Freebie! Groundhog Fact and Comprehension

I have high hopes of getting animal fact sheets completed for all of the animals we offer students to choose from for their animal report and diorama.  This is part of our habitat unit we do at the end of the school year. 


It was so crazy at the end of the year that I didn't get even one picture of my student's dioramas taken!  :-(  Hopefully, I'll be more organized next year!


I had started a groundhog fact sheet - somewhere around Groundhog's Day and ummm, weeellll - just finished it yesterday!  Again, maybe I'll be more organized next year (ha, ha!)


Go to my Teacher's Notebook or TpT Store to get a free copy!  There isn't much in either store right, as I cleaned up my Teacher's Notebook store and just started with TpT, but stay tuned for more! :-)

Jenny :-)

Place Value Game Freebie

I haven't been able to post much lately.  It's been a crazy few months getting into the school year and getting settled into a routine.  You all know the feeling!  Here is a game I made for our upcoming Family Math Night!  Click on the game board below to download for FREE (for a limited time!) from my Teachers Notebook Shop! 

Enjoy!

Fall Math Freebie

I have been terrible about posting lately!  I feel like all that I do is work, work, work and I haven't had any time to do fun things like blog! Now don't get me wrong, I still spend a fair amount of time blog stalking but haven't had time to share anything I'm doing!!! 

I am new to many things this year, and Investigations is one of them!  Our district has mapped out how to use the program and part of that includes pulling parts from other grade levels.  So, we've been playing Capture 5 from the third grade level.  Most of my kids really enjoy playing, and others are still a bit lost - and therefore not really interested!  Sooo, I made a fall version of the game. to make it a little bit more of a draw to those kiddos  This is played exactly the same way as Capture 5, so you can use the number cards (+10, -10, +3, -1, etc.) from the program.  I just made a fun game board and instead of using chips as markers, you use pumpkin markers :-)  I printed the game board on green construction paper and the pumpkin markers on orange.  Click on picture below for game board and here for pumpkin markers.  Enjoy :-)

 

 

Freebies!

The beginning of the year has been a crazy blur of events!  I haven't had time to blog or really do much of anything other than try to make sure I have lesson plans done, copies made... basically, just trying to survive!

Here are a couple of freebies for you.  I like to have everything "cutified" so these are just some things I made for binders :-) Click on picture to download from my Teachers Notebook shop!

 

 

I hope to get things under control in my classroom and have more time to blog soon!

 

 



Bucket Filling Freebie, Art Gallery, Made it Thursday?, and more!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while!  Whew, can I just say that I am completely exhausted?  I love being a classroom teacher and I am sooo enjoying all the lesson planning and fun activities that I can incorporate... but wow is it a LOT of work!!!

Here are a few things that have kept me away from blogging! 

I changed one of my bulletin board and made it a bucket filling board.  I have a class bucket and some compliment starters.  We will read out of the bucket each Friday!  I'm worried that some students won't have something about them, so I'm going to fill out one for each student!

I also put a reminder sign on our door!

 

I just love the font I found to make the signs, it's matches the Bucket TM sign!  The i's are dotted with hearts :-)

 

 Here are links to download the word signs and the TM'd Bucket, I got the image on line and just made it bigger!

 

Bucket Filler Image

 

We are bucket fillers signs

 

 

I finally got my art wall started.  I am working at an arts magnet school, so I wanted to create a space to exhibit student art work.  It was really hard for me to veer away from my bright greens and blues, but I wanted to have more neutral colors so that the focus was on the student's art work and not the sign. I have a few projects with no names that will need to be claimed tomorrow before Back-to-School Night!

 

 

 

These apples came out so cute!  They are pointilism apples inspired by the work of Georges Seurat.  We studies a bit about Seurat and looked at some large prints of his work.  The students used Q-tips and water colors to create a pointilism apple.  They LOVED this project!!!  I wish I could take credit for it, but another 2nd grade teacher on my team got me started with it.  Thank you Catherine!  Below is a closer look at one of the apples.

 

 

 

I used black card stock and glued small clothes pins on it to hang their art work on.  I printed their names on small mailing labels to show who the pieces belong to.  I stole that idea from the third grade hall!!!

 

 

I also got all of my owls hung up under my sign that reads "Mrs. Zuniga's Wise Owls."  I got the sweet little polka dot owls from Schoolgirl Style.  I absolutely LOVE her stuff!  That is where I got the polka dot lanterns that I made my owls out of - can't remember if a credited her on that one (if not, I should have!)   I haven't figured out how to add text onto the owls - I think I need to upgrade my Adobe- so I printed student names on small mailing labels and put them on each owl.  This is a terrible picture... I will take another one tomorrow!

