Daily 5 and CAFE Book ~ Book Study!

Hey everyone!  The books I ordered just yesterday arrived today and that reminded me that I wanted to make sure you all knew about the summer book study for The Daily 5 and The CAFE Book.  I first read about the book study on Laura Candler's blog Corkboard Connections.  There has been a special blog set up for the book study by Lorraine Vasquez of the Fabulous 4th Grade Froggies.  Should you want to join in with me and participate, go to and follow the blog We Read,We Blog, We Teach.  The books can be found on Amazon and ship oh so quickly!  There is a schedule posted in calendar format on the We Read, We Blog, We Teach blog.  The book study begins on July 1 with three weeks spent on The Daily 5 and then three weeks on The CAFE book.  Click the button below to follow We Read, We Blog, We Teach!

Graduation Gifts for the Girls!

I was so happy to see my best friends and share my freebie acquisitions with them!  I took them to my favorite Italian deli in Baltimore for sandwiches before going through and divvying up materials.  Finally, I took them up to my office for their real presents:

Desktop Organizers!

The top one in pale blues and greens is for my dear friend Mrs. H and the bottom one in crazy brights is for the matching personality of Miss S.  I've seen this idea here and there on the web and they are all over Pinterest. It was a really simple craft, the most difficult part was choosing the scrapbook papers dealing with the 16 yr old Home Depot employee.

I must tangent for a moment: I usually make it a point to avoid employees in hardware stores.  I'm usually stopping on my way from work, dressed up and click clacking in my heels.  I get the looks and every male employee asks if he can help me.  I know, I know it's not their fault that they don't know me and that they judge a book by its cover.  I usually know exactly where I am going and what I am looking for.  I worked with my father my entire life as he remodeled each house we lived in and worked remodeling houses for others.  It was entirely my fault that I went up to the employee working in the closet storage aisle and explained that I was looking for a box "this big" (as demonstrated with my hands) with little plastic drawers in it.  He told me I was only one aisle away.  That aisle had Sterilite drawers for closets, not even the tiny ones.  I returned to the aisle and said to the boy "Ignore that I'm a girl, pretend that I'm a man asking for a set of little drawers to store say wire nuts in."  (I thought that an excellent description of what a man would use this for) This kid, however, decided I was insane and told me that "We don't carry something like that."  As I turned on my heel (not actually wearing heels for once) I mumbled that he was wrong and that I would find it myself.  Not three minutes later I had what I wanted and couldn't resist returning to the kid's aisle for show and tell: "They are in aisle 12, exactly as I described them."

Sorry about that, it just gets under my skin when people don't know what is in their stores.

So back to the project!  Once home, I filled all of the little drawers with goodies:

The goodies (top to bottom L to R) included index cards, post-it notes, large post-it notes, assorted binder clips, glue stick, brads, rings, tiny post-it notes, large paper clips, rubber bands, small paper clips, staples, scotch tape, felt tipped pens / highlighters / permanent markers, erasers, thumbtacks, chalk, bandaids, gum / drink mix for water bottle / change for soda machine, dry erase markers, thank you notes, and stickers.



Then I cut the papers on my amazing rotary paper cutter: and labeled the paper directly with my label maker.




In hindsight, perhaps I should have placed the labels on the outside of the plastic drawers, the girls could then change out the paper at any time to redecorate.

 I'm now trying to decide if this is something I would like to make for myself.  I had an idea to use candle jars to hold paper clips and such.  These came out so nicely though, maybe I can make one to match my theme.

Last Day for Teachers

While Friday was the last day for the students, Monday was the day for the teachers at my (student teaching) school to pack up.  The classroom next to mine had a teacher retire in late November.  She was replaced with a male teacher who doesn't like any clutter.  He is a teaching minimalist in fact, a rare enigma in this profession!  Both the outgoing and incoming teachers encouraged me to come in at the end of the year for some materials. 


So I made that hour long drive one more time this year to see what I might be able to acquire.  In addition to the goodies from their third grade classroom, I hit up the break room where the "FREE!" table had grown exponentially to take over the entire room.  I left with my car loaded up and dread of what my boyfriend would say when I brought it into the house.  It wasn't all for me though!  I was thinking of my two best friends and knew that they would find loving homes in their classrooms for the items which were more on the primary side (I hope to teach intermediate grades).  Before I even left the school, I made plans for them to visit on Wednesday.

I've unpacked and my dining room table is laden with goodies for the girls!  Can't wait to see them tomorrow!

Absence Folders

My student teaching classroom was hot.  Not we're awesome readers and know all our multiplication facts hot, but boiler room hot.  This meant that every afternoon we were forced to open the windows and turn on a fan.  The noise from the playground didn't annoy me nearly as much as the chaos of papers blowing off of the desks.

I realized that the culprit pages were those of absent students.  All day long my mentor and I had stacked page after page upon the desk and expected  that in a classroom of 28 remaining students, they would still be in a neat pile when the absent student returned.  What were we thinking?  My solution to the problem became an absence folder to be put on the missing student's desk when taking attendance in the morning.

The folder is a simple pocket folder without brads inside.  I had some heavy weight red paper (not cardstock) lying around and decided that it worked well on both the blue and the yellow folders.  I printed onto the red paper, trimmed it to fit, used a glue stick to adhere it, and laminated the folders.  Using a pair of scissors as a knife, I cut the pockets open and was done.  By laminating the folders, I only had to make a handful.  A wet erase marker is used to write the student's name, dates absent, and date due on the cover.  Inside, the pockets are labeled "Practice Work" and "Classwork / Homework To Be Turned In."  By doing this both the student and his or her parents can easily prioritize the pile.

As soon as my personal website is up and running I will have a downloadable template for you to use!  Until then, know that it was typed in Word and you can re-create it very easily!


SNEAK PEEK
Tomorrow's post will be a project I made for my two best friends!  They are coming to visit me tomorrow and I don't want to spoil the surprise so I'll just show you the pretty papers I used.

As Green as Grass...

In the first chapter of his book, Tools for Teaching, Fred Jones lists four predictable stages that all teachers go through as they take on a classroom and "progress through the learning curve" of classroom management.  I am at Stage 1: As Green as Grass.  In this stage, I am at the beginning of my career and class has not yet begun.*   I have hopes and aspirations to be the loving teacher who the students respect and listen intently to. 

I am channeling Miss Honey of Roald Dahl's novel Matilda and the subsequent 1996 movie.  I am a teacher that every child will simply love; I am gentle and nurturing in my quest to show all children that learning can be a fun adventure.  So here's to the adventure!  

*Disclosure: I don't actually have a class / job yet, more on that later.