January Currently

Well I've never done a currently.  What better time to start than in the new year?!?

Make sure to link up.

Listening:  Alumni here! So of course I have to support my school. :)

Loving:  Don't have to go back until Monday and kids don't return until Tuesday. 

Thinking:  I haven't gone as much as I wanted to during break...

Wanting: I did a lot of sleeping and "recovering" from last night so now I'm wide awake.

Needing: I'm trying a new idea for my math centers.

This last semester I worked myself to death.  Took on a few small part time jobs in addition to teaching. You can say I was worn out by the time Christmas break arrived. This semester I'm taking it easy.  So who knows maybe I'll actually blog a little!  haha

Blogger Exchange and Classroom Pics

Ugh, well like usual I got busy and haven't updated my blog in forever.  

Well first things first I've been meaning to blog about the blogger exchange I signed up for. 

I was so excited when my package came in.

Here's all of my goodies!

Brenda over at http://youmightbeafirstgrader.blogspot.com/?m=0 did an AMAZING job. 

Some colorful supplies to match my room theme. I use colored pens ALL the time. 

I absolutely love love love the owl folders, they are kind of hard to see but are super cute. 

I've decided to use the chevron bag to hold my CAFE cards. 

I'm already using the chevron things organizer and the owl notepad (you can never have enough of those). 

And I have to say I was most excited about the book. I read it the first day of school and my kids really enjoyed it.  :)

Back to School Blogger Exchange

I haven't been around in a while because there is nothing special going on to share.  Boring... I know!  But I just came across this Back 2 School Blogger Exchange and thought it was the cutest idea.  Not only do I love receiving gifts (especially in the mail) but I also love shopping for and giving gifts so I am totally in. :)

If this is something you are interested in go enter at Adventures of Ms. Smith's blog.

Here are the details.

Spelling packet on sale, a giveaway, a donation drive, and a pretty blue chair!

Lots of stuff to share today!

First up, my spelling packet is finally completed.

If your district is switching to the Houghton Mifflin Triumphs reading program that I suggest you go check out my spelling packet. Or even if you just want a to use that list of words.

I have two different sets. One that follows the extra review week after week 3 is here and the one that only has review weeks after every six weeks is here.

They are both 50% for the next 2 days. 

Next up, I am apart of my very first giveaway! 

I am giving my Daily Five and Cafe resources. 

Go enter :)

I just found this donation drive over at Learning is Something to Treasure. 

Her friend was in a horrible accident and is in ICU.

It is such a wonderful thing that she is doing for her friend.

You can donate $20 for $250 of product and help out at the same time. 

I started decorating my walls in my classroom and organizing my supplies. 

Here is one of my bulletin boards. :)

It also has little pencils that you write the kids names on and they move theirs under what they are working on at the time.

And my last thing for the day is this awesome chair I found at Target.  On sale of course. 

It is going to be my new "teacher chair" at the rug. Last year I just used one of the kids chairs. haha Not anymore!

Favorite Things Linky: Beach or Pool Day (And a preview for my spelling pack)

I'm joining up with Across the Hall in 2nd for the My Favorite Things Linky!

This weeks is your favorite things for a beach or pool day.

Since I live in Florida and about 30 or less minutes from the beach this is a fun one to me!

Here are my essentials!  I am a Thirty-One consultant and have TONS of products. These are a few that I love for the beach :)  Find them here!

I also have always worn sunglasses so I would not survive without them.  I am a flip flop girl and I love my reefs. The most important is my sunscreen. Since I am a redhead and fair skinned I would literally last about 20 minutes without my sunscreen. And even them I would be burnt!! haha

Setting up my room

Ok so I am changing my classroom theme a little this year. Instead of owls and brown and green colors, I am having owls with rainbow colors. And I've become obsessed with chevron like most people. So there will be a lot of chevron.

I went in yesterday to begin decorating my bulletin boards and start getting organized. I can't bring any of my bookshelves in yet since the floors won't be done for a few weeks.

But here's what I got done so far...

 My CAFE board :)

 These pictures are blurry, but you get the gist of it. 

These are all of my back wall.  I have 3 chalk boards and then 2 bulletin boards covered in black.  So it's a line of 5 black squares.  

This is one side of my room with my numbers from last year.  I don't know if I'm going to keep these numbers up since they are green and brown but I just don't want to waste them. haha!

