Seven Days…

In seven days… my room will be bright, cheery, and ready.

In seven days… I will be nauseated the whole drive to school because I have First Day Jitters.

In seven days… I will begin the new journey with 16 (give or take a few) smiling (I hope) faces.

In seven days… I will get teary when I see my dears from last year walk down to second grade.

In seven days… I will be giddy with excitement and exhausted from getting up so stinkin early.

In seven days… I will lay the foundation for reading, writing, math, and friendships.

In seven day… it will be… the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! Hooray!

Yes, I am Nemo… Marlin will be played by my awesome husband (except I won’t jump on him before I leave…).

I am so blessed this year to be at my school for the second year. Here is where I’m meant to be, and I am glad I was lead here. But, I can’t imagine being in my room with other kids! It will be so different. Whoo… jitters.

Anyway, I hope you are excited (and a little jittery) to get ready to go back to school! Ready or not, here it comes!

Behavior Plans and Behavior Problems Linky

The Lesson Plan Diva is hosting a Linky Party about your management style! Lots of good stuff. So here is what I will be doing this year.

1. I have a board where we will be posting First Grade Expectations (instead of rules). I found this list on Pinterest from First Grade Parade.

I retyped them bigger and in lots of colorful, fun fonts. They will be going on a bulletin board along with the Wheel of Choice.

We will discuss the expectations and wheel during our first week of meetings.

2. Clip chart. I love the New Management Clip Chart because it allows students to move UP! I never liked pulling cards because you would just sit on green… no encouragement there! So I am using the clip chart this year- I made it more Penguin-ish to fit our Penguin Theme.

3. Pennies. Our first grade team uses pennies as rewards. I did the pennies last year (no clip chart) and I ran into a slight snag. After the kids traded in their pennies for a prize, they had none… SO if they broke a rule and I said, “Bring me a penny” they would say “I don’t have any.” And then I would be so stumped… So this year I am combining the pennies and clip chart. My focus is “School is your JOB”. They get paid based on how well they do each day. Even if they reach the very bottom of the chart, they still showed up so they get 1 penny… If they get to the top they get a bonus!

See the coins??

So each day at the very end of the day they get paid. On Thursdays they cash out for prizes if they want, or they can save up for bigger prizes. I am a very CHEAP person, so the first, and most attainable, prize is lunch in the classroom on Friday. They love it. It costs me nothing, so I love it, too! And I enjoy eating with them. Other prizes include erasers, pencils, little books, and computer time. I level the prizes so if they have an average week (all days on green) they can earn a prize.

4. Behavior problems. If I find the clip chart doesn’t work for a child, then we move them to a personalized plan. For one of my kids (who was sweet as could be, but couldn’t control himself till his medicine kicked in) I let him go to the listening center each morning til he was ready to learn. That worked for him. For others, they need a more immediate/stringent plan.

I use a behavior folder. It goes home each night to be signed. I section it off into time periods (15 minutes or maybe a whole activity. depends on the kiddo). We come up with 3 goals for them to work on. If they meet the 3 goals within the time period, they get a smiley. At first 50% smileys for the day gets a prize. Then after 2 weeks of consistently meeting the goal, we increase it. Here is a picture of my {amazing} mentor’s behavior chart. We use the same chart…

I don’t know why it looks weird.. technology…

Doing those things works well for most of the children. What do you do with yours? Don’t forget to link up!

Post It Linky Party

Create Teach Share is having a linky party about how you use Post It notes in the classroom. How fun?? 

1. Word wall. It’s the easiest thing ever to just stick a word up! AND I have found post its with sight
words ALREADY on them! So perfect.

2. Small group reading time. Students tally how many times they use a strategy,
 write down words they don’t know, anything we can think of.

3. tricky word reminders. If a kid is having trouble with a word, they’ll probably get a sticky note with
their problem word on it. They love to hold onto those and practice the word! 

4. notes to self!! about 10/day it seems  

5. Teaching parts of a letter- we put sticky notes on a brave volunteer’s body.
 Head for heading, hand for greeting, stomach for body, foot for closing…
Just to make a fun visual.

How do YOU use them? Link up here! http://mrsrojasteaches.blogspot.com/

Pictures Finally!

Today my mom, dad, and sister all came to my classroom to help me. They are crazy wonderful! I do NOT plan to redo this much stuff every year… But last year just moving in was a feat in itself and I had to look past a few things that bothered me. This year, its all the way I want it! Hoorah!

I have completely reorganized my:

library

art supplies

reading supplies

math manipulatives

bulletin boards

Does that make you tired, or what?

