Favorite Picture Books

I came across another interesting linky party yesterday while blog hopping. Share your favourite picture books. I can't wait to read through all the link ups to add some more great books to my collection. Thanks to Lindsey over at The Teacher Wife for organising this great linky party.

Choice #1
This one has a special place in my heart because it was one of my son's favourite books. My students at school have always loved this book too. You can grab this book here. Here is a picture of my son Cameron at the age of two and a half retelling the story all by himself.

Choice #2

How do you choose just one Munsch read aloud when you adore them all. I'll choose this one because I loved hearing it read aloud when I was a student at school myself. I will also choose this one because I love how my students chime in together with, "Grade One, Grade Two, Grade Three, Grade Four, Grade Five, Grade Six aaaaaannnnnnnnddddddddddd Kindergarten!" Priceless. The only thing better than reading aloud a Munsch story is having the master read it himself on Tumblebooks. You can grab this book here.

Choice #3

I adore Kevin Henkes books! I usually start off the school year with a Kevin Henkes author study and Chrysanthemum is my favourite. You can grab this book here. The messages in this book are perfect for back to school, reminding kids how we should be treating others. There are so many awesome teaching extensions and possibilities. While browsing pinterest I came across a great extension activity I plan on doing with my students this year. I think I will have them sign the wrinkled heart as a sort of pledge to treat others kindly.

Choice #4

Ahh the wemmicks and their dot stickers and star stickers. I just love to read this story to my students. There are so many fantastic points to stop for student discussion.  The injustice of the dot stickers fuels long heartfelt conversations with my students.The message of this story is just incredible. You can grab this book here.

Choice #5

This is a book that I added recently to my collection. I read it on Anti Bullying day when the whole school wears pink. It creates lots of wonderful discussions around stereotypes and social injustice. You would be amazed to listen to the conversations my students have had about this book. You can grab it here.

Thanks for reading and make sure you follow me because I will be posting some great pinterest finds tomorrow! Some amazing freebies for Daily Five!

A Blank Slate to Make my Mark

Oh my! I have a lot of work to do in my new classroom. Cam and I stopped in the other morning to take some photos of my empty classroom. Looking at it was very overwhelming to say the least. I thought I could unpack a couple boxes before swimming lessons, but we didn't get much accomplished, just sorted through a few bins of teacher resource books. Here are some photos so you can see the magnitude of work ahead of us.

Hooray! I have a smart board in my new classroom! Along with a document camera, scanner and printer.

You can also view the rats nest of wires that I will need to sort through under the desk. Yikes, it's a mess! A job for another day. My computers have to stay in that location, so I'll place the carpet in front, not ideal but no other place will work. I think I will cover all the bulletin boards in blue, with a uniform border. Maybe something with blue, green and purple. I'm not sure what to do about the 'green' blackboards. I've thought of maybe covering them, but I'm not sure. I will attach my CAFE strategies to one board, and my word wall to another board using magnets. Not sure about the others, I most likely won't write on them so I figure I could post some stuff on them instead.

I'm not thrilled with the location of these shelves but my thoughts are to use them for my leveled books and other books for students to choose for their reading bins.

My teacher's desk will go back here in this corner with my personal frequently used resources on that tall shelf behind my desk.

A shot of the back of the classroom. All of the stuff on top of the big brown cupboard has to go. I just need a ladder to get up there. I will take down the clothesline while I'm up there. Not my style. You can also see all the boxes I need to unpack. The bulletin boards back here will be done in the same style as the front, with a blue background. Maybe my work with words and listen to read centres can be on the long counter.

Anyways, I think my first job will be the bulletin boards. Any thoughts on what I should cover them with? I've heard of people painting them, covering them with wrapping paper, covering them with plastic tablecloths or covering them with bed sheets. Any thoughts on the best plan of attack? Please leave a comment with your best solution.

Thanks for reading,

Fabulous Find Friday Link Up

I'm linking up with Elizabeth at Fun In Room 4B for a linky party called

Basically everybody shares some awesome items that they recently scored. Sounds good to me. Here we go. Item #1 is......

my Scotch Thermal Laminator. I just recently picked this up at Walmart for about $26.00. The prices on these things have dropped like crazy. I remember them being closer to $80.00 when I first looked into them. Anyways, I love it! Especially since I'm printing off so many great things for my new classroom off of TPT.

The second item I'm blogging about are these tasty Skinny Cow Ice Cream sandwiches. I'm trying my best to eat healthy, still trying to whittle away the weight that crept on over our lovely Canadian winter. It's pretty hot here right now so a tasty cool treat is the perfect snack. I adore the combination of chocolate and vanilla. Yummy and a figure friendly indulgence.

Speaking of Canadian winters, I ran across another linky party, calling for Canadian bloggers. So of course I'm linking up to this party as well. If you are a Canadian blogger be sure to visit Patti at Madly Learning to link up.

Thanks for reading,

What I'm pinning Wednesday Link up

Since I've just started blogging, I don't have any followers yet. As I was cruising the blog world I ran across this linky party hosted by Laura over at Kinder Kraziness.

A link up based on Pinterest! That's right up my alley. So here goes my very first link up blog post. Hopefully I can gain some of my very first followers. Here's a few things that I pinned this week.

A very cute back to school treat for my new students at my new school. Simple, easy and cheap. Looks fantastic to me. Unfortunately I cannot locate the original source of this pin, if it belongs to you, let me know.

These cards will be perfect next year. I plan to place magnets on the back and stick them up on my blackboard whenever needed. Plus they match my colour scheme. Thanks to Linda Nelson over at Primary Inspirations.

Aren't these just the cutest cards to pair up random students. Peanut butter and jelly, milk and cookies, and Bert and Ernie. Fabulous and free! Thanks to Making it Teacher for an amazing resource.

Whole brain teaching posters. This is definitely one of the things I want to try and implement in my classroom next year. A Grade Four teacher at my previous school implemented many of these strategies and it was fantastic. I've been researching furiously on the Internet for more information. Thanks to Stephanie over at 3rd Grade Thoughts for sharing how she uses these rules with hand signals.

Well that's all I have to share this week. I can't wait to see what everyone else is pinning.

Thanks,

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,