More back to school planning!!

I think I may have finally figured out my centers dilemma.  Whew, I had so overthought (is that a word?) the whole process.  Tonight, feeling overwhelmed by my large number of students and my even longer "to do" list, my brain shut down and I just began to click through old blogs and links that I had saved from years gone by.  On the second link, I came across a page on centers.  I think it was an answer to prayer! Here it is if you are interested - Mrs. Mcdowell.

I'm not going to share her chart here because that would be "plagiarizing" but basically she suggests only 3 rotations a day - me, centers, seatwork.  This will give me eight students at each rotation and since they work in pairs, there will be four groups in centers at a time.

SO....for my class of 24 students, I will have 8 working with me, 8 working with partners on seatwork, and 8 in centers.  We will have three rotations of 20 minutes each (actually around 18 minutes with 2 minutes to move about the room).

Since there are five days in a week that we will be doing centers, I will need five centers (the other way I had planned 9 centers each week - YAY for extras!).

My five centers are as follows -
1.  Bump/Scoot Game
2. Computer time
3.  ELA center
4.  Math center
5.  Writing center

I feel so much better about all of it!

I also worked on desk name plates today.  I often have my kids work in pairs and also in teams of 3.  Last year I felt grouping 3 confused some of my kids because they weren't sure who to group with.  This year, I have a plan!

On their nameplate, each child will have a color and a shape at the end.  This child is a member of the purple pair and the triangle group.  Each member will be at the same table sitting next to each other but this will show him to speak to if I say "color group chat" or "shape group chat".

How do you do centers?  How do you group students for class chats?

July Currently, What I Won, and Giveaway Reminder

What?!?!?  It's already July?!?!  I know...I can't believe it either!  I just couldn't bring myself to link up with Farley at Oh Boy! Fourth Grade early on this Currently linky.  I had to wait until it was actually July because I am certainly NOT wishing my summer away!  I'm enjoying it way too much!

LISTENING:  We were listening to Tom and Jerry the cartoon as my kiddos ate their gourmet lunch of sandwiches and cheetos.  They love summer as much as I do - lazy days of TV, DS's, and board games - which is good since we are hitting 100 degrees most days here and it's brutally hot!  

LOVING: I won!! I won!!  I was so excited to win!  My goal for next year (which you have heard me say a thousand times and which you will get tired of hearing about) is to create better writers in my students.  I don't feel I did enough writing activities this past year.  Therefore, I've been working on writing centers in great detail all summer long.  Also, I've been looking for ideas to use each day for writing journals.  That's when I came across Smiling in Second Grade's blogpost this past Thursday!  Her throwback Thursday post was about writing journals and boy, did her work look amazing!  You can check it out in her TPT store here.  

I plan to use them a little differently than she did.  I am going to have the prompt (which I will pick) ready to go after we return from lunch.  This will help my kiddos readjust to being back in the room after our adventures in the lunch room lunch period.  I'm so excited about using her kit this year!

THINKING:  I need printer ink.  Can you relate?  I always find amazing things on TPT that I need to print, print, print and those little cartridges definitely do NOT last long enough!

WANTING:  I want to go work in my classroom because decorating is the "fun" part but I need to focus and get all of my work that can be done at home finished first.  It's boring but it has to be done.  I'm going to try to wait a couple more weeks before I head off to school.

NEEDING:  So I've finished a few of my writing centers but I have SOOOOO many left to go.  I really need to settle in and work on those.  It's repetitive and semi-boring but it will be such a big help once I'm completely finished!

TIPS,TRICKS, and GIVEAWAYS:  Well I'm fairly new to routinely blogging but the biggest help so far to me has been to participate in giveaways and linky parties.  This seems to draw the most people to your blog.  

I hope you all have a great Monday!  I'm off to finish another writing center and hopefully get some printing done!

OH YEAH, don't forget about the giveaway here on my blog.  My boys will pick a number Wednesday!

Lazy Summer Sunday's and a Giveaway

Today has been a lazy summer Sunday.  We went to church this morning and then had lunch in town.  After that, I napped and visited the garden one time.  I've caught up on reading the blogs in my list at bloglovin'.  I LOVE that it lists all of the unread posts in the blogs you follow so you can just click older post and get to the next unread blog!!

I can't believe that today is the last day of June.  That means that my summer is halfway over!!  I have so much left to do but I am excited at all that I have accomplished so far.  I've worked really hard on writing center packs for my classroom and have finished quite a few of them.  I'm slowly uploading them to my store to share with all of you!

Here is my latest creation that I've uploaded to my store - PIRATES!!

I love this writing pack!! Click here to see it in my store! It's also the first pack in my store that includes the older elementary lines and not just the standard dotted lines.  I had a few requests to add those to the kit as well!

Want to win it?  Leave a comment on this blog post and I'll pick a winner by having one of my boys pick a number.  The comment number they pick will win this kit!  

