Teacher Binder & Little Things

  I can't believe the summer is almost already over.  I am in shock of how fast it is going.  I remember at the end of our Cancun trip thinking "this summer is going to go by so quickly" - and then I blinked and we were going on a camping trip for the fourth of July. Crazy I tell you!  I'm planning on getting back into my classroom next week sometime - it should finally be clean so I would like to spend a few days in there before they wax the floors and I have to be off of it for another week.  We are going to Colorado at the beginning of August for our anniversary - tradition is still going strong - and then we are contracted back on August 12.  That night we have open house & meet the teacher night, and the rest of the week will be swamped with meetings and curriculum updates so I know I won't have much "work time" in my classroom before my new pumpkins arrive on the 17th. I'd like to start putting stuff together now before our trip!

  Today, I was going to share my teacher binder that is pretty much done and a few things I've made for my classroom in the fall. Last year I had a "teacher binder" - but I really didn't do the whole teacher binder/planner justice.  I used it to hold a few calendars and lesson plans, and I would lug it around for meetings but I didn't utilize it - my things got put everywhere and I was constantly losing notes and handouts. So, on Thursday I went through my old binder with my trusty Starbucks at my side. I am currently obsessed with their Peach Green Tea Lemonade. So good and refreshing.

Thats my old binder on the left.  I took a picture of it from the side so you could see how inefficient I set it up. I can't even see my tabs on the side and stuff is just piled on that clipboard piece in the front. Frustrating. The binder just wasn't efficient for what I needed. So, I sat down with my print offs from Brigid Ann on TPT and went to work to create something that I truly needed for my classroom and sanity next year. Got my trusty cutter and label maker, sheet protectors and a brand new binder on sale at Office Max in a bright Aqua color. Hooray!

As I started putting everything together, I realized that I would need to actually cut along the edges of my binder inserts and then I double sided taped them to the dividers. I wanted something that I could look at the front of a divider and know what was behind it, instead of the piece of paper in a page protector behind it. I labeled on the sides of my binder into 5 parts and then added each individual items as I went (calendars, student info pages, notes pages, etc.)

My favorite thing about these are that they are chevron (duh), and they're super simple and so nicely put together. I do still like to carry around a separate planner to record meetings and appointments, and then I do a separate "weekly to-do" list that I put inside by my lesson plans or hang up by my desk. I'm loving how it turned out and how I can utilize it this year. My goal is to stay on top of handouts and paper! Put them where they go or throw them away :)

I also finished up my kiddos writing folders this week - I just took two, 2-pocket folders and bound them together at school. One of the folders is turned inside out so the folders have 4 pockets. We'll go through as a class and put labels on them so the students know what each pocket will be used for.

AND in order to keep my chevron theme going, I ordered this shelf paper from Amazon to put over my white guided reading shelf in my room and my trapezoid table to make them POP - $10 on Amazon and I couldn't pass that up! So excited to get it on and put everything together.

Hopefully next week I can cure my itch to get into my room and start putting everything together. Today's agenda consists of cleaning the house, running some errands, and reading Allegiant - with the happy husband by my side.

Until next time.

Classroom Library

  Last year with it being my first year in the classroom, I feel like I have quite a few things that I want to do better - or organize better in my classroom.  My library is one of the BIG things I wanted to change and make better.  I didn't feel like my students used it, or really enjoyed the books in there and granted I didn't have much of a choice when it came to the books in there.  The teachers who I'm teamed up with were wonderful and gave me books that they had in their classroom that they didn't use so that I had a little bit to start with, and throughout the summer at garage sales I bought some more. But, those books that the other teachers had given me were older and I noticed throughout the year that my students just were not into them - they didn't enjoy reading them and were not taken from the library very often.

  I picked way too many genres for my library, and it was kind of closed off in our classroom instead of the "open" feel like I wanted it.  For a while, my kids would have to be reminded to book shop instead of begging me to do so. Don't get me wrong - they loved to read, and we built up a ton of stamina when it came to reading. They progressed wonderfully throughout the year.  But, I wanted my library to be an inviting place that they begged to go to or sit in.

