Extreme Makeover - Classroom Version

Here is one of the things I have been most excited to share!  School started on August 22nd, but I went back during the week of August 13th to begin setting up my classroom.

I was so excited that my tables were in and ready to use!  This was going to start my year off right. :)

There was only one problem....

The desks were still in there, so instead of arranging my furniture like I typically do this motivated me to clean out all of my cabinets!  It was crazy how much stuff I got rid of. :)  It's nice and refreshing though to have so much storage.

Another view of my room...

And another....this is one of the views of where I stand to teach from my podium with my document camera.

This is what I see looking out at my class every day from my podium

Prepare yourself... I even surprised myself with some things I put together! :)

I made my own pennant sign!! I was so excited about it :)  Sorry for the glare, this is on my window which faces the outside hallway.

And a cute sign for my Math wall

Then my pennants for my ELA wall

Here's the full view from the back of my room. :)  I got crates and put hanging files in them for my students to keep their notebooks and workbooks in.  My goal this year is to lessen the transition time by keep as much as possible near them.

Side view of my room facing outside. :)

Close up of my counter with my quotes in picture frames. I got that idea off of Pinterest :)

My Twitter wall!  I really need to get different sentence strips though... I just laminated them and taped them to the wall.  I haven't used it yet, still trying to figure out my new routine with everything. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? I was so excited about it but I'm kinda not sure anymore...

 The back of my class.  Yes that's a fish tank, no there are not any fish left... silly things died one after the other at the end of last year... during class!!!  I kept hearing "I think something's wrong with the fish!".  Thankfully they're 5th graders so we were able to kind of laugh about it since I have no clue what went wrong.  The pet store told me my water was perfect!  Oh well... :)

My AMAZING behavior chart (this will come as a separate post soon).  I absolutely LOVE the clip chart though :) and then next to it are my class expectations.  I have started reading about the Whole Brain Teaching and reading about discipline and the difference between rules and expectations.

My ELA wall with my standards posted as well as the steps to help the students in a lesson.

Well that's it for now! :)  Thank you for hanging in there with me. I appreciate it.  I will be posting again by Sunday, at the latest.  Let me just lead in saying that this first day of school was the best ever in 7 years.

Luv ya!

Sarah

Apology

I just want to sincerely apologize for the massive lack of updates here.  I have had a lot of personal and family things going on here.  With all of that I have been physically and emotionally wiped out, along with having to put on a happy face for school.  I'm sure A LOT of you can relate with me on that one. :)

ANYWAYS!!!  I am back and feeling good! My school year got off to a great start. I have a wonderful class and am ready to share all sorts of fun things with you.  I will be posting again to show you before and after photos of my room.

I really hope you stick with me and enjoy the upcoming posts.

Luv ya!!
Sarah

Freebie Friday... a day late

I know... it's late Saturday night... but better late than never right? :)  But then again I'm 2 days early for the Manic Monday LOL

I really think you will like my freebie.  I noticed that so many people were jumping on board the Organized Teacher Binder, but I had yet to find any binder covers that could be downloaded.  I decided to make my own and share it with all of you wonderful followers!

Here are the covers I made, click on the link below to download the zip file.

I used digital paper from aestheticaddiction. Be sure to check out their shop, there's some amazing paper!
The frame is from The 3AM Teacher.

Click HERE to download the zip file containing all 6 covers.

Enjoy! Be sure to leave me a comment if you liked them!

Don't forget to check out the other freebies at

    

Tell Me More Linky Party

I know I've only been blogging since January, and only seriously since June, but I wanted to join this party and share some more about myself. :)

Here we go!!

1. I am a MAJOR Geek!  I love reading comic books and watching all the comic book related movies.  I also love reading Manga (Japanese Graphic Novels) as well as watching Anime.

2. Seriously... I am just a kid trapped in a 29 year olds body.  I love watching cartoons.  My favorite channel is the Disney channel.

3. I LOVE to go to Disneyland!  I would live there if I could.  I've always dreamed of being a Disney princess there. :)

4. I love animals.  Back in May I had the joy of bottle feeding 4 kittens that were abandoned in my front yard.  It was a lot of hard work but totally worth it.  They are the sweetest kitties I have ever had.

 Here are my babies:

This picture is a bit washed out but here are there names going clockwise (closest kitty to the tennis ball) Trixie, Otter Pop (all stretched out), Mitzi, then Wolf (pure black).

5. In my spare time I like to read and also write stories. I have posted bits and pieces of a story I am currently working on in here, but am getting more serious about my writing.  I have participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for the past 4 years and have "won" the past 2 years.  Winning means that I wrote a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. :)

6. I love my pressure cooker!  I used to use the slow cooker all the time until I was introduced to the pressure cooker and found out that I could cook frozen chicken in 15 minutes!  I was blown away.  Now I'm addicted to using it. :)

7.  I am addicted to shopping on QVC... gotta love easy pay right? LOL

8. I am a newbie couponer and am proud to say that I saved $10.00 on my last shopping trip.  I was very excited about that.

There's part of my exciting life! :)  Be sure to go join the party!!

Awesome Week & Unsolved Mystery Update

Wow... this week has been so AWESOME!  

