to get done before school starts. Anywho, we used to have a keurig, but boyfriend wanted to buy a french press and try it out. We've never gone back!! Coffee out of a french press tastes so much better! I never thought I would admit that because I loved my keurig so much!

Last night I made these because I knew I was going to school today and needed new rules posters. When I was creating these, I decided to call them "classroom norms" instead of "classroom rules". I just think it sounds better to me than "rules". I love how they came out! I can't wait to put them up today - even though this will be a challenge since I am 5 feet and I'm planning on hanging these up above my whiteboard near the ceiling. This should be fun!

My friend over at Math Made Gr8 posted a pic of her classroom and I saw this near her desk. I HAD to have one! She graciously messaged me some links as to where to find one and I got this one off of amazon. I love this thing! And it matches my other cart that I already have in my classroom. It was definitely a splurge, but totally worth it because I can fit so much on the top two racks and have more room on my desk! And I put this thing together on my own. Boyfriend had a kick watching me even take this thing out of the box! :)

The next few pics are not part of Monday Made it, but I had to share because I was so excited about my deals this past weekend!

I.LOVE.THESE.PENCILS! These pencils are my all time favorite pencils! They are so stinkin' expensive during the school year, so I jump right on them when they go on sale during summer. These were $1 at staples and there was no limit! I cleaned their shelf off (shhh, don't tell anyone!) I was one of those crazies that waiting in the parking lot for them to open at 10am just so I could get to them first. Yeah, I told you I was a school supply addict!! Don't worry though Wilson peeps, when I went to check out, the manager was stocking the shelf with more! ;-)

Best deal of the weekend!! I dragged boyfriend all the way to Rocky Mount (it's about a 25 minute drive from me) to hit up the office depot the snag these deals!! The box of 12 mechanical pencils were on sale for 25 cents each with a limit of 3 and each inkjoy pen was also 25 cents with a limit of 3. With me and boyfriend getting 3 of each, I ended up getting a total of 72 mechanical pencils (6 boxes) and 6 inkjoy pens for $3.20!! Deal like this is NOT good for my school supply addiction! If office depot was closer to my house, I would go again! :)

That's all for now - I gotta head to school to work on my classroom! Until next time!

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Five for Friday Linky!

Good Morning! I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs for this week's five for friday! It's been one crazy week!

I made one of those teacher tool boxes a couple of years ago and it was looking pretty sad. I originally spray painted it pale pink, so you could see every dust particle and every tiny little scuff mark. I decided it was time for a face lift!

Yay!! I spray painted it hot pink and it looks so much better! Plus, a lot of what I have in my classroom is hot pink so it matches my classroom decor.

At my school, we have four new teachers coming in! I get so excited because I like showing them how great our school is. Our school is a family - everyone gets along and we all, and I mean ALL, have each others backs! So when I heard we were getting four new staff members, I asked the principal if we (the mentors) could get together a welcome gift.

And this is what I put together! It looks even cuter now because yesterday I found these stickers that represented each subject and I was able to individualize the bins with their subject area! I also made a teacher survivial kit poem to go with it.

It's not the best quality because i haven't printed it out yet. Some of these I borrowed from google and some of these I came up with. I hope they like it!!

I have slowly been working on my no name board and have finally gotten around to decorating the clothes pins. In the past, I decorated clothes pins by covering them with scrapbook paper and then modpodging them. That took a lot of time (for me, anyway), so this time around, I decided to use washi tape. Because I'm a total weirdo, the edges have to be completely straight or it will bother me to no end! So that's when I recruited the boyfriend<3 to cut the edges with his exacto knife kit (he makes knives as his hobby, have I mentioned that?)

I've always wanted to make some kind of business card or magnet for the parents so they can contact me whenever they need to. Last week, I took the time to make magnets! I figured it would be great to have my magnet on their fridge so they have my information. I used powerpoint to create it, printed them, and laminated them to make them sturdy. I then used magnet tape for the back and voila!

Nothing too fancy, just a card that has my info and planning time. Plus it gave me the opportunity to use magnet tape that I bought from a teacher store that was not very strong. Just strong enough to hold up something small like this.

And finally, I'll leave you with this snapchat pic I sent my friends the other day. Kramer always trying to steal my food! :-)

Tackling the Classroom

I've been working summer school all July long, so this past Monday was the first time I could actually go to school to work on my classroom. On Monday, I did more dusting and cleaning than anything. I forget how dirty everything gets when a room is unoccupied for so long. Not only was it so dusty, but apparently every spider at my school has decided to make my classroom home. Ughhh! Needless to say, I left my classroom Monday afternoon messier than it was before I got there!

