First Giveaway! and DIBELS Binder

I'm so excited to tell you about my first give away! April over at The Modern Teacher has agreed to give away one of her Teacher Planners to one of my followers! All you have to do is follow her Teachers Pay Teachers Store and her Blog, then leave a comment telling me you follow all three (my blog, her blog, and her TpT store). The winner be chosen on Saturday afternoon. Let the fun begin!

*Note this give away is over but you can still grab this planner, some coordinating labels, and notebook/binder dividers at April's TpT store*

   

 One of the planners you could win! She'll even personalize the cover for you!

Thanks, April for making this so cute and so fun!

Have you seen all of the Binder Organization going on in blogland and on Pinterest?

I'm itching to get my Binders ready and decided to start with my DIBELs binder. Our Academic Coach gave us a binder to use for administering the DIBELs assessment and I like how she had it separated by assessment types and types of progress monitoring. I decided to spruce up the binder cover and add some page dividers. Maybe having a cute binder will help make doing the assessment little more enjoyable. Here's a sneak peak at the cover and dividers.

 

Is this something you would use?  I think it would be great for any K-2 teacher who administers  DIBELs. Let me know what you think!

Sophia

My first giveaway and IKEA fun

I jumped on real quick to share about my Ikea adventure and find that I have over 50 followers now!!!!!! Doing my happy dance! I love my followers so it's time for my first giveaway! I'll be back later today to post about it (I have a few details to work out...) So check back later!


Yesterday my mom, my sister, and I all made a one day road trip to Atlanta to hit Ikea. We left at 5:00am and made it there right after the store opened at 10:00. All I can say about the experience is "WOW!" There was so much stuff to see! It's amazing what they have there and me being the teacher I am, I could only see how much potential everything had for my classroom. What teacher doesn't do that?

My first find of the day was the super cute Leaf Canopy!

I had to have 3 of them. I'm picturing these in the corner with bean bags and pillows under them. It will be an awesome reading area! Even I want to sit under there and read a good book!

My next find was a steal! How many of us have done this to use as book boxes or to hold journals?

I thought this was a simple solution one year, but I really wanted all of the boxes to match, which would be a huge project in itself by doing all of the cutting and gluing to cover the boxes.
Ikea solved that problem for me! They sell a pack of 5 magazine holders for $1.99!

So I bought 25 magazine holders for $10!!! You can't buy 25 boxes of cereal that cheap! These will get a makeover somehow...looks like I'll be hitting Pinterest for some ideas for how to make these pop:)

My splurge of the day was this beautiful table!

Right now it's sitting in it's box in the garage while I decide if I want to put it in my house or my classroom. It has a large drawer that slides out in the front so it could be a cute desk IF I decided to use it in my classroom. It's small so it wouldn't collect a mountain of paperwork on it. But it would also be soooo pretty in my bedroom as a dressing table... Decisions, decisions :)

Sophia

Planning Binder

One of things to do on my summer bucket list was to make buy a Calendar/Planner/Organizer thingy for my Planning Binder. I used a Planning Binder after reading Leslie's and Kristen's posts about their All In One Teacher Binders.
Just as I was getting really good at putting it off, I found a post about this planner that April over at A Modern Teacher created

Sample of a few of the calendar pages

Cover of April's Binder

OMG! It's exactly what I need and it matches some of my stuff already!!! Plus she will personalize the cover for free!!
This isn't just a calendar either- It has everything you will need for weekly planning including a place to record your Common Core standards for every week and month.She was a busy girl!
I bought it from her TpT store and started printing away (Thank goodness I refilled my ink on Monday!) But I couldn't stop there! I had to have the rest of my binder match (almost) the planner she had already made so I decided to use the graphics that I've been collecting and create some of the inserts for my planning binder and this is what I came up with.

(Don't know why this is so large-Sorry!)
(How do I fix this?!-It's so annoying!)



I need to add a few more pages, but first I wanted to know what you include in your planning binder. Since I'm moving up to first, I'm trying to decide if I want to include a section for grades? I keep all of my assessments for reading in my Guided Reading Binder (which will receive a make-over to match, ) so they will not live in this binder. Any suggestions?

Head over to April's Blog or her TpT store to find out more about this awesome planner!

Sophia

Freebies and Cuteness

Whoa! Huge Give away @ The First Grade Parade. Mrs. Carroll is  giving away all the products in her TpT store to 5 lucky winners!!! How awesome is that?!? Hurry over, you only have until Sunday to enter.

