Classroom Reveal!

Yesterday was my 12th Meet the Teacher! I must say it was the hottest one I ever had. 

HOT. As in temperature,

We had no AC in the whole school!!

Yeah... I know! LOL! You cannot control these things and we did the best we could! 

I was so excited to meet my new babies this year in my new classroom theme: Under the Sea! I tried to create an underwater theme in my room without breaking my budget (which we all know as teacher is very hard to do!). Luckily I was able to reuse some of the things I already had in my room! It came out fabulous! I could not be any happier! 

My bulletin board outside my room. I do this board every year. Nothing fancy here! Just some bulletin board paper and imagination! I really love learning about oceans-- in fact it's a personal favourite of mine! It's a theme I usually do at the end of the year but since it's my theme this year, it will be one I will incorporate all year! 

Who knew these would have multiple uses??

I wanted my kids to feel like they were walking through seaweed so I just took leftover grass skirt material (I found them at the Dollar Tree! So easy to cut and made great seaweed.)

View from my doorway. Again, I cut up the grass skirts into strips and hung them from my ceiling. I realize that some of you may not be able to hang stuff from the ceiling. So sorry! 

My math focus board. I put some of the math strategy posters from my Math Strategies Poster pack. I do not intend to display all of them at once. I will change them as we focus on one or two strategies at a time but for now, I wanted to put "something" up! 

A view of my ABC line! I couldn't wait to put this up! It's part of my Ocean Decor set!! It's a combo of ocean and beach! Just brightens up my room! 

Number line and class rules! They are eye level with the kids when they sit on my carpet and serves as a great reminder for them! You can download my Reef Rules Posters for free here.

My class library-- "School of Readers". These fish are from Creative Teaching Press and each have my student's names on them. Too cute!!  I bought my net from Oriental Trading. I've had it for so long-- there are a few tears but I think that makes it authentic! 

Reading Counts Board. I laminated the point cards so that I just have to write on them and done! No more cut outs and moving pieces! You can download them for free here. 

Reading Beach Library

Isn't this fabulous?? I found the tutorial from Party City. It was super easy to do once I got all the pieces I needed. Several hot glue mishaps (may have burned off my fingerprints, too! ha!) and I love my masterpiece! 

A close up of my blow fish! Just took some lanterns and cut some fish parts. Again, easy and reused things I already had! 

I love my manta ray! You can't see it but it's hanging over my desk. I took some black foam board and seriously, just free handed it. I know-- I'm like that. I work off lines of symmetry and drew what it would look like (first on scrap paper and cut it out as a sample) and then I cut my ray one half at a time from the foam board. That's why you see some tape on his tail (that, and my little one broke his tail! LOL!). After I cut them out, I taped them together. I had intended for the wings to be uplifted once hung on my ceiling but didn't work out that way. I still love it! 

Finally, my team this year! I love these girls! I come to school every day knowing that I have true besties that work with me. They are like my sisters and I am so blessed to be with them! Could not ask for a better team to teach with. I love them! 

So, that is my looonnnggg classroom reveal! Hope you gathered some ideas for your class! School starts Monday for me! 

Have a great week! 

Back to School YouTube Party and Giveaway!!!

Seriously!! So FREAKING EXCITED! I am SERIOUSLY excited (and a little bit nervous) about this post. That would be my face!!

You see, my blogging friends and I at the Primary Chalkboard wanted to do something BIG for back to school for you.BIG I'm talking, BIG.We decided to throw a party. Here is a hint.

It's a YouTube Party! We are here to share lots of tips, tricks, ideas that would greatly help you this coming school year! Tips for DIY, decorating, organizing, and just good teaching practices to make this year a truly amazing one.

What about a giveaway, you ask?? Why yes! It's Huge! Major! You want to win kind of giveaway! 

We are going to hook you up with one of the following:

$100 GC to Amazon

$100 GC TpT 

Michael Kors tote

Personally, I'd love to win all 3-- too bad I can't! But YOU CAN! 

How? 

We have a series of videos for you each day of our giveaway. At the end of each video, we will give you a secret word! Each word is unique to us so you will need to write it all down. Once you watch  all the videos , enter the secret word from each tip to get an extra entry on our RaffleCopter.

So EASY! Get a cup of coffee (adult beverage, whatever you like!), watch, think about our amazing ideas (they are great!!!) and how they work for your classroom. Done!!  And look, we even made a check-list for you!

We will be linking up 5 new videos every day this week... so you can come back, watch, and enter every day!

I'm excited to share my video with you! 

So, now that you've watched, don't forget to head over to the Primary Chalkboard to watch more tip clips and gain more entries to the giveaway! You can come back every day this week to watch more fabulous videos and gain more entries! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Exciting!!! Good Luck!! 

Florida Blog Hop: Back to School Edition!

