Teacher week is finally here!

Tuesday is our first day of teacher meetings. But it's not my first day back in the building, I've been working for about two weeks. I know crazy! But I really didn't spend more than a few hours each day in my room. I had SO many mister projects that I needed that time to fit them in to the misters schedule.

The misters biggest project was using homasote board. This board can be used as a bulletin board. It's real purpose is sound proofing. This picture is before I made it cute ;). It's the grey board next to the way to stinking big TV. I found some super cute fabric at Hobby Lobby that is grey chevron. I decided that all the fabric in my room this year would be grey. I have two. The chevron fabric on the front board and grey with white polka dots everywhere else.

Another mister project was to finally give me coat hooks! They are tight but I finally have somewhere for backpacks to be hung .Right now they have the kids everything bags hanging on them. At the end of the day we are going to hang them there. Last year I used buckets but I was never really happy with that.

We have a new school wide economy system (jury is still out on this working for me or not). And I created "wallets" for each kinder to keep their money in. I think they are SO cute!!

And the biggest news is that my BFF is moving to my school!!! I am so excited to be working with her again! I feel like our Kinder team is going to be the strongest ever! So I've been helping over in her room too. And so has the mister!

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All about who? That's right ... me!

Morning all!! This week is teacher week. I so hope to share each day of the week. Today's theme is meet the teacher.

I am the mom of two middle school babies! Where oh where did the time go?!? My little man is starting middle school and my oldest is in 8th grade... next year she will be in HIGH SCHOOL!! The mister and I have been married since 1996... yea I'm feeling old right about now ;)

I hold a BA in early childhood education and an MA in curriculum and leadership. It's still hard to believe that I completed my masters. See WAY back in the late 70's I was diagnosed with ADD. At that time NO ONE had a clue what it meant. Teachers didn't know what to do with me. I loved to create things but at the end of first grade I really could not read. Now the expectations back then were different but children were still expected read by the end of the school year. That summer I spent every Tuesday and Thursday morning with a retired teacher learning to read. I fell in love with reading and my reading tutor was AMAZING! She listened to me tell stories, read me stories, and helped me learn to read. She is the reason that I love loosing myself in a good book.

I love all things Disney. We get the chance to visit often and I LOVE it!! I also love Dr. Pepper. My mornings usually start with a trip through Sonic to grab a drink at happy hour. I am definitely at 21st century teacher. I love technology! I am self taught on many programs (like Photoshop). I love taking pictures and once thought that I would use my hobby to make money. Um... yea not an easy field to break into ;)

My school is amazing!! Our leadership drives teachers to follow their professional dreams. I LOVE it! Last year I begged to have the tables taken out of my room and my principal let it happen. I am really excited about what this school year holds.

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Facebook Fan Freebie

Happy Sunday! I know for me this is one of two Sundays left until back to school teacher week starts. WOW it's been an amazing summer. I have enjoyed every second with my children and hubster. We got to travel some, we relaxed at the lake, and I slowly worked on getting my school year put together. I also had some wonderful things happen here at my blog. I got a new look, a facebook page, and today I am announcing that I have finally figured out the world of facebook freebies! Go me!

I have added to freebies to my facebook page. One is the circle labels that I shared here earlier in July, the other is a set of circles that say "kindergarten is brighter with you in my room" and "you really light up my day". I made these to go on the glow bracelets that I found at Target over the summer. I plan on having some other freebies added there that will only be available on Facebook.... just give me some time ;)

I am working on a back to school unit. I hope to have it out by mid week. I need to get some pictures of the pieces in use to help with the explanation pages. I love that this pack is going to help with procedures as well as have activities for the first few weeks.

I also have a couple of make a match sets that I want to get uploaded to TPT and TN, and a new product that is a flat story type reader. But that one is farther from being completed.

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Dental Heath Month

Yes yes I know that it is WAY early to be thinking about dental health month, but Colgate is GIVING teachers kits!! Last year I missed out (read that as totally didn't think about signing up!) and that is not going to happen as second time. And since I love you all I want to make sure all our littles get to be part of this program. So what is the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program?

Colgate sends a kit full of teaching materials to help the littles know how to take care of their teeth. Then the icing on the cake, so to speak, is that each child gets a new toothbrush! I LOVE this program and missed it so much last February. Now that you want to be part of the Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures program head over to the website by clicking HERE.

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Little by little

So I shared what  my room looked like when I walked in on Monday. Here it is now... with a couple of days to work on it. This time I took my pictures standing at my back door. ;) Just changing it up a bit. So the big brown squares are our cubbies. Each child is asked to keep a change of uniform in a bag for accidents. We keep this in the cubbie along with "mail". And you see the back of my chart stand. Just on the other side of the cubbies is our whole group area. This area takes up the majority of our room. It's BIG time important in my little world. 

So this ext picture shows the dividing shelves that I have in the middle of my room. Pocket charts hang on the back of the shelves. I choose to talk about our tables as neighborhoods. There are two neighborhoods behind the shelves and one behind my chart stand. I dream of having a room that is a rectangle so that all three neighborhoods could be in a row.  

This is a great shot of the hex table that is behind my chart stand. It also shows the IKEA shelves that I LOVE! They are covered in stuff that will not be there. The bottom step is where we deal with folders. The pink drawer is where we put folders last year. I am considering changing it out to a white and green drawer so that I can have the kiddos change out the folder and homework. We will see. :)

This back wall is going to say "Read, Baby, Read". This summer I had the AMAZING opportunity to work with KIPP: Delta ELA (elementary). The teachers there were so inspiring. One of the KIPP chants that they do is Read baby read. I fell in love with this chant and plan on teaching it to my kids. It shows the importance of reading through a progression of phrases like "reading is knowledge" and "knowledge is power". I LOVE this!! So my little library area will now remind me of the hard working men and women of KIPP: Delta!

Alright for the next few pictures I walked to the front door. See my pink table?? That will be my writing station which goes on the other side of the TV. And the manipulative cart thing is no longer there. I've moved it. I am thinking about getting rid of the little table here at the door. It's been a writing station, sign in table, time out table... just about everything! But my pink table will be the writing station so I think that this one can go!

So here is the back of the shelves. You can't tell but it's that peg board stuff. I have hooks that hang my pocket charts. I plan to line them up from end to end!

And last... looking back at the reading table. I love having my area in this corner. There is a sink behind me... great for art projects that we do in small groups. The metal shelf is no longer up there... that is how I pack for summer.... stack up as much as I can.


Well there is a little tour of my room. I hope to have everything ready to roll early next week. I'm holding out for the fire marshal... he makes me CRAZY!

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