At the end of the school year, I packed up all my library books and put it on my "Summer To-Do" list to re-categorize, label, and go through all the books in my library. It took me two days - which isn't so bad honestly - to go through all of the books that I had taken home with me.  I ended up with this big of a laundry basket full of books that I didn't want to use anymore.

I was incredibly surprised with how many of the books were so outdated and old. I was extremely happy that I was able to get rid of so much.  I felt like this was something I could finally do this year as Scholastic Book Orders and Book Fairs helped me build up my classroom library a ton last year.  My little peanuts raised so much money for both of our book fairs for our classroom and our wonderful PTA was able to give us some money as well. I am grateful for my go-getters last year and the parents that make our school rock. I'm planning on letting the new first grade teacher look through the basket and then I'm not sure what will happen to them. They're not a part of my library anymore, so I don't particularly want to keep them around.

After the sorting of good vs. bad books, I had to put them into categories.  I don't level my classroom library by level - I want my kids to love to read and learn to pick books for themselves instead of going simply by a level.  This year, I plan to have 3 baskets that are labeled by color that will have leveled books in them. The kids will get a color on a card in their book bin, so that they have a basket that they KNOW are good fit books for them. My kiddos last year were awesome at choosing good fit books for them and I'm hopeful that this year will be the same.  I did the rest of my labeling my genre or topic. I made my own library bin labels because I couldn't find any I liked that I could customize to my library and my style. Here's a picture of what those look like.

I really like them - and I don't feel like there's too many of them for the kids to get overwhelmed by.  Once I picked my topics, I had to go through all of my books and categorize them which left me with a back bedroom that looks like this - yikes.

The books have notecards on them to help me remember which group is which.  I ended up with 19 genre groups, and then 3 leveled baskets, and 1 magazine basket. I took the picture and the label from the basket labels that I made, and put them into smaller avery labels.  I printed them onto avery labels and then plan to stick them onto the books.  This way my kids will know which basket they belong in for easy storage after they read them.  I put the books back for them last year, but I'm planning on doing a system where they put them back themselves after they read them.  Crossing my fingers it works.  All I have left to do is laminate the book bin labels, and place the labels onto the books and my library will be complete and turn into something that I love.

Onto the next project next week - haven't picked one yet but I'm guessing it will be finishing up my substitute and teacher binders.  Also, good news! The Kids Inc summer program is moving out of our classrooms next week and moving to the other side of the building which means that my classroom will be open for me to go and work in it in around 2 weeks. I am excited and I  know the husband is too so that I get all the stuff our of our back bedroom. :) It's sooner than expected and it will be nice to start playing around with the set up and organization.

Until next time.

Cancun Escapades & Airport Sleeping

Whew!  It feels so good to be back home and into a normal routine again.  While our trip to Cancun was incredible, there is honestly nothing better than sleeping in your own bed again.  We left on June 7th for a nice getaway trip to Cancun for a week.  We've been to Cancun 3 times before - last year I chose to go there for my graduation trip, and two years before that we went together for spring break and it was my first time out of the country.  We love how safe Cancun is for visitors, and we really enjoy vacations where all you do is lay on the beach and relax all week.  When we were planning this trip, we thought we might actually do something adventurous this time - however, with myself being a teacher and Ryan being the Creative Arts Director at our church in town, we are adventurous everyday so we literally needed a week to be lazy and non-adventerous.  Not only was it a time for us to relax and refresh ourselves, but also a time for us to reconnect as a couple.  The last month of school was so crazy for myself and Ryan's job has him busier than anyone in his department so we really didn't see each other much in the month of May.  It made us feel like we were "dating" again being on the trip. We'd get dressed up for dinner, and literally enjoy each other's company.  I'm so lucky to be married to my best friend. He's the best.

