End of the Year...No Thank You

I kind of detest breaking down my classroom at the end of the year.  It's so anti-climatic. All that hard work by the students is taken down.  And all of the classroom decor that I painstakingly cut, laminate and hung with velcro/sticky tack/command strips just gets tossed or shoved into a box.  I usually retrain my focus on what I love and that is decorating all over again in a couple months time!

As I watched my news feed fill with teachers end of the year gifts, I was planning what I wanted to tweak this year.  I had these word wall headers I made a couple years ago when we first started the common core standards and there was more of a push on informational texts and topics.  I love these headers and their bright colors so I decided I wanted more of that.  I spend 7.5+ hours a day for 180+ days in the classroom so I just want to look around and feel happy.

My inspiration:  nonfiction alphabet headers

As I started making new things for the classroom I kept having more and more ideas.  So my tweaks turned into a 100+ page colorful classroom decor set!  This set is full of things that your students will use on a daily basis, such as, jobs, table numbers, number posters, ABC posters, word wall headers, word wall words, birthdays, schedule, hand signals, nameplates and more.  You can pick it up here: Colorful Classroom Decor 

I also made the ABC posters as a stand alone: Colorful Alphabet Posters

I also made Bohemian Classroom Decor based off this digital paper that has feathers on it which I L.O.V.E!  

Aren't the feathers lovely?

Now what would a post be without a freebie?!  Today I have essential items for your classroom door!  These are my must haves and I hope you enjoy them.  Pick it up here:  Door Decor

Sight word slap is a great way for students to learn sight words in a fun way.  Just print, laminate and write a new word with dry erase marker daily.  Students will high five the word and say it aloud.

Math Password is a fantastic way to give your students more practice. Again print, laminate and write a new math problem every day.  As the students pass, they will whisper the answer.  This is a great way to spiral or practice the tricky bits.  *Tip: Any child that answers incorrectly I send to the back of the line to think.  If they still don't get it right on the second try, I quietly reteach several students, model the problem, or give them a strategy.

Welcome to pennant is just a bright, colorful, space saving way to add a little cheer to your door.  I made it and intend to punch holes on the sides and thread through ribbon.

So are you planning for the new school year or actually taking time to enjoy summer?

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Print, laminate, cut, repeat!

I finally got new laminating sheets!  I should have ordered them online months ago but was looking for a deal....I found no deal and just bought them.  Then my ink ran out...sheesh!

I'm finally with all the necessary items to start getting all my school stuff printed, laminated, and cut. 

So one of the major items I wanted done and off my plate was my word wall.  Toward the beginning of the year I had it on my magnetic dry erase board.  I really like for the word wall to be interactive...I want the kids to use it.  This looks lovely but didn't function...the kids couldn't reach the top!

 

 

I knew I still wanted it to be magnetic.  So I turned around a couple filing cabinets, covered them with blue chevron contact paper and stuck them up.  It worked for our class and the students used it till the very last day.  {Can you believe I never took a picture of it?!}

 

This year I'm turning in the pennant to add a little common core into our word wall as you'll see with my alphabet headers.  My magnetic words had also seen better days so I made new ones.  We currently use the list in Month-by-Month Phonics as our sight words/word wall words.

 

 Here is where you can pick up the nonfiction alphabet headers.

 

How do you make your word wall interactive?

 

 

So for a little more practice with sight words I saw this awesome idea on Pinterest and traced it back to Two Can Do It.  It such a great idea.  They say to use poster board and hands by Lakeshore.  Well Lakeshore is an hour away, so I whipped one up on the computer.  And I have it as a freebie for you!

Break the Code!

 

 

I've also completed up a literacy and math unit with a circus theme. Yippee!  I love having all this stuff ready to go for a new school year.  There are 5 math centers working on addition, graphing, strategies, subtraction, tallies, decomposing and word problems.  There are also 5 literacy centers working on onset/rime, vowels, nonsense/real words, rhyming words, mixed up words, short and long e, print concepts, language conventions, sentences, nouns and verbs. You can pick it up at my TPT store!

 

The last thing is my crazy class lizard...Coo Coo Ca Cooh August Jones!  He is home with us for the summer.  When he gets wet or warm his color starts to change from brown to bright green and it looks like pixels.  Yesterday I gave him a warm bath {although he didn't love it} and right away he started to pixelate.  I love watching science happen.  I wish I could afford the time and money to have more class pets!

 

 

Doesn't he look pleased with me? Ha!

 

Now on to more print, laminate, cut, repeat!

 

Parking Lot Letters

This idea stems from the Pinterest idea of Sight Word Parking Lot from Juggling With Kids.  I changed it up a bit to meet the needs of one of my learners that tries so hard but just can't master the alphabet. We try all different things but I thought this once would perk him up because it's fun and incorporates cars.

Parking Lot Letters



Here is the alternate, Parking Lot Sight Words!

Parking Lot Sight Words

Enjoy!

Sight Word Slap

With the success I saw with the Math Code, I knew I needed to get something on the way out of our room too!  I got the idea from pineterest, the teacher adhered sightwords on hand cut-outs and changed them daily.  With little time to spare I found a simpler way.  Print out the sheet below.  Cut out a hand from colored paper and glue it on.  After it is dry, laminate and write the sight word daily with dry erase marker.  My students are so into it and I hope yours will be too!

Sight Word Slap