One thing I'm super bummed about is that I don't have anywhere to put a word wall. This room is just WAY too small so I'm thinking I'm just going to add a word wall section to their OWL binders and have them refer to that while writing. 

If you have any other suggestions for a word wall. Please let me hear it. :)

Teacher Toolbox Trio

I am linking up for the...

1. An item I've made and can't live without is my...

2. An item I've bought and can't live without is Deedee Wills and Deanna Jump's...

My students just loved the writer's workshop. 

3. I am planning to buy the rest of Sarah's literacy centers. I own two different months but plan to have them all.  

Ready, Set, Show Me Linky Party - Week 1

I am linking up to JD's Rockin' Readers' Linky Party!  

This is my first time doing one of these so I'm excited.

I have already decided how I am doing centers this year.  I'm praying it works and I won't have to change anything this year. 

First thing is my reading block is only 90 minutes so it's hard to fit in everything that I want. 

I am using the Daily Five this year. I have used it in the past but not correctly.  This year I intend to use it correctly except with only 2 rounds of Daily Five since I won't have time for any more than that. Each round will last 25 minutes. Once the WHOLE class can independently complete each activity then I will allow them to pick their own activities for each round. 

I made this a few weeks ago for my bulletin boards. Click the picture to see it at my TPT store. 

I also REALLY love Sarah's literacy center menu's. So I wanted to incorporate these somehow.  I couldn't find a way to fit it into my reading block without making it too packed so I decided that I would make this my daily morning work.  When student's are finished unpacking and ready for the day they can pick out a center to complete. Each literacy center menu comes with 16 different centers.  So I will require (probably) 10 centers to be completed each month.  That way if they are tardy they don't have to worry about completing their morning work later. 

You can find her TPT store here!

I also like the fact that I'm not going to have to print out a bunch of worksheets for morning work anymore. And then try and find something to keep my fast workers occupied.

Don't forget to link up to the Ready, Set, Show Me linky party! 

Rainy here

It's been super rainy and gloomy here all week. Right now I can actually see some daylight. I wonder how long that will last. 

So I went in the start decorating my room earlier this week and they were working on my old classroom's floors... so I couldn't get any of my stuff out to move to the new classroom. Ugh! So I'll begin next week I guess. 

I just entered this giveaway.

It took a while but that's because she has 6 different packages that you can win!

Oh and I finally got my follow button up. I had no idea what I was doing haha. Still getting used to this. So If you're reading this make sure you follow me :)

End of the Year Awards

Hello all,

Two posts in one week? There must be something wrong with me... Oh yeah it's summer, I have too much time on my hands. Haha

Well I finished my end of the year awards.  I have suddenly become obsessed with chevron. So they are chevron and of course owl themed. :) 

Click on the picture to see it. 

And I'm super excited about this giveaway. 

Tons of clipart!

I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead in to school tomorrow and begin decorating my new teeny tiny room. 

Pictures to follow.

Daily Five and CAFE :)

So I've been a busy bee so far this summer. It's only been a week and I have accomplished SO much!  :)
Not only have I been working out a lot (my goal for the summer: to shed a few pounds) but I have also been reading, creating, and printing!
I was implementing the Daily Five in my class room this past year but never actually read the books.  I wasn't actually doing Daily Five correctly just the idea around the centers.  So I decided to check out the books from our school library and read up.  Well I skimmed through both books already and am super excited to use it "correctly" this year! Therefore I got to work creating all of the stuff for my bulletin board.
It took my forever but I finally came up with something that I LOVE!

Here is part of the CAFE board.  I am going to somehow hang the CAFE signs using ribbon or string! 

Click on the picture to get it from my TPT store.

It also helped me decide the color scheme that I'm going to decorate my room in.  Of course I'm sticking with my owls but I'm going to make it super colorful with my focus on the rainbow chevron. :)

A lovely gift

One of my girls got me a lovely gift today. She knows how obsessed I am with owls and brought me this owl necklace all wrapped up and labeled "to my sweet Ms. Handshoe"! How cute is that?

Spring Break!

Spring break is here and it is now almost over.   I must say I have really enjoyed being able to "sleep in" (minus my dog waking me up at 8:30 on the dot every morning).  Although, I do consider my "big girl adult sleeping in" to be 8:30-9:00 anyways. Only a few years ago in college I would sleep in until 11. Hah... not anymore...

