Monday Made It #8

  I am so glad that Tara from 4th Grade Frolics started this fabulous Monday Made It Linky to keep me busy and make sure I finished projects. I only have one for this week, but with school being back in session one was enough.

This week I made zebra time circles for my schedule board. I don't have a picture of them on the board yet, however, I will post one when I finish the project.

I used my circle cutter to cut them out after printing them on card stock. I think they will add just enough fun to my schedule. Hope everyone has a great Monday!

Monday Made It #7

We had a great first week of school. I have a really sweet class. My body is still adjusting to the time change and I am in bed early every night. My creations are for my book center this week. I am linking up with Tara over at 4th grade Frolics for her Monday Made It.

Monday Made It #1: Alphabet Binder

I was inspired by this find on pinterest  from No Time for Flashcards to create an Alphabet Binder where each letter looks like something that begins with that letter. If you click on the pictures above she has multiple options for each letter.

 Here is my version of a few letters. I still have to type the name to go on each page and place them in a binder for my book center.

 Monday Made It # 2: Flannel Board for Stories

I bought a foam board and some green felt from Walmart. I hot glued the felt onto my board for my students to use in the book center. We are reading Mortimer this week and it is always a HUGE favorite so I know this flannel board will get a lot of use this week. 

Have a great day! 

Monday Made It # 6

I am joining Monday Made It and 4th Grade Frolics' linky party. We started school today with children. I was excited and eager but also nervous. There is so much to teach Pre-K children the first day of school. I forget  how much they don't know prior to school every year. I was praying for an easy transition and as few criers as possible because that just breaks my heart. Well it was a GREAT first day!

Monday Made It # 1: Library Books Pocket Chart

 I bought the cute zebra pockets from a school supply store and the zebra stickers from Hobby Lobby. I used a label to write my students names and symbols on and placed them on each pocket. We use symbols instead of numbers to help students with phonemic awareness by matching the beginning sound in his or her name to the symbol.  I am not an artist but draw them the best I can! My director finds joy in joking my drawings yearly! :) Students choose a book from the shelf and place the card in their pocket.

 Monday Made It # 2: Donation Station

My paraprofessional actually made this one. We place sticky notes on the poster with dates and materials needed. Parents pull a sticky note from the poster and bring the items requested!

Monday Made It #3: Classroom Pictures

If you click on the words above, it will take you to my link I posted yesterday with pictures of my classroom.

 I can't wait to see what everyone else has made! I have my Diet Moutain Dew in hand and I am ready to relax and be inspired!

 

Classroom Pictures

I spent all last week working in my classroom along with my paraprofessional and student teacher. I cannot take credit for everything because they were just as important in completing the process. These are some big pictures of the classroom and there will be more detailed pictures later. We start the year with most center items covered or missing until our Pre-K students learn how to use the materials.

This is the view of the front of my room where we have circle time.

This is the toy center or math area.

This is the teacher storage area along with our chart stand, daily schedule, and soon to be rules. I include my children in the development of classroom rules.  As you can see, my classroom is connected to the one next door.

This is the block area.

This is the dramatic play area or house center.

Here is our safe place with items to make students happy or calm down.

This is the book center and our new glue bottle poster.

Some of my pictures did not turn out because my school camera is having issues. I have an art center and a science center as well. I hope to take more pictures sometime next week to share. 

Monday Made It #5

I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It then I am heading off to school. We start back today. Not sure if I am excited or overwhelmed because I have so much to do before students come. Be sure to check out all of the fun projects everyone is making. I will warn you I have several "made its" for this week that are all Pinterest or Monday Made It inspired. 

Monday Made It #1: Alphabet Gems

 I made some more gems but used cute stickers and different colored paper this time. I like these better. 

Monday Made It #2: Book Hospital and Chalkboard Pans

 

I put the letters and clip art on my book hospital and spray painted with Chalkboard paint some pizza pans from the Dollar Tree. I am going to use these as an early finisher during small group. 

  Monday Made It #3: Mystery Jar and Sticks

I bought the container at Dollar Tree and wrapped it with zebra duct tape. Then made this cute label on the computer and attached it. Below are the popsicle sticks that I wrapped in zebra duct tape and will type the students' names and tape on them.

 Monday Made It #4: Story Sticks

I used my circle cutter to cut the pink and zebra circles. Then I made and printed a template in Word and taped my circles to the template to print on. I cannot wait to use these!

Monday Made It #5: Teacher Prayer Frame

I found this prayer on pinterest. You can get it here. I duct taped the picture frame from Dollar Tree and backed the prayer on red paper. I cannot wait to put it in my classroom.

Monday Made It # 6: Scrapbook Bins

I duct taped this small one in Cheetah. It took a lot longer than I thought it would have so I only did this one. Ignore the junk in the drawers because I have not organized anything yet.

This one belongs in my book center and contains the paper students can choose to write on.

Here is one with giraffe print that goes beside the printer in my classroom.

This one holds materials for the week. Thank goodness it is labeled. It drove me crazy last year without things labeled but I never stopped to take the time and do it.

Monday Made It #7: Good Listener

I love this and I am so grateful that Christie at First Grade Fever shared this as a fabulous freebie with all educators. If you would like a copy, click here. She has a lot of cute things if you have never checked her blog out, I suggest you do so! I hope this really helps my students in the beginning of the year with the great visuals.

Well I am off to my classroom to organize and get ready for open house on Friday! I will be back later to check out everyone's Monday Made Its!

Fabulous Find Friday #3

I am linking up for the Fabulous Find Friday with Fun in Room 4B.

I love the cute stools that everyone is painting for their classroom and I have looked everywhere for a cheap stool. On my adventures to the Salvation Army, I found this and got it for a good price. I am really excited. I cannot decide if I want to go ahead and begin painting it or wait and let my parapro paint it because she is very artistic.

My second find includes two things...zebra letters and zebra hanging file folder. Both of these great items came from Mardel. I cannot wait to use these in my classroom. Only bad thing is I wish I would have ordered two filetastics now. 

Have a great Friday! It is my last day of summer! Back to work on Monday.

Assessment

 In order to get ahead of the game, I decided to redesign our fall and spring checklists for Pre-K. Our old format led parents to believe we just filled in the information ourselves and didn't ask the students the information. So this time I chose to include the words "I can." Hopefully that will let them know that their child identified the information. If you would like a copy, click here.

Spring Checklist

 Fall Checklist 

 We use work sampling online to assess our students. If you are not familiar with this format, it has 54 standards that have to be evaluated on students over a 18 week period. I always find myself stressed at the end looking for documentation for these checklist items. We do all of the things more than once but each student cannot have the same documentation for the same area. It has to be child specific. So in order to keep me on top of things I took the standards and broke them down for the beginning of the year. I am hoping this will help me gather data on all students through pictures, work samples, or matrices in that month. Of course, I will gather documentation on these more than once but this will help me make sure I have at least one form of documentation by rating time.