Grad school is kicking my butt!!

I am still here, I swear! I have had multiple presentations for my Masters the past couple of weeks and they have been causing some serious stress! You would think as someone who talks for a living (to 6 year olds) I could get up in front of some colleagues with no fear but I have been freaking out! Plus I have been working on my classroom (which is a whole nother debocle!)
Here is a little preview to first grade this year:

Still looks a mess but I love the way the bulletin boards turned out. Will post a better picture....eventually!

I have that one small closet in my room and threw this shoe organizer (like $6 at Walmart) on the back. I am pretty much obsessed with this. Although, I keep forgetting which stuff I put in there! I walked around for a good 5 minutes looking for a hole punch before I realized that is where I put it!

I was feeling so organized when I left school on Wednesday afternoon, thinking... when I get back from vaca I am going to be soooo ahead of everyone! WRONG!!!
Early Friday morning we had as the newslady called it a "gully washer" <-------- where does that come from? I couldn't stop laughing when she said that! LOL... anyway, it rained a whole heck of a lot and my classroom was ankle deep in a watery mess! What?! That was not a pleasant phone call to wake up to! I didn't go see the mess... I just couldn't bring myself to see it (plus I will about 40 minutes away and I wasn't driving just to look at something when they wouldn't even let me in the room!) Luckily, my mom lives 5 minutes away and she went and surveyed the damage. It isn't soo bad. Basically just have to put everything back into place after they clean and have to replace all my tennis balls on my chairs (which is more of an annoyance than anything!) After looking through a few other pictures I saw a crate full of bulletin board letters on the floor- can't remember if I left it there or put it on the table! I really hope they aren't ruined! (You know how long it takes to pop those things out and organize them! And I just added a new "font" that day to my collection!)

So, now I am going to go on vacation thinking about my room but I am determined to have a relaxing time! I am prepping my blog for a few days of scheduled posts and hoping I don't miss too much while I am away :)

About a month ago I posted this lunch freebie when I guest blogged for Natalie at Teachery Tidbits. I am hoping everyone was able to download, if you didn't catch it, here it is again:

I don't know about you, but at my school we have to send down a "Lunch Order Form" every morning, telling the cafeteria what our students are buying everyday. The cafeteria sends home a monthly breakfast and lunch calendar with 2 choices for each meal. Of course, we have kids that bring lunchboxes too! Since I have to keep track for the cafeteria, I came up with a way to take attendance and record lunch choices all at the same time.

Sorry for the poor quality... Cell phone pic!

I put all the kids names on clothespins and clipped them to a long ribbon right by the door. I made three choices for them: Lunchbox (brought your lunch), Lunch Choice #1 and Lunch Choice #2. In the middle of the Lunch Choice #1 and 2 there is a little piece of Velcro. I would Velcro pictures of the choices everyday on those spots. Each morning the kids come in and move their clip to their lunch choice. This was a very effective way of taking attendance and lunch orders without having to ask every morning. Does your school turn in lunch orders daily? If so, you're in luck!

A freebie for you today- my lunch labels and a lunch order form. There are 25 different lunch choices with 2 blank ones (for those unusual lunches!). Click any of the pictures below to get the freebie!

 

 
This was super easy to implement and a cute way to take attendance too!

Hope you can use :)