Our days mostly consisted of waking up and going to get breakfast and then spending the rest of our days on the beach - I was able to finish 2 books while I was down there and do some teacher reading as well.  I love to read, but can't usually find the time or energy during the school year.  I read The Fault in Our Stars, as well as the second book in the Divergent series - Insurgent.  If you haven't read either of these I would highly recommend them.  They are both fabulous and nice little mind getaways. I also was able to read a few chapters in my Words Their Way book. Our district started Words Their Way last year for our "word work" time to get rid of weekly spelling tests.  I was familiar with it as my cooperating teacher (who was incredible by the way) used it during the time I was student teaching in her classroom.  I didn't actually take the time to invest my time into it like I would have liked to last year.  My kids did individualized and differentiated sorts and daily word work, but I never felt like I really had a grasp on it.  My kiddos did make progress so I'm hoping that what I did last year and reading more about it this summer will prepare me better for it next year. We were able to get an upgrade to a suite our second day there.  From our understanding, a water line had broken in the hotel and so when we went to take a shower we still had some water pressure, but not a ton.  When Ryan jumped in the shower, he got to putting shampoo in his hair before the water turned green and black.  Not exactly how you want to finish your shower.  We called down to the front desk and they are able to upgrade us as well as give us a spa credit. I told Ryan it was worth him having to finish showering with a bottle of water. We traveled down the street to the mall while we were in Cancun twice just to get out of the hotel for a little bit, but other than that we mostly stayed in our resort.  It was all-inclusive so we swam, ate, watched movies, and relaxed for 7 days.  Wonderful I tell you.  I would high recommend the LiveAqua if you are staying in Cancun. It's an adults only resort and totally worth every penny. We got a few massages in as well while we were there - basically, you're treated like royalty.  Loved it.

The day before we left we had a nice little decoration on our bed - they did little things like this everyday when we were there.  One night we walked in after dinner and found rose petals that stretched from our door to the bed, as well as little candles lit everywhere. They truly like to make your experience memorable. They must have had a sense that our trip would not be the greatest on 

the way home - and boy were they right. We were set to leave Cancun at 1:30 and land in Minneapolis airport around 6:00.  This was going to give Ryan and I plenty of time to get through customs and immigration in order to catch our connecting flight home at 10:00.  Well, there were terrible storms in the area (South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska - literally everywhere.)  So we didn't actually land in Minneapolis until 7:00 and then we had to wait in the airplane for a spot for us to open up to get off the plane which took a half hour.  The airport was so backed up.  We didn't actually think we were going to get to our flight in time because the line through customs and immigration was terribly long.  Way out the door.  Awful I tell you.  Luckily we made it to our connecting flight with a half hour or so to spare, and they weren't taking off on time either. I told my husband "perfect! let's grab some food and hang out before we head home tonight!"  

Back up though - we didn't get home that night.  We got onto our flight at 10:30 and literally had to wait in line behind 50 planes in order to take off.  But, we never did take off because by the time the storms had weaned off a little in order for us to take off, our pilots time in the air had "clocked out" and it was illegal for him to go anymore tonight.  From my understanding, they can only take 12 hours of actual in flight time during the day. So, after sitting on the runway for an hour and fifteen minutes, they dropped us back off at the terminal and said "have a good night!  there's mats down the hallway, you're flight leaves in the morning."  But, it was so nice of the airport people to say "It could leave in the morning, it could leave earlier. We don't even know!" - sense my sarcasm?  You can imagine my frustration.  So, our flight was delayed until 5:45am, but the Delta people told is that it could take off any time depending when they could get a flight crew.  So, Ryan and I grabbed some cots (just mats on the floor that daycare kids would sleep on) and had to spend the night in the airport.

It was miserable. That's all I can say. The airport lights never turned off, they didn't take our luggage off the plane so I couldn't brush my teeth or anything, and the TV's in the terminal stay loud and on all.night.long.  Our plane took off at 6:30 the following morning (see, still late from the original time) and we got back home around 8:00.  We picked up our puppy from the kennel and went straight to bed.  Sunday was just a catch up day for us. We did some laundry, slept, went grocery shopping, and tried to watch some of the shows on our DVR.  What an adventure.

Needless to say, I am glad that we are back to normalcy around here.  Ryan and I both went back to work at the church on Monday (I'm working their part-time during the summer) and then yesterday I was able to go swimming with my Goddaughter and her mom who happens to be my best friend. It was so good to see them again.  Love my little sweet God baby and her mom is seriously the best.  So glad our husbands became such good friends so that we had a chance to do the same.  The rest of the week will be spent getting ready for husbands birthday on Friday, and doing a few school summer things. Half day of work today, and still cleaning up from our trip.  Thankful for quiet time with Jesus and a cup of coffee to get the day going.

Until next time.