Decorating with Tape

Hey everyone! I know that I've been AWOL for quite a while. There's a good reason for that and if you follow my personal blog, Hodge Podge Moments, then you'll know the reasons why I've been away! If not, you can hop on over there and see what I've been up to or you can check back here in about a week for a life update! I will say that moving boxes and a wedding veil were involved in my absence. There was also a job hunt and a new classroom. I'm now in a fifth grade classroom, which is a big change for me. I just started last week and let me tell you that starting mid-year has it's own special set of challenges - including making the classroom mine! As I embark on the adventure of making this classroom into my own, I'll be sharing my DIY projects with you. Up first, we have a simple update that can be done with just one dollar!

I have several white board spaces in my room that I use throughout the day for different subjects. They were plain and I would draw lines to divide them into subjects on a daily basis to make the most out of them. They started out looking something like this:

The boards were less than appealing and my daily lines were messy. I happened to take a shot of the board after I erased it, but imagine crooked, squiggly lines with scattered work and you'll know how it looked. I am not very good at drawing straight lines, let's just say that. I also didn't like having to redraw my lines everyday so I set out to find a solution. Enter Dollar Tree and their great line of washi-like tape!

The first step for this organizing project (after buying the tape of course) was to draw out a plan. I knew that if I didn't draw out my plan in advance, I would miss a section that needed to be included. You can see my rough plan drawn on an index card below.

The next step was to put the plan in action. I used the tape to divide the board into sections. Getting the lines straight was the hardest part. (They still aren't perfect, but I'll keep fixing them until they are.) I love that this tape can be removed easily. After you pull the tape off the board, it isn't damaged and you can use it on the board again.

The last step was to add my headings. I wrote them up in marker today but I have other plans for the near future once I find the supplies needed!

After doing the front board, I simply had to repeat the process for the back board. I am extremely happy that all of my boards are now divided with colorful tape and every subject has its own section! This will really help my classroom stay more organized!  The best part? This project only cost me ONE DOLLAR!  I bought two rolls of tape at Dollar Tree and one roll was able to do three large white boards with tape left over! Now the question is - what can I do with all that leftover tape?

Washi tape is a quick and easy way to spruce up the different spaces in your house. It's a temporary upgrade as well, which makes it nice. When you're tired of the design you chose, you can easily remove it and change the look of your stuff!

How do you use tape in your home or office? Any suggestions for my leftover tape?

 

What Exciting Lives We Lead

This week I realized that this Saturday (as in today) would be my only free weekend day with no plans for the next month. When I told this to someone, they asked what I planned to do with it. My response: make teaching things. (In my defense, I will be out for three days in October and I'm trying to get prepared.)

I thought I was weird - taking my one free day and spending it on work. Then, I looked at my Facebook page and saw statuses such as "Loading apps onto the kindle for my students." and "Cutting out lamination." I quickly realized that I wasn't the only teacher spending a Saturday night doing work.

I wonder - why are we so willing to bring our work home with us and even do it on the best day of the weekend?  I have no remorse about how I've spent my day. I've worked on a monster-themed base ten packet, watched a couple of movies, and even taken a bubble bath. Bottom line is, I still did work on my day off. I'm curious - how guilty are you of doing work on your days off?

 

And now onto a linky...

 

 

Last week was very busy. I started organizing things in my classroom and working on plans for the upcoming weeks. I will be taking a Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off for some personal stuff. I thought I was getting ahead by thinking about sub plans. Then it dawned on me that I needed plans for the week after as well because my plane will be getting back in town late on Sunday. So, my feeling good about things quickly turned to panic. A little organization and a very happy Friday with my kids has helped my panic subside.  I'll share some photos of my organization adventures later this week. I am quite happy with how things are turning out!

 

Finishing up my fall packet certainly helped my panic as well. This packet has printable center games and activities related to fall. All items are common core aligned with the standard on the instruction cards!

 

 

Next week holds more sub prep and a baby shower for my sister. I'm sure to be a busy little bee in the evenings as I prep for both. I also hope to have my monster packet finished and uploaded by Friday!

