Christmas in July!

Early last month, I found out about an opportunity to participate in a Christmas in July book exchange! Today, I received my package from Caitlin at Learning Ahoy. :)

In my package, I got two books!! I received The Naughty Fairy's Naughty Surprise and Snail's Birthday Wish!

I haven't heard of either of these books, and I love learning about new books to read aloud and add to my classroom library! Both of the books are SUPER cute, I can definitely see myself using them for Reader's Workshop mini-lessons, and I think my students will really love reading them over and over. :) Thanks, Caitlin! :)

I sent One Hundred Hungry Ants to Caitlin.

This is also a cute book about ants trying to get to a picnic. On their way, they rearrange themselves to try to find the fastest way to get there! I can definitely see its use for arrays, as the ants describe their 4 rows of 25, or their 10 rows of 10, but for students who aren't ready for arrays, multiplication, or division, I made an activity for Caitlin that asked the students to write a letter to the one hundred hungry ants telling them why they shouldn't come to our picnic! I can't wait to use the activity with my own class and read what the students come up with.

This was a super fun Christmas in July book exchange! :)

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Yay for Wednesday! It came fast this week for me.

I'm loving that I have been able to spend time in my classroom this week! I just wish I could have gone in earlier... but I definitely am making progress so I am feeling good about that!

I'm loving these baskets from the Container Store! There is an option to ship them to my nearest store, so I can avoid shipping costs, and I found a coupon code online that reduced my total by $10! Although I wish they were bright (as my room is extremely brown) I will just make my book basket labels colorful to make up for it!

I'm loving that the teacher before me left many good books in the classroom! I found many Kevin Henkes books and a few Skippyjon Jones books, as well as a TON of Junie B.'s!! This brightens my heart.

I'm loving that my next-door teacher friend came to school today. It was a big relief to go into her room and take a break every once in a while! Also we have big plans for our rooms - the kids won't know what hit them! I'm excited for her reading nook and couch!!

I'm loving that I found a rocking chair in the library at school that no one was using, and I asked my principal if I could have it, and he said yes! I was sort of looking for one this summer but I got too busy and forgot. But now I'm good! I just need to find some cute fabric to make cushions.

I'm loving my cute pupster. He got his hair cut today and he is cuter than ever!!

I'm loving that my library had Chrysanthemum so I can use it for the first day of school! I'm also loving that Mrs. M at The Techy Teacher posted a free name activity for the beginning of school! I am totally using it and she just made my day today. :)

And finally, I'm loving mi familia! My dad made my crate seats (I just have to buy fabric), my mom is just the bomb dot com, and my bro sat through me reading Chrysanthemum to him in the car on the way home from the library and didn't even complain! What a pal.

I had a question that I wanted to ask my teacher blog buddies but I totally forget now what it was... maybe tomorrow. :)

August Currently

Oh' Boy Fourth Grade is hosting a Think Write Share linky party about what we're doing currently! Here's my list...

After I wrote it, I realized that I didn't say how much I want one of Hadar's signs from Etsy! I especially want this one:

Also, I wanted to share a few pictures from my adventures in my classroom today. My goals for today included emptying out a few cabinets and file cabinets. I didn't get everything done that I wanted, but I definitely made a dent. While I was emptying one little cabinet, I found a huge stack of records. What this tells me is that clearly no one has cleaned out my classroom in like 30 years!

In that huge pile of books I shared yesterday, I also came across this old science book. Can I just say: why do photographers have kids make these stupid faces??

And lastly, when I was about to leave, I realized that I couldn't find my phone in the big mess that I had made. I ran to the office to call myself so I could find it, and while I was in the office I found my basket for next year, along with my next-door teacher friend's basket!! This made my day; I feel like a real teacher now!! Yay!

I think tomorrow I might try to tackle the library... wish me luck!! And link up with the partay!

First Day in My Room

My summer class is done (and I got an A!), so I headed off to my classroom this morning to see what needed to be done.

And let me tell you..... I only have two weeks until school starts and I have SO MUCH to do!! Holy mama.

A while back, I posted some "before" pictures to show you what my room looked like. Well, now everything is back in and I took some more pictures of what I uncovered in my adventures today. Here is the view from the door, when you first walk in.

I decided to go through the cabinets underneath the chalkboard on my one wall to see what was inside of them. I want to take the cabinet doors off and use it as my classroom library. Well, when I opened the doors, I found a BUNCH of crazy old reading books that were published in the 80s and early 90s. Here is an example of just one cabinet.

