Working In My Classroom

Today I started working in my classroom, and thist is what I walked into find:








So after about 3 and a half hours of work, it has turned into this:




I am not near done. Still have all my boxes to unpack, stuff to clean and then the best part DECORATE!! But I got a lot of work done today and will accomplish more tomorrow!! :-) I do feel better that I have started on my room.

Folder Games

So several days ago my mom and I figured out that Mardel's was having a 20% off sale. This is good news for a newish teacher. Well heck a sale is good for any teacher. Have you seen our paychecks? Well anyways....mom and I went and found a ton of good stuff. Mostly we found teacher books. But these arnt your normal teacher books filled with worksheets and reproducibles. No, these are books of folder games. And these books are awesome! They have so many games that hit so many good points for the things Im going to be teaching this year. So the next several days are going to be full of cutting and gluing these folder games together. And by days, I mean DAYSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I got 5 books full of folder games, 4 of the books have 10 games each and the last one has 16. So thats a total of 56 folder games. I know its going to be a lot of hard work now, but later this year its going to be so much easier when I am not searching the internet on sunday nights trying to figure out what my kids are going to do in centers that next week! I am going to have so much going on this fall that hopefully these resources are going to make my life easier! I also got a book called "Alternatives to Worksheets". It has some pretty cool "hands on" activities that can be used for anything you are teaching. I'm looking forward to being able to put all these things to use this year!

Also, I got to get my stacks of papers filed from this past year. All those things (aka lesson plans, worksheets, activities and such) that I had let pile up over the school year, I got folders and filed it all. This will also hopefully help me this next year! :-)

I had to go to school to get the box full of papers that had to be filed and got to see in my new rooms. It is a MESS. Everything is not even close to were I put it. I will hopefully start in on my room next week. I want to spend the rest of this week making the folder games and then next week I can take it all up to school and get going in my room. It is going to take a lot of work! I will post pics along the way! Hopefully this year my room will be more ready for the beginning of school then it was last year. My poor kids, I hope they make it in 3rd grade! I pray for them! :-)

End of Subbing

Well I am glad I got the opportunity to sub. It let me see that aspect of teaching from another point of view. I now know how important it is to make sure that when leaving plans for a sub, you make sure that all the supplies the class or sub will need is easy to get to or find. Each day I was there, I had to run across or down the hall for some sort of supply. Not that it was that big of a deal, it was just the fact that I had to leave my class alone, and go find what I/we needed. During the school year, I left my kids several times in the room alone. I mean when you need a bathroom break, you need one. But leaving kids that were not in my classroom all year alone bothered me. I dont know these kids. It was scary to leave them alone, so needless to say my sub plans will be checked about 100 times before I leave that day. Also, I need to make a good sub folder. Something that has got some good lessons in it if there ever is an emergency....guess I better get thinking on that!

1st day of being a sub!

Today is my first day to sub for a friend of mine while she is away on her honeymoon :-)
It is summer school so it is a little more relaxed. Wish I had known that, here I am in my "school clothes" and some teachers are in shorts! Ugg, oh well I will know for tomorrow! I am in a 5th grade room, but have 2nd graders. I am looking around this room and there are some things that she has that I have been thinking "hey i need one of those!"
One of those things would be a color block orginizer...aka glade wear bowls that she sorted the blocks into! She also has these really cute galvenised steel trash cans that are about 11'' tall and I want some so bad to orginize some things of mine. I have searched google and amazon and can not find them anywere. I think I am going to have to send the teacher an email and ask where she found them! Also, I need a 100's chart. That is something i need to pick up soon!! Well I have until 11:55 so I am off to try and find the cute trashcans! :-)

Welcome

I am new to the "blogging world" but I want to give it a try.

I just finished my first year as a 2nd grade teacher. I have been reflecting over the last year and am realizing what I did wrong, what I did right and I have been finding myself praying for the kids in my class that they will do well next year on the TAKS and just be successful in 3rd grade.

The last day of school this past year I moved to a new room. I am looking forward to making a new start in the my new room. I am hoping that in my new room, I will be able to be more organized, and I will be able to prove to those who doubt that I am a good teacher that I am.

Later this week I will be headed to school to get one single box. That box is full of copies of worksheets and lesson plans. My plan is to sit in the floor and file each of those pieces of paper. This way when I need something, I don't have to hunt it, I don't have to go ask to copy something, I have my very own stock of supplies. Also, my goal is to buy a book of folder games and get those colored, and made so that my kids can have folder games to play. I will be keeping this updated as I make improvements for my classroom next year.

I am ready to get started!! :-)