  

Speaking of being out...would anyone be willing to write a guest post or two for those days that I am out?  If so, please email me at momentstoteach@gmail.com!

Wow! Thanks Guys! & A Freebie!!

So, I was browsing around bloglovin' when I thought I'd pop over to my Moments to Teach page and see how it was doing. On Blogger, I have about 45 followers, which excites me greatly! I'm beyond delighted to have gained so many followers in such a short time (less than 4 months).

So... Imagine my surprise when I saw that I was up to 117 followers on my bloglovin page!  I'm thinking we're due a major giveaway when I reach 150!!  Spread the word and help get that number up!

Thanks to each and every one of you that follows my blog.

Here is a freebie just for you!  This file contains some of the morning work activities that my kiddos have done in the first few weeks of school. I will eventually be bundling a bunch of these to offer on TPT, but for now my followers get 4 days worth for free!

How I use these:

First, I print them two to a page to save paper. Then, I run them front to back (ELA on the front, math on the back). Each morning, students complete one half-sheet. Early finishers are able to select from our early finisher activities (more on that in a later post!) I walk around and monitor their work, but do not grade these morning pages. (You easily could though if you wanted to!)

This week, I am trying out a new system - I'm giving them a set of these pages (different topics) for Monday - Thursday. On Friday, they are going to get to visit "silent centers." I'll keep you posted on whether or not this is a successful experiment!

So pop on over and get the freebie!  It contains 4 short a pages and 4 addition/subtraction pages.

Thanks for following and spread the word so we can celebrate with a giveaway!!!

Organizing the Chaos

Books are an essential part to the classroom. They are also one of the most challenging things to organize because there are so many of them and so many ways to organize them.

I have finally found a system that works for me and my kiddos and I'm super excited to share it.

I blogged about my individual book bins a little this summer. I didn't have access to my classroom so I had to improvise. I thought I'd revisit this topic now that I have real life pictures to share.

First off, I start by putting leveled books from our school library in the reading center:

Each basket contains one level of books and is tagged with the letter. There is also a letter in front of it to help kids put them back in the right spot.

So far, the kids have done great with keeping this area organized. The books that come from the library have a small circle label with the letter on it. This helps them put them back in the right basket.

Each kid gets their own book basket that stays in their cubby.

The book bin has their number on it as does their cubby. This helps them keep track of where the bins belong. You'll notice I used number words for the cubbies and numerals for the book bins. I did this on purpose to encourage them to match the numerals with their number words.

Each child gets to pick three books out at the beginning of the day from our reading center. They can do this during morning work. Then, when they have free time after working, they are able to get their book bin to read silently at their table.

We'll be adding reading beanie buddies soon to these bins and I'm sure that will excite them greatly.

The bins are simply ice tubs that I bought at Wal-Mart for about $2 each. I've used them for three years now and gave them a face lift over the summer with ribbon, hot glue, and card stock. They look great in the room now! These bins are super sturdy and have held up to the wear and tear of kids.

How do you tackle book organizing in your classroom?

A Crafty Oops

So, I bought these lovely new bins to hold the leveled books in my reading area. After getting them, I created letter labels to use on them. The labels were cute with black polka dots to match my room. Imagine my disappointment when the labels wouldn't stick to the curved handle on my baskets. Enter the problem - how to label my bins?

After much deliberation and searching through my craft stuff, I found these nifty scrabble-like wooden letters with a hole at the top. A solution to my problem was born! And I must say, I love the way my reading baskets turned out as a result. The end result was better than my original plan in my opinion!

You can see how I still used the black dot labels to help with keeping things in order:

An up close shot of the crafty solution!

Like I said, I love the way it turned out. I'll be posting more about my reading center and how I utilize leveled books in the classroom later this week!

Have a great week everyone!

Room Reveal!

 



I have so many things I want to blog about, but I feel a room reveal is in order first! My room and I survived the first week of school so I'm excited to share some pictures!

This is the before shot:

 

Our writing center. I will blog more about this and how I utilize it when we've started our center rotation. I decided to put it under the back bulletin board so that I can display student writing in the center, which is what will be on this board. Above it is my treasure map that shows the writing process.

