One Week Down

Okay, so I haven't exactly been doing a great job of this whole blogging thing. I wasn't able to work on my room for a week (back in June) and so I didn't feel there was anything post worthy. And now, here we are, one week of school already done! That's right, week 2 starts tomorrow! And can I just say... I LOVE SECOND GRADE! If someone were to ask me about 5 years ago (when I started college) if I would ever teach second grade, I would have laughed in their face. I never wanted to teach above Kindergarten, I loved the little guys too much. But after student teaching in second grade, I really enjoyed it. And after this week (even though it's only been a week) I am so happy with the decision I made to switch grades. Don't get me wrong, I loved my class last year, but I am super excited for what the rest of this year has to bring!

Now for the fun stuff! My room actually turned out just EXACTLY how I wanted it!

I took this idea from Ms. Lemons and her writing corner (with the writing center printables from A Cupcake from the teacher. You can buy them at her TPT store here.) I absolutely love the way it turned out.

 



At our school, I am lucky enough to have had the Mountain Math and Language programs purchased. One of my team members and I are sharing the materials and plan to use these for center/station activities. I was pretty proud of myself for making the paper that straight, with no help! :)

 

 

Something else I am really excited for in teaching an older grade is the AR program. Thanks to the help of my roommate, I came up with a great incentive plan for my students. The students will take a trip through Disneyland rides as they read more and more words throughout the year. They will start at 0 words, and every 10,000 words they read, they will move to another ride. Their journey will end at the Disneyland castle in my Library. The students will each have a Mickey Mouse head that will move across the board.

 

 

Here are a few more pictures from around my classroom...

I was also really excited to use Ms. Lemons beginning of the year math activities . They were really successful and the kids enjoyed them! My favorite was the mathematicians :)

 

We also did the classroom promise..

Overall, it was a FANATSTIC first week. I can't wait to get to know my kiddos even more and share some special and fun times with them. And my goal is to post again next Sunday. Let's see if I can do it! :)

Organization

I just want to say how thankful I am that through my first year of teaching, I didn't get the usual sickness (well, hardly). However, I didn't expect that the trade off would be that I get sick the first week after summer starts! :( So while I am trying to fight off this cold/flu or whatever this is, I will update with what I have done in my classroom so far (which sadly, isn't much).

Almost everything is put away and organized! Yay me! I will probably go through everything one more time, but it's all put in boxes with labels.

I also inherited this cute little writing desk that I plan on putting in my writing corner, which is going to look a lot like Ms. Lemon's (a woman who I have recently come to admire!)

And Finally, I got this idea from another blog (which I can't remember with my sick brain right now) and I am excited to not have to lift a heavy stack of construction paper every time I want a black or white piece! The paper is just separated by hanging file folders. So neat! :) Well, I think so anyways. It's the little things, ya know. :)

Now, I am going to try and go to sleep early. Yes, at 8:00. Let's hope this works, cause I have more work to do in my classroom tomorrow! :) 

Let's Give it a Try

Okay, well...I am going to give this whole blogging thing a shot. So summer just started and believe it or not, my vacation is over! The summer camp I work at just started today and with moving rooms and GRADES I feel like there really wasn't much vacation to have in the first place! I can't tell you how excited I am to be teaching the 2nd grade this year. I just started unpacking my room and am thrilled to have everything organized the way I want! Last year I felt so rushed at the beginning of the year that I NEVER got to catch up! Now is my chance to take all summer to get everything set up perfectly! As I start getting decorations up I will start posting pictures. But for now, I am going to browse Pinterest, blogs, and TPT until I can't keep my eyes open anymore!