There are so many wonderful units for sale on Tpt, but a go to teacher is Abby Mullins at The Inspired Apple.  Her style is fresh and engaging, but I am sure I don't have to tell you that!  The kids loved her First Week of School book from Fun with Firsties.  Check out their adorable illustrations and her fabulous pack.

I totally forgot to take a picture of the adorable schoolhouse cover :(, but the template and an example is included in the packet!  Did I say how SUPER CUTE it came out? Their illustrations and spelling are the best:)   Love it!!








 I loved dancing, eating pizza pie, adding and making new friends last week too!  How about you?

I am wrapping up my first week back to school with the kiddos with Blog Hoppin' and Freebie Friday!  You REALLY need to check it out because there are some super talented teachers giving away FABULOUS products!


I am offering my September Class Journal Cover set for FREE to anyone reading until Labor Day!  It is great for a writing center where students can choose a class topic to add to.  The kids LOVE reading each other's entries and adding their own.  I have included topics that lend themselves to narrative, expository and opinion writing which aligns with the Common Core too.  I would LOVE you to leave feedback on TpT:)

My team is trying to  wrap our brain around how to plan reading comprehension using the common core.  We are trying to plan using complex texts with a variety of nonfiction.  Our reading curriculum needs to be supplemented in this area. 

One of the resources we found is http://commoncore.org/.  Have you seen it or used the units found there?  There are six units available on their mapping guide for first grade.  The first unit is Alphabet Books and Children Who Read Them.  They have integrated reading, writing, science, art and music into the unit.  There is a suggested list of literary texts, information texts, poetry and read alouds.

What a fabulous day!  I have a great group of 18 kids and am super excited to start the school year with them!  We were able to get in our rooms three days before planning and then were in and out with inservices and meeting during our planning days.  It has been a super busy 10 days!


We had our Meet the Teacher last Thursday and I had 17 fabulous firsties come. It is more like a meet and greet.  The smiles they have are adorable!
They left with a super cute package of Lucky Charms with a label that reads I'm so LUCKY to have you in my class! You can find the labels on the Eighteen 25 blog.

Here is a picture of my library area from my Iphone.  Its not the best quality, but you get the idea.  I still have on my apple labels for genre and themes because I printed all the labels from Reagan's  The Ultimate Collection of Classroom Library Book Bin Labels only to realize they are too big for my magazine holders.  Did I say printed, cut, laminated and cut again??  So, I know I should cut the sides a bit, BUT that makes me sad because I LOVE the frames!  Dear hubby already asked if I am buying new bins...SIGH!!






Speaking on Katie King of Queen of the First Grade Jungle...She had a giveaway on her Facebook page last night and I WON!!  Its an amazing pack called Numbers 0-20 Math Activities and boy oh boy is it jam packed with a VARIETY of activities.  You can check it out in Katie's Teachers pay Teachers Store.

I am super excited to start math groups this year and this will be a great place to start:)  Thanks Katie for all the inspiration.  I am now off to print, cut, laminate and cut again!  Do you see a pattern here?

I am so excited to be joining Teachers pay Teachers for the BIG sale Sunday and Monday!  Most sellers are offering 20% off and if you enter the code BTS12 you get another 10% off!! 

If you head over to my TpT store, I have 2 FREE units to download and a NEW September Class Writing Journals that I would love you to check out.   It is aligned to the common core and the topics lend themselves to narratives, opinion pieces and informative/explanatory pieces!

Here are a few examples of the September Class Journal Covers that you can find over at TpT. These are great for a writing center, class assignment or book cover too. You can check it out and grab the FREE sets while you are there.

                   

Hope this is making the beginning of the year just a bit easier to help to get your writing center started!  I am heading back to school tomorrow and kids come a week later:)

Today was the last official day of summer vacation!  Where did it go?  We were super busy, so it went by fast.  