This is the computer area - which will also be used for centers. I used dots on this bulletin board, which will soon show snapshots of our "First Grade Crew."  You can see my homemade bulletin board in the background. It's above my desk and I love the way it looks.

 

These little ducks added a little fun to our computers!

 

Our behavior chart found a new spot in the room. I figured it needed to be lower for my lovely firsties so I found a spot where it would hang lower. So far, it's working well!

Sign In table for Meet the Teacher night. I used my teacher table for this.

One of the crafty ships around the room. This project involved Dollar Tree bins, dowel rods, hot glue, and scrapbook paper. They turned out cute. :)  The inspiration for these came from the Schoolgirl Style website.

 

These were set up to show where their seats would be. I also included pens on the table for Meet the Teacher night because I always have them fill out an information form at Meet the Teacher. 

The updated book bins are in the cubbies! Don't they look great?

Our fish! He still needs a name. :)

Although I do have suggestions from Meet the Teacher night.

 

Some very interesting names...

 

 Cupcakes to go were a huge hit at Meet the Teacher night!

 

 A view of the whole room. :)

My number line finally put together and on the wall. You can find this product in my TPT store.

A view of our whole group meeting area.

Our birthday cupcakes. Coming soon to my TPT store!

I took an old bulletin board that was sitting in the classroom and transformed it into this:

Meet Mischief, our classroom helper:

And Anchor, our travelling buddy:

And Punctuation the Parrot - our writing helper:

The clips are stored in a ship and each morning, the students come in and put them on the chart themselves. It is taking a little while to get into this routine.

Their nametags were stored ready to find the tables. (I let them pick seats the first two days. Then, I started picking their seats - based off of what I noticed the first two days!)

Book bins were waiting for them to look at on the first day. They found morning work on their tables the second day.

A revamped mailbox. This was originally a small Valentine mailbox featuring Elmo. Now, it fits in much better!

 On the second day of school, one of my lovelies from last year found me, gave me a huge hug, and then handed me this HUGE shell. I almost cried.

She was delighted when she visited on the third day and I had the shell sitting on my desk:



 Well, that's the pictures I have to share for now! I'll have to get shots of the hallways display this week and share those. :)  I'm loving my room. It's gotten so many compliments, including one teacher that said it looks like a mini apartment in there!

Monday Made It & Limited Time Freebie

I'm going to keep this a short Monday Made It. I made more things than just this one, but all I have time to share right now is one thing.

We started back to school today, but I wanted to make sure I posted about this since I'm offering it as a freebie for a limited time! (This week only!)

Today, as I was sitting at my desk, I decided I needed something cute to label my bookbag hooks. This is what I came up with:

Head over to my TPT store and snatch up these labels while they're free!

While you do that, I'm off to shower and collapse into bed...

Word Wall

I've been busy all week putting together my classroom. I'll have an official reveal after it's fully put together next week. Meet the Teacher night is a week from today - you can bet the room will be perfect before then! (It's nearly there actually!)

Today, I'm going to show you something new I'm trying for this year. The idea came to me after a lot of browsing on Pinterest and I'm still not sure if I actually saw something like this or if I put several ideas together.

I'll start with the picture for those of us that are visual learners:

For this word wall, I created the letters using a cute font and circle patterns on the computer. Then, I took ribbon and used it to hang them on the wall. Mine takes up a good sized space in my room, but you could easily adjust the space that it takes by printing multiple letters to a page. As we learn new high frequency words, I will use a clothespin to attach them to the ribbon. This has been the first year that I've made a space for a Word Wall in my room. Normally, I use a portable version that stays in their writing folders. I'm excited to try out this display this year!

You can find the abc letters pictured above by clicking the link below. How's your room coming along? When do you start back to school?

I'm Not Ignoring You

I'm not ignoring you! I promise!  I've just been up in my room working a lot. You can see some of the progress in the pictures below.  More pictures and details to come soon!

Teacher/Small Group Area

Reading/Writing Centers

Tables and cubbies

Leading to the hall.

My first attempt at using modpodge (a homemade variety at that). So far, I think it's turning out cute. I've still got some finishing touches to add to it. That is an "M" by the way. I'm not sure why it turned it.