Teacher Introduction

On the first day of school I wanted my class to get to know me so I made a photo board about myself. The kids now know my parents, sister, niece and friends. I also typed facts about me. When we did a classroom scavenger hunt I included a few facts from my board. You don't have to go into a lot of detail or make it extravagant. Keep it simple and don't spend too much time and money on it. 

Class Agenda

Instead of having an agenda this year we are having a flight plan to go with the airplane theme. 

Used my handy dandy Cricut Cutter to cut out the letters. 

It is on magnets on my chalkboard. 

Cricut

My cricut paper cutter is my favorite decorating tool. Unfortunately they aren't cheap. But they are a great investment. 

If you can't afford one then find a friend who has one! 

It is a must. 

I have the small one, but a I have friends with larger ones. They are nice and let me borrow it when I need to cut out something larger. 

Even with my smaller cricut I'm able to cut out 5 inch letters for my bulletin boards. 

The letters and airplane are done with a cricut. 

I laminated the letters so that I can use them again next year. 

I'm told that they best time to get them is on Black Friday. 

I'm hoping to get a bigger one then. 

Local Geography

Our local water agency was passing out this poster of our local river. I love that it is a cartoon representation of the Russian River. And it helps my students know more about their local geography. 

Who knows maybe your water agency would have something like this too. Couldn't hurt to check!

Class Library

Using your space to the best you can is a huge asset. Over the summer while I was thinking about the layout of my classroom I realized that I wasn't going to need all of the cubby space for my students. What a perfect place to put our class library! The cubbies even made extra storage space for books and the gagillion (not sure how to spell that) dictionaries in my classroom. I'm also able to store any pillows or cushions I have for when my students are reading around the room. 

Wall Stickers

I was so excited when I found these at Michael's Craft Store. And I'm pretty sure they are reusable! Awesome!

Airplane Theme

I love the idea of having a theme in my classroom. So glad I am teaching 3rd grade this year. They aren't too old for a theme. Yes!
In my last post I talked about how I love having a travel theme. I figure I can have a rotation of travel themes for several years. Airplanes, trains, road trip, and cruises. Last year my co-teacher and I did the road trip theme. This year I'm going to use airplanes.
For the beginning of the year I'm going to send a Back 2 School letter home to my students and parents welcoming them to my class. Along with the letter I'll send a boarding pass for 3rd grade which they can bring the first day or week of school. I found this template made by Aylee. I love it! I'll post a picture of how it turned out later. I can't wait to personalize it to my class.

Easy/Practically Free Bulletin Board

Last year my co-teacher and I had a Road Trip theme. I love having a travel theme. My favorite part of a travel theme is collecting post cards. My 3rd grade students jumped at the challenge last year. We had so many post cards, over 100. Our largest bulletin board was dedicated to the postcards we collected. In the center I had a map of the United States and I cut out "Road Trip USA" using my cricut paper cutter.
Students asked friends and family to send postcards. A few of my students had grandparents who were retired and did a lot of traveling. We got some great postcards. As we got postcards the students stuck a straight pin in the state where the postcard came from. We made a few goals throughout the year as we gathered postcards. Our last goal was to get at least 1 postcard from each state. We didn't quite get there, but we had fun trying. At the end of the year we counted how many postcards we had from each state.

Let the count down begin

It is crazy to think that July is over half way through. 

School is starting in less than a month! 

Ahh! 

Don't panic! 

You can do this!

Take a deep breath. 

Ok, now let's think about this. What do you need to do to be prepared for the school year?

I don't know about you, but I am totally a list person. I love lists! The joy I get when I can cross something off my list is huge!
So today, as I'm feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start in my classroom, I am going to make a list of things to accomplish. The list has to be realistic.

