Miss Alaineus & Dr. Seuss FREEBIE!

I have been looking forward to today for awhile now!

 I read this book with my students on Monday:

In the story, the main character, Sage, is sick and must stay home, and has to work on vocabulary definitions.  She is confused about the last word, miscellaneous.  She believes it is Miss Alaineus.  When she returns to school, she has an embarrassing moment where she discovers its true meaning.  At the end of the book, the school has a Vocabulary parade. 
After reading this book, what is a teacher to do, but host a Vocabulary Day in your classroom. 
What better day than Leap Day! 
Here are a few of my favorite pics:

By the way she really is a beauty queen. 
She has been on "Toddlers and Tiaras." 
She is so sweet.



A hobo with a knapsack!



Adorable lollipop!



Recycle bin!

The type of dance not the food!

So cute!!

I went as Miss Alaineus

And now for the FREEBIE!

I made a game for Read Across America.

I Have Who Has-Dr.Seuss Edition

Hope you had a great Leap Day!  Enjoy the rest of your week!

Emily

Upcoming excitement and tech question

I could not WAIT to go to school today.  (I am not a Monday person, so this is a weird feeling for me!) 
I was anticipating starting a new project with my students.  It is related to expanding vocabulary.  After sharing the project with my students, THEY were so excited. 
I will post about it Wednesday night with pics.

Then I have a tech question.  Is there any way to link a SMART Notebook file to our blog?  I am taking a class and wanted to share some of what I've created.

Check back on Wednesday!
Emily

Common Core Resource

Have you been learning more about teaching the Common Core?
Well we have. 
Last Friday was our February Staff Development, where we got these:



This one is for Language Arts.

This one is Math.

They are grade level specific. 

What's inside:
Grade level specific Standards
That's not all!

For each standard there are:
-Enduring Understandings
-Essential Questions
-Suggested Learning Targets (kid friendly explanations)
-Vocabulary

One of our staff members actually commented that Grant Wiggins would be proud of this tool. 
We agree!

If you want more info visit: http://www.qualityinstruction.org/

Antoinette & EmilyK

My Teacher Bag

I have been participating in the Clutter Free Classroom Project. 

This week is organizing your teacher bag.
For all my lack of organization in my classroom, my teacher bag is quite the opposite.
Every year, I get a new teacher bag.  Why?  I don't know. 
My latest teacher bag is this beauty:

It was a gift from my sister-in-law (a fellow teacher). It just happens to be thirty-one gifts.
I LOVE IT!! 
It has plenty of pockets, for pens and snacks.

Plus, it's POLKA DOTTED!!!  My classroom theme is polka dots, so this bag fits in perfectly!
The other awesome thing about this bag, is that it is wide enough to fit my organization tools.

I can't live without my expanding file.  All my to be graded assignments go in there.  I bought this one last year, my bag just happens to match, how nice!
Then my other expanding file for the students graded papers. 

It has 25 sections, one for each kid.  I send home graded work on Tuesdays and Thursdays in a "take home" folder.  So this works perfectly for housing them over the weekend, and their already sorted.

Here it is all packed and ready.  There are also a couple of teacher manuals and my lesson plan book in there too.

How do you organize student work that goes home?

Happy organizing!

EmilyK

Too Many Storage Containers...

I have been participating in the Clutter Free Classroom Project.
Ok.  I know that tag line sounds strange.  Can you really have too many storage containers? 
Let me clarify.  I have too many types of containers.  Here is the photo collage of them all:

I mean seriously. I didn't know I had this many types of containers until I took pictures of them all. Some were from "inherited" from retired teachers, others were purchased, and some are from the district math or reading series.  In taking these pics I realize that I may need to look into stream lining...
My fave go to containers are the following:

I have these everywhere.  I put all kinds of things in them.
When you need Sticky clips you can take the can where you need it to go.

For book storage:



These were a splurge buy.  They are great because they fit almost all sizes of books.



I love that these fit chapter books perfectly.

For folders and files, I started with these:

Then because I couldn't find those when I needed more I switched to these:

My advice is to go through your classroom and see how many types of storage containers you have.  Could you have some that you could change out for matching?  (I know I will be doing this step for sure!)  Also, in looking at the containers it is like a progression through my years of teaching.  As a beginning year teacher I bought containers (not enough) and thought they were great.  Then over the years I needed other containers to fit different needs.  I didn't really plan for consistency, and I ended up with a hodge podge of 20 different types of containers, whether I bought them or not.  I wish I had planned ahead.

EmilyK