Hey everyone!! Welcome back!! I am so excited to be back with these fabulous bloggers to share some exciting tips and resources with you to help you get ready for back to school or if you are already back to school to help you in your planning. 

I am the

 Please stay along with us through every hop! There is something special for you at the end!! 

Today I am going to talk briefly about building number sense in your classroom. As you know, number sense is essential for building those foundations for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. We practice it extensively, like you do, in our calendar time through skip counting, 10 more/less, 1 more/less, counting the days, place value with hundreds/tens/ones, everything so that they know numbers forwards and backwards. 

Do you do math centers in your classroom? We have math centers incorporated into our math block to help build and foster these concepts for our students. It is great for working those trickier concepts with a smaller group than whole group.

I wanted to share a paid product with you that I created for number sense.

click on the picture to grab it! 

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- One race at a time! 

Number word cards (for display at centers)

120 charts (with color saver version)

Pit Crew Place Value Game

Ready, Set, Count

Winner’s Circle- I have, Who has

Build a Dream Race Car

Quad Races: 10 more/less, 1 more/less (with color saver version)

Race and Roll (+1, +2, -1, -2)

There are 6 Centers dedicated to helping your students master Numbers Sense to 120-- Once race at a time! There are games and activities built for independent, pair, and group settings.

As a little preview of my pack, I have a FREEBIE set that goes along with it. Please click on the picture to download it! 

I hope that you have enjoyed hopping along with us! 

Now here is the other fun part! Have you been grabbing the clues (If you need a reminder of what to do with each clue, click here! ) through our hop?? Be sure to join us on Instagram! 

Don't forget by linking up and getting all the clues, you can win these prizes!!

Here is your CLUE!!!

Don't forget to write down the letter from each of your hop stops! :)
Solve the mystery word and post a selfie on instagram with your answer!
Don't forget to add

#OrangeHop2014!

That way we can find you for the drawing! :)

Now onto the next stop, sweet Kimberly from The Learning Tree! You all will adore her! She is so FUN and CREATIVE!! 

If you want start from the beginning, please click on the "First Stop" below :

There's a HOP coming....

Happy Wednesday to everyone! :)

I am so excited to announce my second annual hop featuring some of your favorite Florida Bloggers! :)

Click on any of the images above to be directed to our Facebook pages for more information in the next few days! :)

Lots more to come soon! :)

The hop starts on Sunday at 12noon EST! :)

We can't wait to see you! ;)

Let's FOCUS here!

Ha! Must tell myself that ALL.THE.TIME! I am what they call a piddler, wanderer, absent minded... okay-- maybe a little ADD. Staying focused is sometimes hard for me, especially, now that I am almost back to school. I do not want to enter my classroom and see it so empty of children and life and worse--cluttered. That's when I lose focus! But I am not here to talk about me being focused!

Let's talk about FOCUS BOARDS! We all have them in one form of another. Do you have a 

word wall

data wall

calendar wall 

writer's tips wall

what is science wall

etc... you get it, right?? 

**by wall I mean some area or space designated to learning!**

If you don't have wall space dedicated to this, no worries, there's always magnets, clips, charts that you could use! 

SO, what a FOCUS BOARD?

1. Easy to set up!

2. Easy to change

3. Are colorful and inviting

4. You can refer back to your learning target in a large, visible way

5. Children will flock to it like moths to a flame when needed

This is what I had to work with last year-- still do...

I put Reading Counts points and Star Student of the Week. Now are these useful? Yes, but I wanted my kids to interact with the wall and content!! You cannot see my calendar wall, which is just as sad because I moved to a digital one on my ActivBoard but that was sad, too (sorry, no picture as I am still on vacation!). It just had shapes, months of the year, a 100s chart... Not much-- it really didn't convey what we were focusing in class. 

This year, I got smart (it took me a while! LOL!) and I started creating math and writing focus boards in my classroom. Those were two areas I wanted to work on hard this year! I am working on student data notebooks and there is that reflective piece that comes along with it! 

I created a focus board for math that would help students FOCUS on the strategy we are working on. I plan on setting this up instead of a calendar wall and making it a math focus wall. That way, I can refer to the one strategy we are working on and focus on that! Again, this comes back to that reflective piece-- when working on your data notebooks with your students and looking at their test and data, you can ask them, which strategy they used, did it work, could you have used another strategy? Kids just need that visual!  

click on the pic to grab it! 

I plan on just pinning sheet protectors up on my board so that I can exchange the strategy of the week or put them in as I need them. 

I also created a key ring set of math strategies that the students could keep in their desk so that when they are working at their seats, they can refer back to that. 

I hope to have some pictures of my finished math focus board soon! Not allowed in my classroom, yet. :-( Really excited to work on this with my students this year! And hoping I stay focused enough to get my classroom de-cluttered and organized!! LOL! FOCUS!!