Back To School Writing Centers, Word Wall Binders, and Blog Hop

First, I've linked up with Tori's Teacher Tips for a bloglovin' blog hop.  As many of you know, Google Reader is disappearing and although I liked it (a lot), I've found that I like bloglovin' even more.  With bloglovin' I can see all of the blog posts that I haven't read yet and click through them one by one while going to each page I follow.  It's really user friendly and easy to understand.   Check it out here!!

I have been working hard on writing centers for next year.  I really felt like this was a weakness of mine last year and although my students still did really well overall, it is something I've wanted to work on for this year.  Throughout the year my class would create topic word walls for the themes we were working on but after that week/month/unit, the word wall would come down for another theme to use that space.  I really felt that I wanted something the students could have at their desk to use all year long so I'm creating "Word Wall Binders" for this year.  Each of my students will have a binder that will contain every word wall from each theme that we cover throughout the year.  I hope that this helps with spelling and vocabulary issues while writing.  

Here's an example of a student word wall page for their binder:

Most themes will have 12 words which will easily fit front and back on one sheet of paper.  I've also made them grayscale so that it doesn't use all of my color ink.  

Along with student word wall binders, I will continue to have our themed word walls using color versions of the same pictures.  These will be used during our study of the theme.

Also included in each writing center kit are three writing prompts on lined paper.  I have created some with grayscale pictures and some with no pictures at all so that the teacher can choose which they want to use.  This will be placed in the writing center each week in our classroom.  

If you are interested in purchasing this Back To School Writing Center Kit, click on the picture below and it will take you straight to my TPT store.

I have themes planned throughout the year that are mostly based on our reading series and what we are studying that week but I do have a few open weeks.  What themes do you use in your classroom?  What are some other themes that you may not see all that often? 

Back to School Products and Flash Freebie!

This weekend flew by so quickly and now I sit staring at a full week of training sessions.  I really don't mind the training at all but it's so hard to come out of  "summer mode" for a week.  We are used to sleeping late, going to the movies, making crafts, playing with our pets and now it's get up early, prepare for the sitter, FIND a sitter (my boys run off so many.....), and sit in class all day.  Besides I was just beginning to fill up my TPT store with new items and I don't want to lose the momentum!  But hopefully I'll come home and have things to share!

Last week I worked on a Back to School clip art set which I put in my TPT store Friday night.  

The kit comes with every graphic you see here in both color and b/w.  For this week only, you can get it here for only $2.  After this week, it will be $2.50 in my store.

After finishing my clip art set, I began working on my Back to School writing center.  This center kit should be in my store sometime this week once I finish packaging it up.  I'll explain my plans for a personal word wall for each student when I share about my writing center.

Just for the next 24 hours, I have a flash freebie in my store.  

This math center game works well with high pre-k, all kinders, and beginning first graders.  It consists of cards labeled with the numbers 1-20 and dots representing the numbers 1-20.  Students will play a game of Memory with the cards.  Even numbers are on green apples and odd numbers are on the red ones for another easy lesson.  

Go quickly and grab my Apple Number Match game in my TPT store for free!  This time tomorrow it will be $1.50.  

Thank you for stopping by!!  Please leave a comment to let me know that you were here!

Centers

Well, summer is here and I am loving it!!  My boys and I are enjoying the summer movie clubhouses at the local theaters.  We are also loving the Passport to Imagination at our local Michael's.  In fact, here is a pic of my youngest painting his Liberty Bell this morning.

During the summer I always try to plan for the next school year.  This year I'm lucky enough to be staying at the same school and in the same grade I was in last year which gives me PLENTY of planning time.  

One of my struggles last year was with centers.  Being the first year in that grade after so long I was more concerned with teaching the common core and focusing on that rather than adding on those fun extras that I love to do.   SO.....my goal this summer is to set up every single center for the entire year and have every one of them ready for the first day of school.  Yes it is a big task but I've spent lots and lots of time on Teachers Pay Teachers this week searching and I've found some great deals!  

Each week I plan to have 10 centers.  Ideally I will only have 2 kids at each center each rotation but I don't have my numbers yet.  Last year I only had 17 kids so I'm hoping that I won't have more than 20 this year.

My 10 centers are:

1.  Reading/Reading Tent

2. Computers

3. Language/Listening Center

4. Seatwork

5.  Spelling

6.  Social Living

7. Math

8.  Writing

9.  Teacher Table

10.  Math 2

What centers do you use in your room?  How do students rotate through them?  How long do you let students stay in each center?

Another goal of mine was to have my students answer a graph a week and then discuss it during the week.  I sat down and began to make a list of every graph that I wanted to use.  While  searching online for graph question ideas, I came across the perfect set!!

I don't know if you are familiar with Sailing through 1st grade but she is amazing!!  I use all of her Imagine It! creations in my room and many of her centers games are on my list for next year!  Take a minute and stop by her shop to see what's new!

Well it's time to get back to work!  I hope you have a great rest of the day!