Spring Break reminds me how much I love to craft because for one whole week... I actually have TIME for it!   So I finally finished my quilt that's been in progress since... oh lets say... September I think!  It came out super cute but I need to do a few touch-ups since I washed it and found out that I didn't quite sew the pieces together with tight enough stitches.  Oops, sure won't be making that mistake again!
I plan to post the pic when I fix it. (That is if I don't get lost in the classroom for another 5 months)

So switching from 2nd to 1st grade this year has been sooooo much harder than last year.  I was and still am having a hard time adjusting from the one measly year.   Or at least that's what I though it was going to be, just one year age difference.  Nope, it's a whole different ball game!   Well, after many many many different techniques for my math block I have finally come up with one that works well.  Go figure when there's only 2 months left of school I figure it out.  Same thing happened to me last year...
Well here's how I'm doing my math rotations.   4 groups of 4-5 kiddos; we make all four rotations each day. The first rotation is of course small groups.  I decided to combine our writer's workshop into the math block since we just didn't have time to get to it after, not to mention my kiddos have writing workshop down like nobodies business so it's a guaranteed 4-5 of my kiddos independent for 20 minutes. I'll take it.  :)   So that is one of their rotations, the next is their "rug" center.  Pretty simple they just choose one of the centers/games I have set out for them in their "rug" box and play independently or with a partner on the rug.   The next rotation was review seat work that I would go over with them before we began rotations.  Many times these would dry erase sheets or games to complete at their seats.  BUT I decided I want to have them begin a math journal for this rotation. After realizing how badly my kids weren't understanding word problems; I knew I had find a way to fit more in.  I dedicated some of my time today to create my first set of math journal entries.  I like the way they came out and I'm super excited to put them to the test next week.

Sooner or later I'm also going to make some kindergarten and 2nd grade versions. 

Whew! That was a long post.  :)

But one more thing, I'm really excited about this giveaway I found.  This looks like a really neat packet, my kids would love doing this. 

No portable?!?!

Just found out I actually won't be in a portable anymore.  

I've heard a few things. 1- they don't want the little ones to not have a bathroom in the classroom. 

And 2- the bathroom they were going to have to use for the portables sinks are too high for them to turn on the water.  I'm leaning towards the 2nd one since the room I'm going to be in now still doesn't have a bathroom. But the bathroom they will be using will have lower sinks. 

Any who, they should be ready by the end of the week so next week I will finally be setting up my classroom. :) 

Then I can post pics and such! 

Fall is here :)

Welp, it's looking like my portable won't be ready until the 12th. 

Here's to me hoping it doesn't actually take that long. 

I even offered to help paint it. haha! 

I am so happy that it's October because I love the fall. 

And I will have some time to do fall activities with my students! :)

I have to say I have been so blessed to be introduced to Thirty-One. 

I joined and became an independent consultant back in January and have been loving it! Not only do I make some extra money on the side but I also get tons of opportunities to earn free products. I just earned a kit of products in September and now I have another chance. Each week (for 6 weeks) we can earn a product in a special pattern.  

This week's product is the Timeless Wristlet which I have been wanting so bad! And since I am entering a party this week I'll be getting it for free :)

If anyone is interested in what Thirty-One is you can visit my website and/or join my Facebook group.

One of my previous co-workers is having an awesome ghostly good giveaway.

Go check it out. 

Portables

So I'm excited to say that the portables arrived on Friday and they were in the process of cleaning them out and strapping them down to the ground.  I'm hoping it won't take them long to clean them out, get all of the  new furniture in, and hook up the electric. I'm getting impatient and I want my class! 

The good news about waiting for my classroom is that I have had the chance to work on my PGP for this year.  I decided to do mine on writer's workshop and I'm pretty excited to get my workshop started. 

Joining the blogging world! :)

So last year I wanted to start a blog but with it being my first year teaching I just never got around to it.  This year I am determined.

Last year I taught second grade and I was just rehired last week at a new school teaching first. As of right now I'm just shadowing the other first grade teachers since our school is so full there are no classrooms to put me in so I am waiting on a portable to arrive. 
I'm getting antsy, I'm just so ready to put my classroom together and get my kiddos. Especially since I have so many great ideas that I want to use from Pinterest - yes, that was my professional development all summer ;)
It's looking like my portable is arriving on the 23rd and I'm praying that it doesn't need any remodeling (who knows how long that'll take).

I will be posting tons of pictures once my room is set up :)