Currently September!

It's been a crazy week, and I'm glad I finally have the chance to update my blog!  I'm linking up with Farley for Currently September.

Listening: I love the Music Choice channels, especially the música urbana.  I always find new songs I need to buy after a little while on that channel!
Loving: I love shopping at thrift stores!  I've recently lost a lot of weight (and still going...), so I've run out of things to wear, especially to work.  Since I'm still losing weight, it feels wasteful to me to spend a lot of money on clothing that I would only be wearing for a short amount of time.  Enter thrift stores!  I love going to Goodwill, but the ones around me have pretty awful selection, so I usually drive out to Austin for Goodwill.  This morning I went by a thrift store near me (Texas Thrift, one of my faves!) for their Labor Day sale, 50% off everything!  I picked up 6 work shirts and 2 blazers for a grand total of $21.54 including tax!

Thinking: Tomorrow night is our Open House.  I like that we have it after school has started, so when I meet parents, I already know their child.  I'm both nervous and excited to meet some parents tomorrow night!
Wanting: This last week back has definitely reminded me of how important comfortable shoes are!  It's been really hard to find comfy shoes that are actually cute, so if anyone has any suggestions, please share!
Needing: I still haven't finished my powerpoint for tomorrow night, so that's next on my list...
Love Myself: I need to ramp up my walking.  Last week I walked 26 miles, and my goal is to hit 30 each week.  I have a fitbit, and I love how easy it makes keeping track of my daily progress.  I also want to look more "put-together" everyday.  I did really well these last two weeks, and I want to keep that momentum!  Finally, I want to try to cook more.  I don't eat out  much, but I don't do much real cooking either.  It's time to start using some of those awesome recipe pins I've been hoarding!

I have really enjoyed meeting all of my new students this last week.  The best part of my week was playing I have Who has with Spanish greetings and seeing how excited and motivated they were, encouraging each other and cheering when they heard their time.  It was one of the highlights of my career!  I am so excited for what this year will bring!

How did your week go?

My Monday Made It on Sunday

Happy Sunday, everyone!
I'm excited to link up again with Tara for Monday Made It!

I don't have nearly as much to share with y'all as last time, but I'm still pretty proud of my Made-Its this week.

I already shared my blank bulletin boards with you here, and here's how they turned out:

the left side (top is my color posters and bottom is an "about me" mini-board.  My students love to look at this, especially the pictures)

the whole board (for now, the right half is only announcements, but that will probably be changed out every month or so for a themed board)

I jumped on the "Copy, Grade, File" bandwagon.  There are so many cute options out there, but mine had to match my other drawers (of course!).  Click on the picture above if you would like to download my version.
I shared my manipulatives drawers a few weeks back and I wanted to show you how everything turned out.

Since I'm only teaching level one, I decided to only keep my Spanish 1 resources in the drawers.  If/when I teach level two again, I'll probably buy more drawers so that I can keep each level separate.

I'm in love with my new calendar!  It's velcro so it's easy to switch out.  I glued the days of the week to the poster board, as well as the border, and then laminated it.  I used the black velcro dots to hold each card.  I also made some other cards (exam, no school, early out, etc) to hang when appropriate.  Each month card has a matching piece of clip art (all clip art was purchased through the Silhouette Design Studio software).  I'm really excited to get to use this!

My last Made-It is a set of posters I made that correspond to the first set of vocabulary we study, Classroom Survival Phrases.  I used a chevron background (shocking, I know!) in my same bright colors so it coordinates with everything else in my room.  I'm planning on covering these with butcher block paper when they take their quiz over them.  I'm not sure how long I will keep these up, since I really like how they brighten up that wall.

I'm getting so excited to start the school year and meet all of my kids this year!  Our first day of in-service is this Friday, so I still have a few days off to tweak my set-up, finish up my plans, and relax before the big day.  I'm sure a few of you start back tomorrow, so good luck!  For those of you who still have a little more time, what do you have left to finish?

August Currently and Bulletin Boards That POP!

Good morning everyone!  I'm really excited to share my favorite bulletin board tips, but first I'm linking up with Farley for her Currently August linky.

Listening: I love Pandora, and I've been hooked on their Pop Workout station lately.  I love to work out to it, but it's also great for cleaning the house and working in the classroom.  I love how it gets me moving!