After clearing out all of the cabinets and going through the coatroom (and after talking to my principal) here are the books and materials that are getting tossed! I think this table may collapse before I get back tomorrow. Mostly this is 3 different reading programs, an entire science program, tons of things from old-school Open Court... and a lot of extremely dusty stuff that probably has not been touched in years!

These are all of the math manipulatives I found..... and I mean all. Looks like I know what I'll be asking for donations for...

And a special treat for you: creepy green people that are painted on my radiators!

I need to make a game plan before I go back tomorrow. I'm glad I have a few days off here so I can really work on this stuff!!!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I totally skipped last week's WILW... I had too much schoolwork!! But this week, I'm good. :)

I'm loving that this is my last week of my summer class!!!! This means I can start working in my classroom. Whenever I see people's classroom pictures, I get jealous. Now I can go!!

I'm loving that my local bookstore is ordering Growing Readers for me so that I can read it. Now that I have read both The Book Whisperer and Reading With Meaning, I am legit obsessed with doing a reading workshop this year. My awesome little bookstore will have my book by tomorrow afternoon, yeah!

I'm loving Ace Hardware! They have a dollar section that I didn't know about ... because I never go to hardware stores. I found clothespins for my clip chart and little plastic baskets that were way cuter than the ones I saw at Target. And all for a dollar! I also got a spray bottle because it was cute... and I'm guessing I'll have to spray something eventually!

 I'm loving Target because they sold $3 crates this week! I got 2 blues, 3 greens, and 1 pink for a total of 6! I cleaned one Target out and had to visit another... so if you still haven't gotten yours for your crate seats, you need to go now! I wish I had two of each color but I'm lucky I got 6 at all! I also got these caddies that I will use for community supplies!!

I'm loving my brother! He goes on my errands with me, keeps me company while I'm working on school stuff, and gets ice cream and dinner with me when we both need a break from home.

I'm loving my mom because she is helping me with my Making Words folders!! She is so nice.

What are you loving this Wednesday?

New School Year Resolutions

[Love Calvin and Hobbes. :)]

A new school year is starting (3 weeks from today will be my last summer day!) and I have made some resolutions! Here's what I'm resolving to do this year.

1. Keep a journal every day listing something that went well and something that didn't go so well. My student teaching supervisor recommended this to me and I think it's a great idea! It will be refreshing to read all the things that went well when I'm having a bad day, and it will give me a chance to reflect on things that I can improve!
2. Start and follow through on the Daily Five. I tend to get these great inspirations in my brain and then not keep up with them. I think the Daily Five framework will REALLY help my students, and I want to do whatever I can to help them become better readers!
3. Do all my grading/planning at school and go home to relax. I really like staying after school in the peaceful quiet to get things done, so this resolution won't be too hard to keep.
4. Celebrate lots of holidays with my kiddos - especially multicultural holidays! It would be easy to just do the next page in the reading basal or the next worksheet in math, but I want to expose my students to new things in my classroom! Figuring out how to use chopsticks for Chinese New Year, or creating origami for Japanese Children's Day, will help my students to see that there is a world outside the cornfields...
5. Keep my desk cleaned off! I am a piler, but I find that if I can just put things away as soon as I'm done with them, I can keep my desk clean. What a novel concept!!

What are your new school year resolutions? Link up with Clutter-Free Classroom to share!

Reading With Meaning

On Friday, I finished reading Reading With Meaning by Debbie Miller. If you're a primary teacher, and you haven't read this yet, you NEED to!

After I read The Book Whisperer, I was so inspired to teach like Donalyn Miller - but I don't teach sixth grade. I was wondering how I could implement similar ideas in a primary classroom. When Beth at Thinking of Teaching announced that Donalyn would answer our questions, I decided to ask her how I could make this work. She picked my question to answer and suggested that I read this awesome book. I'm so glad I did!

Debbie Miller lays out an explicit yearlong plan to implement a reading workshop in the primary grades. She writes about mini-lessons of comprehension strategies and includes real examples of student work. I think I showed about fifty people the student work... I was just amazed!

Probably the least important thing I took away from this book was the pencil sharpening containers she talked about. I, too, get annoyed by pencil sharpeners while I'm talking or while I'm doing small groups. My awesome coworker Ali helped me by making the labels for my pencil sharpening cans using pencil cups I got from the Target Dollar Spot!!!!

I'm so grateful to have read this book. Although I have to implement the new reading program that my principal just ordered this summer, Superkids, I am going to try to do a reading workshop also..... if I can find the time!