As promised here is another look at my "new" room. I was able to get a lot more boxes unpacked and put some fabric on the boards. Seriously, the orange on the bulletin boards was driving me crazy.I ran out of border to put on the big green board, but I don't mind a trip to a teacher supply store :)

                 Here's a view looking in from the hall

Looking back towards the hallway door. Those brown cabinets are getting painted this summer, too. It'll be a huge project, but it's  necessary in this makeover

I found some awesome printables today! And they are FREE!!! 

Who doesn't love that!?

I've been using the adorable calendars from Anything But Perfect since January and now I need to reload the ink in my printer so I can print out some super cute To Do Lists. You should totally go check her awesome stuff! I wish she could make me a blog template...

How cute is this sign?!?! And it's a free printable! And it comes in 7 over colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and light pink)! I found it on Naptime Delights today while my kids were napping.
You know it's going in my room in this bright pink!

And OMG! Just look at this cutie y'all! Hopefully we'll be adopting her soon... Keep your fingers crossed for us.

 Thunder is shaking the house, which means I should hear little feet running down the hall soon. I'll be back this weekend to share my Summer Bucket List :)


Sophia

Changes

Hello, Bloggy friends! I hate to admit that I had to abandon my little blog for so long. Life just became way to crazy, but now that summer is here, I'm ready to jump back in! Warning-This post will be long!

Have you ever known deep down inside that you were ready for a change? I began to feel that way as our second semester was slooooooowly moving along. I was getting unmotivated and overwhelmed as the days passed by. As my school year was winding down, I decided that I was ready for a change and decided to transfer to a new school and a new grade level! After 6 years in kindergarten, I'm moving to first grade! I'm so excited for this new chapter in my life! I've already met my new team members and have been stalking first grade blogs and pinterest for ideas to get me started. I'm actually nervous, too. It's a big change for me!

The bad news that came with moving was packing up a classroom with 6 years full of teaching stuff. You know all those things you buy because you might use them some day or because you were sure you had some of them already but can't seem to find them now? Well, I found them! Seriously, how did I manage to lose, buy, and lose again so many packages of die-cut letters? It took FOREVER to get my stuff packed and many, many trips back and forth to get my entire teaching career out my closet and into my garage.

The good news about the move is that packing up your classroom is a great motivator to purge! You learn just how much you REALLY want to keep something when you're trying to figure out how to squeeze it into the last inch of space in a box that's already jammed full. As my garage became too full to fit my car or locate my broom, I became desperate to get moved into my new classroom. Thinking about all of that stuff in my garage all summer was causing me some serious anxiety! I mean seriously, I couldn't fit half of my car into a two car garage!!!

Luckily for me, my new principal said I could move my stuff into my new room after the other teacher moved out two days after the students left. I was so ready! When I first went into my room, I was blown away! There was so much stuff in there from the previous teachers, that there was no room for my stuff! Did I mention the school I'm moving into is 50 years old? Think about all of the teachers that have taught in that room. I know I have found things in there that are older than I am!

So before I could move in, I had to do ALOT more purging. It. took . two. days.
Two long, exhausting days filled with dust bunnies, garbage bags, donations, and cries of "What in the world is this?" The whole time my three munchkins were there "helping" in their own little way (ie playing with stuff as I put it all away). But it was so worth it! I went in on Sunday (day 3), emptied most of my boxes, and then began something I've wanted to do in my own classroom for years-I painted it! It was a long process, but I love the color on my walls and my room is starting to feel like...well, mine.

Here's some before shots... keep scrolling for the after painting pics

*these were taken after I purged the room-under all of that stuff was a room in pretty good shape, it just needs a little paint and some elbow grease :)

First grade-View from the hall

Looking at front boards

Cabinets to the right of the front board  (gotta have my sweet tea from Sonic!)       

 I think the cabinets are older than I am. And those stickers have got to go! I'm thinking of repainting the cabinets while I have my paint rollers out...

Back of the room (my munchkins waiting to be pushed on the cart to get more boxes)

Back wall is finished!

 Oh my gosh! Look at that mess! I had so much to put back away after I was done painting...

More walls finished, more boxes in the way, but my nieces put the desks in groups :)

The awful stickers are gone and the cabinets are starting to look better

Front of room again with tables set in groups

Already looking better

Monday morning I was exhausted, sore, and still had paint in my hair so the munchkins and I decided to reward ourselves with some fun in the sun :)

 Tomorrow is my last chance to touch the room again before the end of July. Hopefully I will be able to cover those orange boards with some fabric and get some final stuff shoved into the cabinets. I'll post more pics tomorrow.