Homework Binder & Classroom Sneak Peek with a Tiki Hut

Hello bloggy friends! I wanted to follow up with one of the FREE products in my TPT store that I discussed here.  I actually "borrowed" this idea from another blogger {here}, but changed some things.  I am going to assign my students numbers at the beginning of the year, so I decided to use the number tabs so that students can't look at others. Also, I thought that it would help keep other student's information confidential at parent conferences. Parents obliviously won't know other student's numbers. Here is what my binder looks like. I am thinking about making the grey behind "The Dog Ate My Homework" a little bit lighter.

                                   

    

I worked in my classroom one day last week for a few hours. Here is a little sneak peek...ignore all of the clutter in the middle. I am dying to get up there this week to eliminate that and organize more! How do you like my Tiki Hut?! I am so excited about it and plan on using it for a shelf for student books, bell work folders, etc...) I am also going to set up a student work station with their own stapler, tape, pencil sharpener, etc... so that they don't have to use supplies from my desk. I am SUPER excited about this new edition to my classroom. Hopefully, I will have more pictures to post the weekend, if not definitely by the middle of next week. Can you believe that school is about to start?! We have registration this week and then a PBIS meeting after. So, basically school is starting! 

Busy Week & Phoneme Segmentation

Phew....it has been a {BUSY} week! My hubby and I painted my classroom this week and I am SO EXCITED how it turned out. See a preview below. Before my walls were the standard grey color and I wanted to SPICE it up a little this year so I chose Nomadic Desert by Color Place from Wal-Mart. I painted my built-in shelf last year Furry Ottertail {where do they come up with these names?!?}, so I went two shades lighter on the same color family for my walls.

**Terrible "after" picture I know...I will be posting more classroom pictures when it is finished. Our school is shut down for two weeks.                                              

                                             

   












These are the colors that I am using this year...what do you think?

Do your students have trouble with Phonemic Awareness? We have students that come to the middle school that still struggle with phonemic awareness or were never taught how to read using phonics. Our Special Education Department started using Language! by Jane Fell Greene. I LOVE it for the population of students that I work with. We saw HUGE growth and progress with the students and I couldn't be happier! Here is a little tool that I will be using with this program to help with phonemic awareness {I saw something similar on Pinterest, but I have adapted it slightly}. This little "gem" can be used in multiple ways, but here is what I am planning to do with it:
1.) Use each bead color for each sound in the word (students will slide a bead to the left to represent the sound and then slid all beads back to the right to say the word. Example: /c/-/a/-/t/ students will slide 3 beads to the left
2.) Use each bead color to represent prefixes,suffixes, and roots
3.) Use to teach syllables

The best part is I got a BIG bag of beads for $1 at the the dollar tree and I had the string at my house so it is VERY cheap and I can make one for each child to have.


That's all for now...will post some "Pinspiration" projects that I am working on later this weekend!

Do You Use VistaPrint?

I am completely obsessed with VISTA PRINT!! In fact I have been BUSY creating stuff for next year all week long! For the past 2 years, I have went WAY {and I mean WAY} overboard buying stuff! They usually have a REALY good sale around 4th of July. I can't wait to show you what all I have been making. Thanks to Pinterest, my order will probably be doubled! What do you create for your classroom using VistaPrint?

Keeping up with the paperwork...

"Keeping up with the Kardashians Paperwork".  I have created this form to use as a quick reference for information about my students. At times, someone will ask what related services does the child get, how often, when is the IEP date, and the many questions that come along with Special Education. I would then have to find their file, find the information, and often times it took me longer than I would like to find what I needed.  So, I have created this to keep in my "Reference" notebook that stays on my desk.
I have included information that I have on two other forms to help consolidate and eliminate some redundant paperwork. The parenthesis behind the eligibility is used to notate the sub-category & the parenthesis behind the related services will be used to keep track of frequency. I will also use this as a check-off when the annual IEP, ESY, and Re-Eval (if needed) meetings have been held.
How do you keep track of your students and all of the paperwork that follows them?
Students at a Glance

Wowzers!

As you can see, I have been M.I.A. in other words, trying to squeeze in a last minute vacay! We start school Monday...AHHHHHH!!! My room is almost ready, in fact, I am heading up there when the hubs gets home. I will take pictures and upload them before the weekend so be on the look out. I am SUPER pumped how my room has turned out! Anyway, I am now back to blogging. Only 29 more followers until our first giveaway!

Yay! Halfway to 100! & My Dollar Tree Find

When I get 100 followers, I will have a giveaway for a giftcard from this place:

When I was making my usual Dollar Tree rounds the other day, I came across pre-made templates and charts.  Here is what the multiplication one looks like.  I am EXCITED to use it because most of my students have a difficult time remembering their facts.  Have you seen any of these at your Dollar Tree? They also had the skeleton system and parts of a cell {animal & human}. I hope they have more of these.  I think it would be great for students to keep in sheet protectors inside of their notebooks.

This is a close-up of what it looks like. It goes all the way to 15!

Classroom Project

Here is one of my projects that I have created for my classroom. I plan to use this as a bulletin board around my desk area to hold pictures, notes, etc...

Feeling Crafty, Part DEUX

Okay, remember in the last post I said that I had another project that I had been working on, well here it is! Like I have said before, I am moving to a new classroom and when I went in there, the furniture left in the room was/is basically junk. So, I have been on a mission to find pieces of furniture that I can use/re-do to accent my beach theme. Here is the beauty that I found at the thrift store:

TERRIBLE, UGLY, HORRIFIC, yes I know! However, I thought this would be the perfect piece of furniture to "SPICE" up and it would fit perfect between my windows and my refrigerator would fit perfectly on it and it was super cheap because they had an overload of furniture.{that was totally a run-on sentence, hehe} So with ALL of that being said, there were plenty of reasons to buy it! I called the hubs and had him come load it up along with another piece of furniture {another post to come at a later date}. After many nights of sanding, painting, and updating the knob, here is what it looks like now:

What do you think about my first attempt to re-do a piece of furniture? It was fun and I can't wait to do more! 

**Feeling A Little Crafty**

Here lately, when the hubs and the bambino go to sleep, I have been working crafting on some things for my new classroom.  I like to put a lot of work into my room since it is "my home away from home". I can't stand to walk into a blah classroom. So anyways, I wanted to share some things that I have been working on.  First things first, I have to have something "cute" to put my pens and pencils in on my desk.  One of my obsessions is...PENS. I {HEART} frilly, foo-foo, pink, glitterry, sparkly, cutesy, girlie pens to write with! My students LOVE for me to grade their papers with them as well.  I was plundering through the garage and found an old flower, and this leads to my next obsession....SPRAY PAINT. Who doesn't love it?!? You can turn the crumbiest, ugliest, most boring thing into something MAGNIFICENT! I went to my spray collection and chose a pink color (I thought it matched the basket from previous post) and VIOLA, I now have a MAGNIFICENT pen/pencil holder.  Of course, I had to add some *bling* to foo-foo it up!

Hopefully, tomorrow I can get a finished product picture of the piece of furniture in my garage that I have re-done for my classroom. I found it at a Goodwill store for a low, low price and boy was it UGLY! What have you been CRAFTING for your classroom?

Classroom Finds

Like I have said in previous post, I am slightly changing my classroom theme.  I am going with a beach/luau theme. I found this ADORABLE basket at Hobby Lobby for 50% off! I HAD TO HAVE  IT!!

They FINALLY have their 40% off coupon so I will be heading over there this week to get some grass table skirts. I will be sharing at a later date what I am using them for...I can't wait to see how it is going to turn out. HAPPY SHOPPING!!