Starboard!!!

A while back, I mentioned that my principal had ordered some interactive whiteboards for our school and one was for me!

I now present my new best friend!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamazing. Before today I didn't even have an overhead in my class. This is a big deal in my life.

Basically we played on it all day in between doing stuff we REALLY HAD to do. Only Scholastic News games though!!! All CCSS aligned. :)

I haven't actually used the software yet that came with it (it's a Starboard) and it seems sort of confusing. I'll figure it out though!

Moving on, in first grade we are learning how to add and today we worked on number stories!

We were only technically supposed to be learning how to write a number sentence based on a word problem, but they really wanted to draw out the problems. Definitely doable!

Do you like our little chalkboards? In Scholastic News this week, we learned that "long ago" kids wrote on slates with chalk. It made me laugh because I have a whole stack of these bad boys in the closet and the kids love them!! Not to mention the erasers I made. :)

And last, today I gave the first graders an emergent reader that I downloaded from Mrs. Wills. They went crazy over it! Our reading program is designed to be very challenging, which is fine for my high students but painful for anyone who doesn't read way above grade level. My kids felt so good and confident to be able to read the emergent readers! On the back page, they had to write something that they like to do, and I felt really happy when saw this:

I like to gow to the porc! Otherwise spelled as "go to the park", haha. Anyway, I feel absolutely PUMPED that my first graders are applying letter sounds to write phrases!!!!!! I think Writer's Workshop is paying off big time!!

August Currently

Yay!

All right, back to school must-haves...

1. Storage - I mentioned in my last post that I traded in my desk for a desk that's more table-y. No drawers, just a flat surface with legs. So I need to find some plastic drawers to fill up with my stuff! I think I also need to just buckle down and make the teacher toolbox that everyone has made this summer...
2. My cousins - Kelley and Lisa came to help me last year with my bulletin boards and I really do not know what I would do without them! Kelley and I picked out borders last week and I am looking forward to seeing my whole room come together with their help!!!!!
3. Lesson plan book - Obviously I need a new lesson plan book. Although the Erin Condren planners are incredibly tempting... I am moving out in 2 weeks so I am trying to save as much money as I can! Last year we were given lesson plan books by my school. I didn't like them at all so I bought a different one but this time I think I am going to just suck it up and use it... because it's free.

I went back in to school today! I made a to-do list so I wouldn't forget anything. Do you think it is long enough?

I did cross one thing off - labeling all of our consumable workbooks!

Do you use a lot of workbooks? After labeling all of them it appears that pretty much all I have is workbooks!!

My principal told me today that he is ordering two interactive whiteboards and one will be for me! I can't even tell you how ridiculously amazing this is, as I do not even have an overhead projector in my classroom! I am not holding my breath until I see it installed and plugged in, but the word on the street is that we are getting Starboards.

Does anyone out there have a Starboard?