Loving: This one's pretty self-explanatory.  Since I've been out of the classroom since Thanksgiving, I've had a ton of time to plan and think about this coming year and what I want to do differently (or more!).  I've been so busy designing games and task cards to use with my new kids, and I'm so excited to see all of that hard work pay off.  I love when we're doing an educational activity, and they say how fun it is, or beg to play it again (I know everything can't be fun, but fun definitely has its place in the classroom.  If something can be fun and still educational, why wouldn't I want to make it fun?).

Thinking: I still have so much to do!  Thankfully, my mom drove up last night and she's going to be helping me work in my room today.  I still have quite a bit of stuff to move into my room from the garage, and she brought the truck, so we will be super busy today!  I love that she's able to come up and help.  It really makes everything so much easier :)

Wanting: Who doesn't want magical elves??  And if they bring me smoothies, too?  Sign me up!

Needing: I love these laminating pouches from Scotch.  I especially love how much thicker and more durable they are compared to "regular" lamination.

My B2S must haves:

1. 

A teacher binder!  Right now, I'm obsessed with this one from A Modern Teacher.  I'm just not sure if I want to shell out the money for her (beautiful!) version, or make my own.  I guess I need to decide pretty quickly!

2.

Like most teachers, I drink a ton of water every day, so I need a good water bottle.  Right now, my favorite is this one from Target.  I picked it up on clearance for $5, and I love it!  I don't have an ice-maker at home (boo!) and I love cold water, so my trick is to fill up one bottle completely and freeze, and fill the other up about two-thirds and freeze.  In the morning, I fill up the second bottle the rest of the way with water and I have cold water all day!

3.

My third must-have is a crock pot.  I love mine!  I usually prepare a few meals over the weekend and freeze them, so all I have to do in the morning is turn on the crock pot and throw them in, so I have a home-cooked meal waiting for me when I get home, and I don't have to cook at the end of a long day.  I usually freeze the leftovers in individual servings as well, so then I have my own "freezer meals" to eat too.

Now for my three favorite tips for beautiful and easier bulletin boards:

1. Use fabric for your background!  You can use a cheap flat sheet from Walmart or Target, or you buy yardage of fabric from places like Hobby Lobby and Joann's (both have teacher discounts and coupons!).  I have had the same bulletin board fabric for three years now and it still looks just as good as the day I purchased it.  The best part is you can throw it in the washer when it starts to look dirty and it's good as new!
2. Use push pins to hold up your background, borders, and bulletin board items while you get the placement down.  This has saved me so much time and trouble over the years because I'm sort of a perfectionist, and it will bug me all day long if my board is uneven.  Once you know where you want everything to go and it's all lined up, all you have to do is staple and remove the push pins and you're done!
3. Double up on your borders!  This makes a huge difference in the visual impact of your board.  Here's my favorite combo from this year:
   
   What are your tips for doing bulletin boards?
   

Monday Made It - Classroom Decor Edition

Good morning everyone!  I am really excited to link up again with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for another Monday Made It!

This week I wanted to share some of the things I have made to decorate my classroom.

I am in love with this banner I made for over my desk!  I was inspired by Maria Menore at Kinder-Craze and Leslie at Kindergarten Works.  I love how bright it is, and it really cheers up my little corner of the room.

My second Made-It is my spruced-up bookshelf.  There are so many of these out in the blogosphere, and I just had to try my hand at it.  I used this wrapping paper from Target.  I love how it goes so well with my colors!  I may have to find a different way to hold my dictionaries so that the back of the shelf is visible.

Number three are my little curtains.  I've had this fabric from Hobby Lobby for a while, and I finally got around to making the curtains.  I love how such a little thing can make my room look so much homier.  And I promise they're not really crooked, just my picture-taking skills :)

This calendar had been in the works for a while, and I finally finished it this past week.  I used a pocket chart from the Target dollar spot (it's from last year, I think) to hold the cards, and a pencil-sized drawer organizer from Walmart to hold the extra cards.  I am so happy with how this turned out!  I plan on having the date already set for the first week, and then having a volunteer do it in each class every day.