First off this week started with me going to see Demi Lovato and Hot Chelle Rae in concert with my cousins.   We were in the 3rd row from the front on the floor! It was so amazing!  Here are a couple of pictures I took:

Just a note... no zoom was used... this was how close we were :)

Then on Thursday I got to go with my cousin and aunt to the Batman marathon at our local theater and see The Dark Knight Rises at midnight!!!  Let me just say... the movie ROCKED!!!

 

Now onto school stuff.  :)  I don't officially go back until August 13th when I have training to become a Tech Teacher for my school site, which I'm very excited about.  So I still have a bit of time; however I'll probably be down at my classroom earlier getting things prepared.  My amazing principal is getting me tables for my classroom, so I'm excited to get those set up and ready to go.

I have been working on the Unsolved Mysteries project for class and so far here is a list of topics I have for their choices: 

The Chupacabra                Big Foot                 Mermaids

Loch Ness Monster           Lake Michigan Monster

Giant Squid                       Abominable Snowman/Yeti

Easter Island                     Stonehenge             Atlantis

Brown Mountain Lights     Crop Circles

What do you guys think?  Any other suggestions?  As soon as I'm done with this project I'll be posting it in my TPT store :)

I will be back on Sunday with another update then going to work really hard to link up with Tara again for the Monday Made It :)

Sharing & Unsolved Mysteries

Good Friday evening!

This will be 1 of 2 posts tonight because both posts are on separate topics.

I have had the wonderful pleasure the past two days to share all of my teaching procedures, lessons, ideas, projects, etc, with two of my friends who are moving to fifth grade.

Let me just tell you this now... I. LOVE. TO. SHARE!!  LOL  I really do.  I get all excited when someone asks me to share my thoughts and ideas.

Both meetings went so well that we decided to keep it up throughout the school year and keep exchanging ideas.  What was nice was that all of us had the same train of thought... challenge the students and set high expectations.  We had some great conversations and ideas going. :)  It was nice to get feedback from different teachers who haven't taught fifth grade.

I am so excited to see what happens during the school year and what they come up with.

Anyways on school related topics....

I am working on re-doing a project I did last year with two of my friends at work.  It was an Unsolved Mysteries project. The kids absolutely LOVED it!  Even my kids who were on a lower level were completely engaged in this project.  It was nice to see the kids getting to be creative as well as working together to solve a mystery.

Here's how it worked:

The Unsolved Mysteries were creatures or places such as Atlantis, Loch Ness monster, mermaids, big foot, etc.  Students were split in to small groups. The students then did a research paper drawing a conclusion if these creatures or places really exist. Not only did they have to do a paper, but they had to include evidence... this is where the creativity came in.  They had to provide pictures and "real" evidence.

I was amazed at the creativity in the evidence.  Students created scales and hair/fur samples of creatures and artifacts from places.  They didn't even complain about the research portion.  Each day I was asked if they were going to be working on their project.

Has anyone done a project similar to this?  Once I get it all spiffed up and more detailed I will be posting it in my store, so be sure you're following me on TPT :)

PS: Welcome to all the new followers!  I was blown away that I went from 25 to 42 followers in 2 days!!! You guys are awesome!!!  I am so happy you are all here.

Monday Made It - Teacher Binder

I have been waiting to be able to jump around 4th Grade Frolics Monday Made It and am so excited I finally have something!! After you're done here click the button above and go check out the other Monday Made Its :)

Right now I just have a school made it, perhaps there will be a house made it next week :)  We shall see.

Here is my teacher binder, inspired from 4th Grade Frolics binder.  I really loved how she had her's organized in just 6 tabs.

I created the dividers using digital paper.... How did I not know about this wonderful thing called digital paper!!  I have been on the internet for, like, ever and have been working with graphics, posters, websites, etc and never heard of it til reading about the binder.

The digital paper is from

aestheticaddiction

Frame from

The 3AM Teacher

2 questions for you guys... 

#1.  I read the terms of use for the paper, so would it be okay if I posted these in my TPT store for Free to help out other teachers?  I'm still new to all of the copyright and licensing. I was thinking I could since it will be free, but wanted to double check :)

#2   How do you post your website with the title in the comments?  I have tried to google for the answer and  have searched through my profile... but to no avail.

Basically I want it to look like this: Shutters & Scribbles

Not this: http://shuttersandscribbles.blogspot.com/

On a separate note -

I am so excited I get to take my sister-in-laws maternity pictures today!!  I have such cute ideas for them.  I have been searching for ideas, because this is my first maternity shoot, but all of them looked too... well... calm for my brother and his wife.  They needed something more lively and silly.  I'll hopefully be able to post pictures tonight after I edit some :)

Funny story... my sis-in-law is due on July 26th, but her doctor has said she'll probably be early.  Well yesterday she thought she was having contractions and I flipped.  "No! She can't have him today! We haven't taken pictures!" LOL  Yeah... real nice right?  Anyways, she has a doctor's appointment today so we'll be finding out more information.

It's very exciting... so far I have 2 nieces, and will be having 1 nephew by the end of July.  I love being the aunt and getting to spoil them.

Well I hope you enjoyed the post and I'll be checking back in to see what everyone else has made today!