Tuesday I wasn't able to work on my classroom because I had mentor training with NCDPI. When I was a first year teacher, my county assigned retired teachers to new teachers as their mentors for their first three years of teaching. Because of funds, they unfortunately cut this program. I was already a fourth year teacher, so I was lucky to have my three years with my mentor. But I can't imagine being a new teacher and not having a mentor there to help! I learned so much from my own mentor that has made me a better teacher! Thankfully, our county is now revamping the mentor program by assigning veteran teachers to new teachers within the school building. I get to meet my two mentees next week at a luncheon my school is hosting! I'm excited to be working with these new teachers!

Today, I was able to go back to school and work on my classroom again. I was able to do more than clean this time! I set up my tables and chairs (Every class I have will be over 30 this year because my hall will be a four person team). Because I have to accomodate so many kids, I have no room for anything! I had to resort to placing my student computers on my cabinets, next to the faucets (I'm sure I'm going to be told to move them).

My big mess!

This was a shelf that was left behind by a previous teacher. It was plain white and dirty from wear and tear. I spruced it up with some polka dot wrapping paper, then outlined the edges with bright green washi tape!

This is the bulletin board at the front of my room. Previous years, I have used this wall for school news, calendar, important info, and keeping up with absences. Because I really want to focus on vocab this year, I turned this into my words worth knowing board. Those sentences strips are laminated, so I can write and wipe whenever I need too. I made vocab cards for each section on powerpoint, but I figured I would be more likely to change out the words or add to the list if I wrote them with an expo instead! The words on this bulletin board will be the words we focus on in a unit and my kiddos will be required to use our WWK ISN template, which you can download for free here.

Here is the left side of my whiteboard where I section off for EQ's, standards, and lesson for each of my classes. It feels GREAT that I only have two preps this year!!!! 

Here is my unfinished data wall. I decided since my word wall is now my front bulletin board, I'm going to use my entire back wall for data purposes. I'm still thinking about how I'm going to implement this data wall. I THINK what I'm going to do is have this display pre/post assessment averages for each standard. I have two sections of 8th grade math and two sections of Foundations of Math II, so I think I'm going to have different color bars to represent each class and make it into a competition. I'm also planning on finding a way to show my class goals so my kids can see if they class has met the goal that I have set for them.

I've been looking around for examples of other data walls, but I find so many elementary walls. I'm teaching math to the entire 8th grade and it would be overwhelming to have every single student represented on the wall, which is why I decided to use it for class averages. For individual data tracking, I'm going to continue to use my data trackers from last year, which you can find in my tpt store. My kids enjoy coloring in their graphs and seeing how much they've grown. Plus, each of their goals are individualized based off of EVAAS, so a lot of them like to keep their goals private. I have math I trackers, 8th grade trackers, 7th grade trackers, and 6th grade trackers available in my tpt store! 

That's all for now! Until next time! :-)

August Currently...

I'm linking up with Farley for this month's currently!

Listening - It's been raining all. day. long. but at least it's cooling down outside. I'm just hoping that it doesn't get any more humid - for my hair's sake!

Loving - As previously posted, boyfriend purchased a color laser printer and I've seriously gone printer crazy. I'm creating letters and posters and magnets galore. At least the excitement is motivating me to get stuff done for the school year! ;-)

Thinking - I've been working summer school for the entire month of July, so I haven't been able to get as much done as I would have liked. We have make ups next week, but I have mentor training one day next week, then I'm helping with our new teacher orientation the week after. This summer has definitely flown by!

Wanting - I've been stalking the weekly ads trying to find good deals. I usually keep my eye out for glue sticks, pencils, twisty papermate pencils (my fave), and expo markers. I've stocked up on glue sticks and expo markers last week, but of course I can never have enough! My teacher friends and I are taking a trip to Raleigh one Saturday to celebrate a birthday and hit up all of the teacher shops! I can't wait!

Needing - Again, because of summer school, I haven't been able to do much of anything. Because of the workshop I have to attend and helping out at the new teacher orientation, I'll only have 4 days total to clean, move desks, and decorate before school starts on the 18th!

What about you guys? What supplies do you keep any eye out for or stock up on during this time?!

Secondary Giveaway!!

There is a secondary giveaway happening at The Language Arts Classroom! There is something for everyone! Visit their Blog and check it out!! Contest ends on August 9th! If you teach Math I, Math II, and/or Math III, you have a chance to win my common core standards poster pack!! A $7/150 + page item for FREE!

100 follower giveaway results!

Good Morning! Thanks to everyone that submitted entries for my 100 follower giveaway!! Because I was TWO (yay!) likes away from 100 on my FB page, I decided to pick TWO winners!!! And the winners are...

Yay! Congrats to you both! Please check your email! :-)

Next goal - 200 followers! I can't wait for the next giveaway! :-)