So I know these aren't decor, but I'm so excited to use these "clocksicles" when we do our lesson on time.  I laminated them so that they were dry-erasable and hot-glued the faces on large popsicle sticks.  I go the idea from Denise at Second Grade Ponderings.  She has a link at the bottom of her post to download these, but I couldn't get it to work, so I made my own in Silhouette Studio in 4 of my classroom colors (which are the same as my blog colors - can you say obsessed?) and had my Silhouette SD cut them out for me after I laminated them.  I also used my Silhouette for the name banner and the calendar.  

The last thing I want to share is a bought-it, but I love how well it matches my colors!

This is the $3.99 wall clock from Walmart.  I bought it intending to switch out the face, but I was so happy to find it in this color, I think I'll just leave it alone (for now, at least...).  They also had this clock in black, white, lime green, and hot pink.

What is your favorite classroom item this year?

Optimum Organization - IEPs and Mods

Good morning everyone!  I'm sad this is the last week of the Optimum Organization Linky with Fun in 4B and Ladybug's Teacher Files.  I've found so many great ideas through this linky.

Today I want to share how I organize my mods.  I teach high school, and I have around 150-175 students each year, with about 20-30 IEP and 504 students.  That's a lot to remember!  So how do I keep track of it all?

Click on this picture to download.  The formatting looks funny in dropbox, but it downloads fine.

I made a spreadsheet with different columns for the common mods, and I just plug in the information for each student.  I keep this in my gradebook for easy reference, and it has simplified my life so much!  I still have all of the students' sheets with their complete mods in a binder, but this helps me keep everything straight.

How do you keep track of your students' mods?

Decorating the Classroom and a Freebie

Good evening everyone!  I'm linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for my Monday Wednesday Made It at the end of this post.

I stopped by my school yesterday and got the go ahead to work in my classroom.  I am so excited to get to work on creating a warm and inviting space for learning!  I have a lot of organizing to do.  I had to have emergency back surgery last year right before Thanksgiving and I thought I would be able to return for the second semester, but my doctor wouldn't let me return, so I had to pack up my room in a hurry last year.  Now I'm going back through everything and weeding out stuff that I don't use.  I'm a terrible packrat and it's really hard for me to get rid of things, but I've tried to be ruthless and ask myself if I will really use this stuff.  No I've got three boxes destined for the thrift store and a table of posters, manipulatives, and books for the teachers I work with.  Here's a before of my (ugly) pink cabinet:

This cabinet is two feet deep, which makes it hard to use effectively.  Stuff gets shoved to the back of the cabinet, and then other things get put in front, and before long, it's just a mish-mash of stuff.

I'll share pictures tomorrow of my progress, but I would love to hear how you would organize such a deep cabinet.

Since I've been out of my classroom for so long with nothing else to do, I've been making things for my room and envisioning how it will look.  Here are some of my picks for my classroom this year:

These borders line my whiteboard.

I only have one big bulletin board in my room, and I line it with black fabric and then double up these borders for a really bright, fun look:

 

I was inspired by the name banner Maria Menore hung over her desk, so I created my own.

I also made two versions of a welcome banner to hang above my whiteboard.

Click on either image below to sign-up for access to my free teacher resource library, where you can download these banners.

What has inspired you this year?

Optimum Organization - How I organize my digital files and unit plans

Good afternoon everyone!  I'm linking up today with Fun in Room 4B and  Ladybug's Teacher Files for their Optimum Organization Linky.

I'm excited to share how I organize all of my digital files into my unit plans.  I found this post on the Creative Language Classroom's blog (check them out if you haven't already) a while back and I loved the idea (you can download their lesson planning template by clicking the link to their store at the end of their post).  I adapted their categories for my own classroom and ended up with this:

I love the way the standards are phrased in a more accessible way for students, and that it gives a concrete way to organize all of my resources.

The way I've been planning lately is by putting the plan into PowerPoint, typing in all of the resources I have, and then pasting them into the PowerPoint.  If it's something that's multiple pages long, I will add a link to the file in my PowerPoint so that when I access the file at school, it has all of the files I need for that unit attached to the PowerPoint (this does make for a really large file, though).

Here's part of my plan for greetings:

I love that I'm able to include all of the pictures I've found via pinterest, youtube videos, powerpoints, etc in one spot.  I usually print out each unit plan at school and put it into my lesson binder so everything is at my fingertips.  

How do you organize all of your digital resources?