Back home for a week and then the boys and I headed up to Georgia to meet up with some friends.  Lets just say, 4 moms, 8 kids, a water park, tubing in Helen and the Georgia Aquarium kept us busy:)  So here we are needing a vacation from our vacations!  HAHA!

I spent Wednesday and Thursday unpacking my classroom AGAIN!  I chose to move to a smaller room from my portable for a classroom with a fabulous closet!!  So, 16 hours later, 90% of the boxes are unpacked.  I feel much better walking into preplanning now.  Here are a few before shots.  Remember, nothing pretty, but definitely productive.

OK, its officially the LAST Monday of summer vacation (insert HEAVY sigh) and I am finally joining in on Monday Made It.  Better late than never:) As much as I am anxiously waiting to get into my classroom and start prepping, I am not so ready for the alarm clock!

                          

How do you all organize your Accelerated Reader books?  I have seen so many books labeled with Fountas and Pinnell on blogs and in classroom organization packets found on Teachers Pay Teachers. I was wondering if anyone organizes with AR levels.

As a teacher and parent, I have a love/hate dislike relationship with Accelerated Reader that I posted about in the Daily 5 Book Study that you can read about here.  I believe that children should read books on topics they love and that they pick.  However, I think they need a guide to pick books that are on their level. 

So, I have made Accelerated Reader Book Basket Labels to match my apple theme that I am going to share with you.  You can check them out at my TpT store and download them for FREE.  I am asking that you leave feedback.  I totally appreciate this!



And finally, if you have been reading my blog, you know that I STRUGGLE with technology! So I tried to insert a picture of the unit cover from TpT which was saved as a PDF.  However, I need to change it to a JPEG and it won't let me:(  SUGGESTIONS PLEASE!!

I love when I figure things out on the computer!  I finally followed the directions from The Teacher's Cauldron to follow Farley's Currently!  I have seen it for months and wasn't sure how to do it until I saw Jen's post last month.  An here I am a month later figuring it out:)  The directions say to copy it into Paint and it took me a bit to find that program!

Page protectors!  Yes, you heard me right:)  Page protectors are not just for keeping pages in a binder anymore.  (Although sometimes they are!)


Recently I purchased Let's Label Beginning of School by First Grade Blue Skies.  I love the labeling pages, but always try to conserve a tree (when possible) and my precious color ink (my dear hubby worries about!).  I printed them in color on card stock and inserted them into page protectors.  The kids love using dry erase markers (in their favorite colors of course!) to write the words to label each picture.  Since then, Jen has added black and white copies to the unit for your copying ease! 


We also have timed math fact tests at our school.  I think at times we need to get back to the basics and sometimes kids just need to memorize things!  Please don't throw things at me!! Don't get me wrong, we do lots of modeling and practicing with concrete objects, we learn new strategies, and then they must memorize their facts.  I LOVE the One Minute Math Program because after the weeks with  +0 and +1 facts, they only get one new fact a week.  That's all and part of the test is review.  So, I insert a page with 30 problems into a page protector and the kids practice with their dry erase markers!  I set the timer for a minute and practice daily.  I also send home another page in a page protector in their homework folder for nightly practice.  They test on Friday and are able to retest the following week if needed.  One new fact goes home every other week and we cover addition up to 10.

 Sometimes, I see a need  in the middle of the day and make a quick activity and don't have time to laminate it.  I slide it in a page protector and it keeps until I laminate it or it makes its way out the following year because I stuck it in its folder with every intention of making a new one... Don't judge!


And last but not least, I use them to organize papers!  Imagine that:)  My latest binder is for my common core. We have to post our strandard, the objective, the essential question and a ticket out (a one-two minute  activity to assess if the students comprehend what has been taught).  So, I purchased Deanna Jump's Common Core Standards and Anna Brantly's Common Core First Grade Essential Questions to help me out with this.


 


So now, I just need to type the standards and the ticket outs.  Does anyone else have a common board that includes all of this plus the date and homework?