Containers and Formula, too!

Do you know that one of my favorite things in the world is containers?!?! It may be a prerequisite for becoming a teacher. I'm not sure, but I love them in all sizes, shapes, and colors. And I am guilty of buying them all with no rhyme or reason. But it's a weakness and I'm trying to get better. Debbie Diller taught me to just say no unless the container has a purpose and you have space for it. Have you read her books? My faves are Literacy Work Stations and Math Work Stations (although I have only read it once). But her book that I LOVE is Spaces and Places. It literally changed MY LIFE! the look and design of my classroom.

My district was lucky enough to hire Debbie and her associates to work with us last year and it was wonderful! Probably, no definitely the best professional development I've experienced in my 15 years. If ever you get the opportunity to see her or work with her, jump at the chance! She's awesome. In her book, she pointed out that if you use just one background and border on all of your bulletin boards/walls, etc. it gives your classroom a much cleaner, more pulled together look. I was that teacher with as many cute different prints I could find. The busier the better, but no more. Next year, I'm going with lime green and royal blue, with a little white and maybe pink thrown in. I've already painted a couple of bookshelves blue and today I made my polka-dotted lime green curtains! They are my new best friends. I know, sad. I will post a pic when I get them up. You're thinking, wow, Jenny, I didn't know you were a sewer (is that right? so-er, not sewer, ewwww.) Well, I'm not. I am able to sew, but I have not met a sewing machine that likes me. My mom has given me SEVERAL. She keeps hoping I'll meet one who likes me. Well, because that hasn't happened, I made the No-Sew curtains. My tools consisted of an iron and some fabric glue. That's it! Could I make more and sell them on Etsy? Hmmmm

Anyhoo...I digress...back to the containers. You may already know that I am the mother of twin boys who are 19 months old (and a 5 year old boy, too)! As you can imagine, we went through A LOT of formula feeding those babies the first year of their lives. Because I was going through so much formula, we were using about a tub every five days for a while and I thought, I've got to think of something to do with these formula tubs. They were really a great size and had an attached lid! So....

Ouila! I hot glued a cute polka dotted ribbon around them and the kids used these all year. They held up really well, although many kids managed to snap their lids off. But they still worked. Sadly, I still have about 16 formula tubs left, but obviously not enough for a whole class, so I'll need to do something else next year. What do you use? I'd love to get some new containers... These have a purpose, Debbie!!!!

No Sew Curtains

I've been a busy bee as far as decorating my classroom goes...Have I worked on any curriculum? We won't go there. But my classroom will be CUTE! I'm excited because this will truly be the first year that it's cute. As I've told you before, I'm not cutsey or crafty, but sshhh...if you don't tell, I won't either. I'm pretending. And thanks to Pinterest, I've begun to believe I am. :)

So, last year, I read somewhere about no sew curtains. I had no idea. See? I wasn't kidding about not being crafty. I am not able to sew really, but I can use some glue. So, I thought, I'll give it a try. And low and behold I made some no sew curtains and I had  a Puppy Dog theme in my classroom last year. So, ok, I've had kind of cute classrooms before. The kids liked them, anyway. But this year, we'll all like it because I picked my fabrics first. I knew I wanted a fabric with royal blue in it because I had just painted my shelves blue. So I went on a search and found this fabric at Joanne's...

Isn't it fabulous?!?! I love it!!! This is the fabric I'm going to use on the crate seats I'm going to make. If my husband would ever cut the boards for me. Anyway, I got some lime green and white polka dotted fabric to make the curtains for my windows and my shelves where I keep my books and manipulatives and center stuff. Then, to make it cute (so the kids can enjoy it too, I guess) I'm going to decorate with some cute frogs! I'm so excited!!!  I'll take pictures and keep you posted on how things are going.

I finished the curtains for my windows.  Wanna see?

Boring Window

Cute Window!

Yes, I am proud of myself! So, does anyone want to try this and need directions? These were sooooo easy to make! If anyone needs directions, just leave a comment and I will post directions in a No Sew Curtains Part 2 Post!

Thanks for stopping by!!! And if you're not already following, I'd love if you would and leave me a comment! Okay?! Okay.

Daily 5 Chapter 4

Oh my, I loved this chapter! I really feel like I'm starting to "get it" and with the detailed ideas on how to implement the parts of Daily 5, the little wheels in my head are really turning!

This chapter focuses on Read to Self. Which I've always done in my room, but since I never really taught them how to do this, you can imagine that I had several mostly off-taskers. They always got a book, looked at a few pictures, showed them to their friends, then went back to the library to get another book. They did this over and over and I would remind them to hurry and choose a book, but I was always scared to discourage them too much because I've always wanted my kids to love "independent reading" time. This chapter will really help me with those kids.

