Just found this new great blog...

I just found this new blog, Queen of the First Grade Jungle (check out the button on the side of my page!). It seems I have found someone I can share my love of Etsy with... I think everyone can't get enough of that website!! Anyway, Ms. King is hosting a wonderful Etsy inspired giveaway here. Check it out!!

A bit busy...

I know the first weeks of school are always super busy for us but this year I feel like I haven't slept in forever. I am so looking forward to Friday!!! I had to get on here really quickly and share something so cute that my kids did today!
We have been working on short a this week and our reading book story was about cats. So we did a bubble map on cats and tomorrow we will do a little artsy activity but today we did the most adorable project that I had to share.
I have been meaning to read "Lissy's Friends" by Grace Lin and finally got to it today. The book is about a little girl who is new to school and makes origami friends. This is a great math, reading, and social studies book.

We talked about origami and then we actually made origami!! Believe it! I had 23 first graders folding paper (with the help of myself and my awesome assistant). It was awesome and the end result was so adorable!! I had to share before I hit the sack tonight...

I am so excited about how cute these little cats are and the kids were overjoyed when I told them I was going to hang them from the ceiling! I can't wait to see the final product. I am even more excited to be finding out that my kids can follow directions for making origami, and its only the 2nd full week of school. This is going to be a great year!!

p.s. I got the origami pattern from this website. Enjoy!

Still trying to get it together...

School started Friday and I am still not ready! We had major plumbing issues Friday and I wasn't even able to get back into my room until this afternoon. At least I got to get all my supplies put away--my reading table was completely full and stacked with tissues, hand sanitizer and glue!! It is cleared off now--thank goodness! My room is still lacking quite a few things, like a place for students to pick what kind of lunch they are having or a place that makes it visible about who is a car rider, bus rider or going to day care. So I made some tags that (after they are laminated) will have ribbon hot glued to the bottom and students names clipped on with clothesline clips. If you would like the tags, click here.

Here is a picture of what the tags look like:

As soon as I get these laminated and hung up I will update with photos... plus I think I need to add some photos of my room! Soon, promise!

Have a great week!!

UPDATE: Here are some pics of the tags I created. They turned out so cute!! Love em!

Advice Please...

So, I am trying to create my own planning book. I am doing this for two reasons. I took a class this summer about designing your lessons backwards. This is a more long-term way of planning but it is geared toward student understanding. It is time consuming but there are multiple benefits to using it. Because of how time-consuming the "backwards" planning is, I am not attempting it at this point! I do, however, think this is the type of planning that the new evaluation system (in TN) is looking for. I want to make sure I score high on the evaluations but I also want some of the benefit of "backwards design". So, here is my potential planning sheet:

Click here to see a closer look!

Now to the advice part... what do you think?? Will this type of planning give me enough detail for a good (or great) evaluation throughout the school year??

The good part is I can type these plans, print them out, then make notes on them if needed. Last year I just wrote in one of those books. I still have it but if I had it on the computer I might already have my planning done!

Please, please, please help me out with this and let me know what you think and/or any suggestions for making it better! By the way, I plan on printing front and back (tree hugger-ha!) and keeping these lessons in a planning binder-- see here!

Thanks :)

I know I said no forms...

So if you read my last post you know I am trying to be form-free on Friday (the first day of school). I just sent out my postcards yesterday so I don't know if I am getting a large response from parents on my website. I know I am going to have a few parents that probably don't have internet access though so I have created a quick and down & dirty form for parents the first day of school. If you want a copy, click here.