25 days till school starts list:

• Year at a glance - 75% complete
• put away stack of papers
• "Skeleton" Back 2 School Packet

Part of being realistic in your lists before school starts is knowing that you won't necessarily be able to finish a task in one day.  For instance, yesterday I was working on the daily schedule for my classroom. I still don't know the exact times on my pull-outs so I was able to get about 75% of it finished. For now that is awesome! Today I most likely won't finish my year at a glance, but 75% of it is a great start. And when I go to finish it later it won't take me too long.
So, my words of wisdom for today are don't stress out. Take it one step at a time. You can't eat an elephant all in one bite (hopefully you won't eat an elephant at all). You have to eat it one bite at a time.

{Now it is time for me to take my own advice.}

Reading

"Shopping for books is akin to shopping for clothes -- if we don't take the time to try them on to see how they fit, they are destined to remain in our closets and on our shelves."
(Debbie Miller Reading with Meaning)

Classroom Store

A classroom store can totally drain your school budget. You can shop at the Dollar Store or Oriental Trading, but it still adds up quickly. You also have to think about how often you need to have your class store. If you spread it out too much throughout the year the kids will forget about what they are working towards. At the end of the school year my administrator gave me a few ideas of how to keep to a budget in this area. I took those ideas and then looked up some more.

Here you have my 

List of Affordable Classroom Store Items

• Lunch with the teacher - my co-teacher and I did this last year. The kids loved it. Just have a group of 5 kids at a time have lunch in the classroom with you. Come up with some questions to ask each of them. They will love the fact that they are getting to tell you things about them and that they get to hear things about you! It is great to show your students that you are interested in their lives!
• Extra Computer Time - there are some kids who will love this. Plan a time during the day when they can use that computer time while other kids are working on something or reading quietly. The students who purchase this will feel so special that they get to do their own thing. 
• Special Seats - let the students who purchase this sit in either a special chair or even at the teacher's desk for part of the day. Better make sure your desk is cleaned off first. :)
• Work with a friend - this one might be a little trickier, but I bet you could figure something out to make it work. I would probably make two kids buy this one and they could choose a time to work together on something other than a test. I have a few students who would try to pull that one on me. :) 
• Read Aloud - Let the student read a story to the entire class. It may be one they've chosen or one you already planned on reading. But let them do the reading instead of you. It is also a good time for them to practice reading aloud (bonus!)
• Choosing their seat - let the students choose their seating arrangement. This could be short term or long term. It really depends on the class/kids. I remember being in 3rd grade and loving it when my teacher let us choose where we wanted to sit in the classroom. 
• No Homework Pass - this may not apply to all homework. 
• Planner not signed pass - at our school we start using planners in 3rd grade. Every night when they have homework they have to have their parent sign/initial their planner. They could save this for a time when they forgot to get it signed. 
• Design a bulletin board - I found this one on another site, and I'm not sure how I would use it. It would be hard for me to let the bulletin board go. But it is a cool idea. 
• Choose music to play in the classroom - I often play music while my students are working. Have a selection of cds and let a student choose what to listen to that day. 

Not a bad list, right? I'm looking forward to trying some of these out on my students this fall. I think we'll start with a group reward first and then move on to individual rewards. I'm so excited!

Starting Over

Well, I'm excited to say that this blog is changing!! 

This is no longer an art blog.
(Although, I will occasionally post art projects I use in my classroom) 

This blog is now dedicated to my 3rd grade class!! Yes, its true, I'm now a 3rd grade teacher. I've been waiting for this for a long time.

There is so much running through my head about what I want to do in my classroom. My goal this summer is to get organized. I want to start the school year with a bang. These kids have no idea what they are getting into. This is going to be one great school year! (Can you tell that I'm pumped?!) 

I'll be posting about different things I do in my classroom and share some good inexpensive, or even free, things to help make the classroom a better place. :)

{Looking forward to sharing some great ideas with you!}

Word Art

I loved doing this art project with my Jr. High Art students. We kinda cheated in that I had them use an overhead projector to trace the picture, but they turned out so nice. Each student chose an important person in our country's history and they came up with a list of words and phrases relating to that person. Then they used those words to make the picture of the person. This is a portrait of Ronald Reagan done by a 7th grade student. I think it looks great. I'm not teaching Jr. High Art next year and I'm trying to figure out how I can do this with my 3rd grade class next year. It might be a stretch.