 

 

 

If I had been anywhere close to functioning well on Monday, I would have posted this on Made it Monday (I did make it Monday!)  This was just a quick project I did so that I had a place to hang the hall pass clips we are all using at our school this year.  I used a cookie sheet from the dollar store, left over stickers from my attendance board, and glued ribbon to the back (it's a very light cookie sheet) to attach it to the wall.  I put an owl cut out to hide the old call button on the wall!



 

 







 

Click here for tutorial on how to make the number magnets.  The sign is a little cramped, but it works!!!

 

I have more super fun art projects to share.  I'm still finishing some up and hope to have them ready to hang for Back-to-School night tomorrow!  One of these days I may go to sleep before midnight... I'm just not sure when!!!

 

 

 



New Products and a Freebie!

As I was putting my classroom together, I decided I needed calendar headers, calendar numbers, and the days of the week.  So, I made some and just uploaded them to my Teachers Notebook Store.

I had planned on using much more of the bright owl collection in my room.  However, with the lime green wrapping paper I used to cover bulletin boards and chalk board, my room really needs the blue to mellow it a bit!!!

Ok, enough about that!  On to the freebie -  I got this idea from the Visual Phonics seminar I attended this summer.  I just gave it a more "finished" look on the computer!  These are "air" words.  They are the 16 irregular words that have the "air" sound in them, but don't follow any predictable spelling pattern.  Click here download a free copy!

I will be hanging them on the blue sky border I made to cover the ugly balloon border (see pics below!)  They will stay up all year so that students can look up in the air (get it ??? :-) ) to spell those words!

I hope you can use them :-) 

Place Value Game Played with a Deck of Cards

This is a fun place value game that would be great for math centers!  The game board is formated for legal sized paper. Links for free game board, directions, and recording sheet are below!

Building Numbers Directions

Building Numbers Recording Sheet

Building Numbers Game Board

Daily 5 Signs - Freebie!

Today has been a great day!  I had two interviews - both for first grade positions!  I think they went really well :-)  In celebration I have another freebie for you from my Blue Paisely collection.  Please leave me some feed back on the product.   If you love it check out more of the collection at my Teacher's Notebook store!

Click on picture for link :-)



Organizing a Resource Room

I'm new to the blogging world, so I thought I would start with an area I'm very familiar with!  I've been a resource room teacher for the past 7 years.  Teachers who visit my room almost always comment on how organized it is.  Substitutes also leave comments about how organized everything is and how easy it was for them to figure out what to do!

Here are some tips for organizing your room:

1.  Keep a separate folder for each group.  I just use basic pocket folders.  You can get packages of 10 for a dollar at Target during back-to-school time. Make sure each folder is labeled with the group name and time.  For example: 5th Grade Math 1:00 - 1:30

2.  Keep any copied paperwork for students in that folder along with incentive charts, etc.

3. Label bins or areas on a shelf to keep materials. Have a separate area or bin for each group.  So your 5th grade math group will have workbooks, teacher guides, spiral notebooks, the group folder, etc.  Stack them neatly on the shelf or place them neatly in a bin.

4. Separate reading, math, and writing programs, games, manipulatives, etc. and store them either on separate bookcases, or put all the reading materials on 2 shelves and math on the other two (you get the idea!)

5.  Do the same thing in your closet or the area where you keep your personal references and materials (I have tons of Minute Math books, Daily Language Review books, etc. that I copy from.)  It's much easier to find the items you need if they are separated by subject area.

6. Keep markers, crayons, glue, scissors, highlighters, and anything else you may need for a lesson in each teaching area.  I use plastic pencil boxes to store them in (you can get them for under a dollar during back-to-school time.)  You are working with students with a variety of diabilities and behavior problems -getting up and looking for supplies is a sure way for your group to go wild!

7. Keep pencils, erasers, and pens in an easily accessible container.  I use a round desktop organizer that has 2 areas to keep pens and pencils standing upright and that has drawers to keep paperclips, etc.  I do not leave this sitting on the table, I keep it back in my area and pass out pencils when needed (otherwise students play with the pencils, container, etc. instead of listening!)

8.  Keep lesson plans and a list of students in each group at each teaching area.  Make sure that you put student's general ed teachers and their phone extensions next to each student name.  It will save you (or a sub) time when you need to track no show students down!

These are just some general ideas.  Here's a freebie to help you get started! These are owl themed folder and bin labels.  There are 3 different designs (1 for reading, 1 for math, and 1 for writing.)  You can print on Avery labels or print on cardstock and laminate.  Happy Organizing!  Click on picture for link.

Labels created using artwork by Trina Clark.  Check out her website: digiscrapkit.com