Monday Made it

I'm linking up again with 4th Grade Frolics for Made it Monday.

I didn't have much time to craft this week because we were celebrated my son's sixth birthday yesterday with my side of the family. (His actual birthday falls on Wednesday) I did make a cake, does that count? I'm kind of embarrassed to even post a picture. Normally, I would buy a cake but Cameron recently fell in love with a cake that my sister in law made using Dream Whip for icing. He raved about that simple cake for weeks, so I had to bake one for his birthday. I figured I would pick up some green coloured icing to write Happy Birthday and was swayed into purchasing this lovely product.

I thought that I could write on the cake and then switch tips and make some decorative 'thingys'. As you can tell by my cake decorating vocabulary, this is not my hidden talent. Anyways, the star tip made some lovely star 'bursty' like lumps. However, that can of icing was not user friendly when it came to writing. Certain times tons would come out. Then nothing came out for the next letter. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong. But hey it tasted good, so I guess that's all that matters in the end.

The masterpiece - notice skinny P versus fat P in the word HAPPY

I did make one thing for school this week. I printed out and put together my teaching planner binder. I used the free printable from The Resource(ful) Room.

Amy has lots of amazing things on her site. Be sure to go and check out her website. I ended up organizing my things into two separate binders. One binder contains my lesson plans, calendar, standards, student info/IEPS, meetings. The other binder will contain my reading information - groupings, conferences, tracking/assessment information, etc. I think that they will really help me stay organized next year.

I can't wait to see what everyone else was creating. Thanks for reading and following,

New {School} Year Resolutions

I was catching up with some blogs tonight when I stumbled across an awesome linky by Amanda over at Teaching Maddeness.

  It makes perfect sense to make our resolutions now rather than in January, so here we go.

#1 - Stay organized - I'm lucky to be switching schools because I will start the year off in a completely clean and organized classroom. I intend to keep it this way, including my dreaded teacher's desk. I really need to make one of those teacher toolboxes.

#2 - Embrace change and try new things - New school, new administration, new students equals lots of change. I'm also embarking on a new journey with two whole new teaching 'strategies/systems'. I'm so excited to employ whole brain teaching strategies with my students and also to change up my literacy block with the Daily Five.

#3 Connect and Communicate with Parents - When I first began teaching I felt quite uncomfortable with this aspect of teaching. As time has passed I have begun to feel more at ease with this challenge. I'm also super excited to employ technology to my advantage and use it to help keep parents informed.

#4 - Use my time wisely - I really want to have a balance between home life and work life. I also need to squeeze in some time for my new found blogging life as well. I usually arrive early to school, so I want to make the most of the time before my students arrive each morning. Less gossiping around the Keurig in the staffroom and more planning and preparing.

Do you have any resolutions to share? Be sure to link up and share. Thanks for reading and following,

Classroom Update & What I'm Pinning Wednesday

Cameron and I have spent the last few mornings working away in my classroom. I have all of the bulletin boards covered and bordered. I had heard that someone used plastic tablecloths to cover bulletin boards so I thought that I would give it a try. We ran into a slight problem, the plastic tablecloths were too thin so we had to double them. Not a big deal, just slightly more time consuming. I put up my number line, and alphabet line. We arranged my letter headings for my word wall, and arranged my Cafe strategy board. We also arranged the desks and organized some stuff in the drawers of my teacher desk.

Still lots of jobs left to do, but it doesn't feel like such a huge task when we go for a few hours each week. The following still needs to be done before school starts - organise my classroom library, set up Daily 5 center areas, and beg/borrow/steal more manipulatives for my classroom, set up plan book and plan for first week. Still lots of time - School doesn't start here until September 4th.

Anyways, it's time for one of my favourite linky parties over at Kinder Kraziness.

Ahh how I adore pinterest! I swear I am absolutely obsessed with it. There are just so many awesome ideas out there. Here are some of my favourite pins for the week.

I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a sale on "teacher toolboxes" so once I score my deal I can print these awesome labels off and save myself some time and frustration hopefully. You can grab these wonderful labels here. (Teachers pay teachers is currently down for maintenance so I can't verify that this link is correct right now, please comment if it doesn't work)

I've also been planning on organizing my students by number this year. So these are some great free printable number circles. I hope to use one set for my book boxes and another for documenting who's out of the classroom (bathroom, office, etc..) I like these numbers because I can print them on coloured paper and save ink. You can grab these awesome numbers from Runde's Room.

These are some awesome printable math games from Mrs.Clapp over at Serenade to Second Grade. They only require simple manipulatives like dice and cards. Be sure to visit her next post to grab the labels for the game if you want them too.

My last pin is this awesome treat to celebrate the start of the Olympic games! I love watching the Olympics and this treat will be a great way to celebrate tomorrow night. Bake some yummy cupcakes in ice cream cones and then decorate with some flaming icing. Looks easy enough, right? I hope I will find the time to make these before the ceremony starts, wish me luck.

Thanks for reading and following,

Online Planning Tool

Last year my school became a Full Day Kindergarten (FDK) site. Previously I had two separate kindergarten classes who attended school on alternate days. I was so excited to become an new FDK site. A new program with a new draft curriculum document focused on the importance of play in kindergarten and incorporating the skills of inquiry based learning through our play and discovery!

A crucial part of this new Ontario Kindergarten program is that I would be working with an Early Childhood Educator (ECE) in my classroom. I mean 'our' classroom. The province of Ontario envisions a partnership between the two educators in the classroom. They wanted us to plan, program and assess together. I have always been interested and willing to co-teach so this was a great opportunity. But I was extremely worried about how we could effectively plan together on a weekly/daily basis. Many times when teaching the best laid plans often took a detour along the way. An unexpected assembly, an impromptu fire drill, the dreaded unscheduled illness, or a sudden teachable moment steering me off course temporarily. How could we possibly find a way to plan that worked for both of us and provided the shared access that we required.

Surfing the Internet last summer lead me to the solution.

                                                                    www.planbook.com
An online planing tool that we both could access at home or at school! Hooray! There was a small membership cost but it was well worth it to me. We set up our weekly templates and could plug our lessons into the slots. If we were working on a particular skill all week we could extend it for the entire week. We could also bump a lesson to the following day if we didn't get to it that day for some reason. Best of all I could save a copy of my daily or weekly plans and attach it directly to my electronic request for a supply teacher. All my supply teachers raved about how easy the plan was to follow. Happy supply teachers means they will agree to come back and teach again.

This year I will not have an ECE in my classroom because I'm no longer teaching kindergarten. But I will definitely be extending my membership at planbook.com. The ease of use and the fact that my plans are stored online means I can access them anytime, anywhere. Anyone else use an online planbook like this one? What did you think of it? Please leave a comment.

Thanks,