So, I am going to stop typing now and post pictures. They have captions on them. If its too small to read, just click on it and it will be bigger.

These first 2 are from last year.. I cheated a bit…

 

I hope you enjoyed this tour!

Penguin Theme

Well, I thought I could depart from the Penguin Theme… but I CAN’T! Being Mrs. Person’s Penguins is just too cute c: So I have decided I will “up” the theme factor this year.

Door- Welcome to our COOL CLASS! Iceberg and ocean with cute penguins all around- each with one of my firsties names on it! Pretty easy because all you need it white and blue butcher paper!

Line up rhyme- “Standing in line is easy to do when you take care of only you. Flippers are forward, wings to the side, beaks are closed. We walk with pride!” Last year my kiddos kept saying “walk with priZE” so I would always really emphasize the “d” in PRIDE! It became a joke that we all said “Pri-duh!” each day.

Class mascots- I have two stuffed penguins, Piper and unamed fat penguin (hahaha). I let the kids name the fat one c: Last year his name was Pencil.

Favorite Penguin Books- Tacky the Penguin series

The Penguin Who Wanted to Fly

Pink!

Where Is Home, Little Pip?

Behavior System- I am so excited that I (with help from my super creative and hilarious husband) figured out a way to theme my clipchart! It goes like this

Penguin Perfection

Fine Feathered Friend

Waddle On

Ready to Learn

Slippery Slope

Thin Ice

Parent Contact (husband suggested some really silly ones here… eaten by a polar bear, avalanche, etc…. haha)

I downloaded some super cute penguin and ice fonts to fancy up the chart! Right now it is in pieces on the couch… But tomorrow it will be hanging in the room! Whoohoo!

Theme

I am considering doing an Explorer Theme in my room... I have done penguins before, but I just don't do much with the theme. I decorate my door, we have a line-up rhyme that talks about flippers and wings, and we have some penguin mascots... Not an all out theme...

Our school is the Eastside Explorers... No one does much with that either, but I would like to, perhaps. I just don't know. I saw Abby's clipchart that she has made for her Rock n Roll theme. It inspired me to want to have our clip chart that way, too... But penguins just wouldn't work. However, Explorers would! We could start on Ready to Explore and move up to Eureka! or something similar. Moving down could be Off the Path or Lost.

What does a themed room need???

-door decor

-clip chart

-mascot If I did an explorers theme, we could be arctic explorers so the penguins could be the mascots...

-labels around the room "Explore a Book" etc...

-what else???

Anyone else do an explorers theme?

Library Organized!

This week I have finished organizing my library! Hooray for me. Hooray its over. I want to know how you organize your library! I also want to share pictures of mine with you, but I keep forgetting my camera... Oh well, next Friday I'll go in (after our Savannah vacation!!!) and take pictures.

So last year I organized by genre. I leveled nothing. I also realized I did NOT have enough low level books for my kids to be reading Just Right text at the beginning of the year. My friend/mentor Brooke told me she buys sight word sets of books from Scholastic with her bonus points. Genius! So I did too. I want to get one more set before school, and I'll feel good about the number I have.

First of all I went through all my books (feel like I am missing some...) and organized them. I have themed text to use through the year, my books the kids can't touch but I will read aloud, Writer's Workshop texts, and the kids' library books. I divided the kids' books into 4 piles- one for each 9 week segment. I put progressively harder books in each one, but some easier ones will carry over. This took A LONG TIME.

This year I am organizing by genre AND level. Our school library has dot stickers to represent levels, so I got the same. Orange is below 1st grade, yellow 1.0-1.5, green 1.6-2.0. Pretty simple... So I leveled all the books I will be putting out for the first 9 weeks. I used Scholastic's site and the AR site. I had quite a few that weren't in either data base, so I guessed!

So then I put the books into 7 groups: nursery rhymes, favorite books, Sunshine books, Orange level, Yellow level, ABC/Number/Color/Opposite books, and Dr. Seuss books. The groups each have their own tub- labeled with the genre and what level books are inside. For instance- the Dr. Seuss tub has yellow, green, and pink (above 2.5 level) books inside so the tag has a yellow, green, and pink sticker on it.

Now I have to figure out how to use the system.... I want the kids to have books on their level. However, I will have to figure that out for each child- we don't have the STAR test or any other assessment tool to tell us their level. I also don't want to discourage reading the pictures or retelling a story... So here is my idea.
1. For the first 3-4 weeks let kids get whichever books they choose-limit 3 books. After that, limit them to 2 books on their level and 1 free choice. I think that seems ok... Thoughts??