I also love the book boxes and giving the kids many books in their boxes from day one! That's awesome and I've never thought to do that. I've always just had one basket of books on each table that each child could choose from. So they were at least getting some free choice, but they never felt like they belonged to them. They were the table books.

I'm not ready to go back to school yet, but this sure gets me excited. I do have a few questions I need help with, though...

1. What about the books the kids get for guided reading? Do these go in a separate book box or bag? How do I keep these organized?

2. How long do I keep the books in their boxes? Am I missing the point? Should I not worry about that?

Link up with these great hosts! They've got some great freebies! Thanks guys!!! And join the party! I'd love to read some more about this chapter!

Burn Ban and July Currently

So, how are your plans for the fourth coming along? Well, ours are not as exciting this year. We usually do fireworks together in our driveway while LOTS of neighbors do theirs. It's pretty fun! Unfortunately, this year our town/county is under a Burn Ban because we've not had enough rain this summer. So...no fireworks for us. No fun, but I sure don't want any fires, so understandable. Instead, we'll have some friends and family over and play with sprinklers in the yard. It's gonna be a hot one! So, speaking of the fourth, I just finished my July Currently....linking up with Farley from


Link up with Farley, if you haven't already, which it seems MANY already have! Oh yeah, and read her rules! :)

Ok, so following the rules...my all time favorite book to read aloud is Harvey Slumfenburger's Christmas Present. (Oh yeah, and I'm anal, and I can't type book titles without underlining them) If you haven't read this story, you must! Harvey is a little boy who lives in a hut at the top of Roly-Poly mountain. He doesn't have much money, so when Santa finds one present left in his sack when he gets back to the North Pole and realizes it's for Harvey, he knows he has to get it to him, even though the reindeer are sick. The end of the story (I won't ruin it) lends itself to a great story starter! I look forward to reading this story every year.
And my goto professional book is the book that is the Reading Recovery training manual. It has great ideas of how to teach the "hard to reach" kids. The ones who don't get it. I pick it up at least once every year after I've had a not so successful guided reading lesson.
So there ya go! I hope to hear your comments and I hope you have a safe fourth of July!!!

Daily 5 Chapter 3

Hi y'all!
I hope your summer is going great! Mine is! I'm spending a lot of time with my boys which is AWESOME most of the time! I really have a great thing going because they all go to school/mother's day out twice a week, so I have 2 days a week that I can work on my projects, relax, see my friends. Ok. I'll be honest. I have not really worked on any projects yet. But I've bought fabric. And I've done the projects....Mentally. In my head, they're already done. I shouldn't tell you that I complained on facebook the other day that I thought Pinterest was mean for making me think I could do these cutsey things. I am not cutsey. But I pretend.
Anyhoo...I digress...
On to the Daily 5, Chapter 3!
I am joining the blog hop with Mrs. Freshwater's Class and Thinking Out Loud. Head on over to their blogs and link up!



This chapter was great because we're starting to get into the how to of the routine and expectations. I'm not going to write about each topic as many of the rest of you have already done because you've already done that. And I've not done Daily 5 yet. So I'm going to share the parts of the chapter that really spoke to me.
1. Good Fit Books- Oh my goodness! This idea makes so much sense. Can I just say, duh?! I  get so irritated with myself when I hear something like this and I realize I hadn't already thought of it myself. Ha! But really, of course a child is capable of selecting and reading a book of their own choice if I help them figure out how. And there is the motivation factor that is always so hard to find, in my humble opinion. Kids want to read the books they want to read. It's that simple. Not just kids. Everyone. I saw my principal the other day (love her) and I told her I was joining in this book study and no one had to ask me to read the chapters. I'm just doing it. When I'm supposed to. Not 10 minutes before a meeting. And she said, "Yeah, isn't it amazing when you can choose the book yourself?" Exactly.

2. Short Intervals of Repeated Practice-I LOVE that the sisters said, "...if a child, even one, goes off-task during the practice time, the signal should be given to stop and gather students back together to review how it went. We never want children to continue with the off-task behavior because that means they are practicing the wrong way and training their muscle memories incorrectly." Because the whole time, I was thinking of Max. You know Max. I've mentioned him before and everyone has a Max. I kept wondering what I would do with Max because he was one that would need to practice stamina. And for the sisters to point out that that child did the best he could at that time. I have to give him that practice with stamina so that he could be as successful as the others.

So, that's it! There were other great ideas, but these two thoughts were the most important in my mind. I hope you keep reading as I will. I even just got the Cafe Book, even though I know nothing about it.
I'll leave you with a couple of questions...I would love to hear your answers in my comments...
1. Those of you who have done Daily 5 before, will I really be able to teach all the Max's out there to do this correctly?
2. Do you have a love/hate with Pinterest?
3. How's your summer so far?!

Talk to you soon!!!