Crazy Storms = Classroom Done?!?!

Wednesday morning (12:45am to be exact) a major storm that developed VERY quickly and produced what they are calling "straight winds." There were gusts in my area 75-86 miles per hour and 5 tornados reported with in 30 miles.  I woke up to my ceiling fan slowing down, which means the power JUST went out.  I run to shut our windows and it looks like a power washer is blasting our bedroom window.  I run to close the kitchen window. As lightning flashes I see that a GIANT branch off our 100 year old tree laying on top of our power lines.  I tried calling non-emergency police to report it, it was dead.  I called 911 and it was busy.  After 25 minutes of a busy signal with 911 (I didn't know that could happen!) I finally got the sheriff who wrote down my address and hung up.  6:30 am the Fire Department checked and the line was dead so we were safe.  The damage is crazy around here.  43 hours later we have power.

All the teachers went to school because our little school was the only place for MILES that had power (how it survived with power we aren't sure) and we all used that to charge our cell phones, be in the light, and some even brought their curling irons!  Needless to say, we got a lot done in our rooms because it was better than being at home!  I actually finished my classroom (the 4k room) and am starting some of the nit-picky details!

The power just came on, the first thing I do after resetting all the clocks?  Blog of course!

Here are some storm pictures & room pictures.

Tree pinning down our overhead power lines in my back yard

When the lines pulled down, they pulled this metal pole bending it 90* This pole brings the lines into our home.  It went from a lower case l to a capital L!

When the lines pulled down, they pulled this metal pole bending it 90* This pole brings the lines into our home.  It went from a lower case l to a capital L!

 

My hand on the branch that fell...the branch, not a tree, but one branch!

the left of the screen is the power line, the right is the end of the tree.  The width of my back yard is the height of the BRANCH from our tree!

Splintered power lines on my way to school. 

Splintered power lines on my way to school.

43 hours later, we have the wonderful WE Energy man who drove more than 2 hours to help our area putting the power back on in service!  The closest hotel he could find (when he gets off at midnight) is an hour away.  The linemen are working SO HARD to help us.  Thank You!

After clean up, this is the cut up branch in front of our house.  So much tree, but we were SO lucky to have our home, our cars that we use to go to work, and NO  injuries.  

NOW MY AWESOME CLASSROOM!

Now that all is normal, I plan on prepping more in the paper form for this upcoming year!  Thank goodness we have electricity to work from home ;)

Apple a Day-Classroom Organization

I am linking up with The Applicious Teacher, and showing off my classroom organization.  I am pretty proud of my room and feel it is pretty accessible and organized.



I have a page dedicated to my classroom.  Click here to visit.




I have Labeled my whole room for the students and for myself.

My art supply closet is all of the supplies students bring in and a few supplies I use regularly.  In this photo, they are labeled with a run of the mill label maker.  Since this photo,  have gotten into my classroom (we have summer access, YAY!) and made some ADORABLE chevron labels for everything to help it match.  I have also organized it more. I didn't take a picture the day I did it because there was no air, I'd been there a while, and they have begun waxing the floor.  I will post updated photos when the waxing is done and I am not using my closet to store all the things to get them off the floor.

These are all of my thematic books I use for read alouds and putting on my seasonal shelf in my classroom library.  Each one is labeled with the theme and they are in chronological order in which I teach them.  The top boxes are huge poster board boxes that hold posters and decorations for each of the seasons.

I label these drawers for all of MY materials.  The chevron drawers are for each of the days of that weeks materials  These drawers are deep enough to put paint bottles, copies, and other supplies.  The drawers on the right are for the many forms that come in as well as my "to do" drawers.

I have a birthday/calendar binder.  The numbers correspond with the month.  In each number I have 2 page protectors.  The first page protector holds all the birthday cards and badges pre-made.  That way, during that month I pull them out and give to the student and they are ready to go!  The second page protector holds the month label that goes on the calendar and then the calendar numbers for that month. It makes a new month in the classroom very organized!

My students (at age 4/5) are notorious for not quite knowing how to line up, fighting over who was there first, budding, and fighting in line.  My solution was to put all the classroom jobs on the floor with contact paper (all students have a job in my room according to Conscious Discipline) and they stand on their job in line.  No discussion of where, doesn't matter who was there first, etc.  I love it.

Class materials are all labeled with an image and a word label.  This way students can put toys away on their own as well as build literacy and work on reading these words.

Getting Acquainted-My Classroom

Click on the image above to link up!

I am linking up with Latoya: Flying into first grade!  This week: Favorite places in your room!

To see my whole room, go to My Classroom!  I have my room broken down to how I set it up and why.  Even have a picture of every center in the room.

My favorite three places in my room are:

1. My shelf I made for my room.  It is my small group area and it is cute.  It will even hold my technology eventually.  

2. My weekly drawers are essential to my life, and they are cute with my new chevron theme!  I love being organized and I love feeling like I am or putting on the illusion that I am, even if sometimes I am flying by the seat of my pants. ;)

3. My birthday train!  It is so cute and I spent so much time on it!  It is not really to my theme, but it was so cute I had to have it!

Clutter Free Classroom #7

 If you have not started yet, please check out the Clutter Free Classroom Blog (by clicking image above).  

This weeks job: Manage incoming paperwork. 

As she mentions in her blog: The paperwork just. keeps. coming.

I communicate with parents via email, my website, and my blog.  When parents do write notes, they write them in the student's folders.  As a school supply, we have parents bring folders with the metal tabs in the middle. We then whole punch some paper and put it in between.  This way, we can keep a running journal, parents always have the paper, and they can check back daily.

When I go to staff meetings for the school district, I bring my teacher binder with me.  In it, I have a three whole punch. I punch the information I need and put it in the correct tab.  I recycle what I dont need right away.

Weekly newsletters to parents and to staff comes to us via email.  I do not print unless I have to, and if I have to I immediately punch it and put it in the binder.

When I have extras that can be saved for next year, I put it in it's theme folder in my file cabinet.  I only have one drawer of this.  It is not an abundant area, but when I spend time cutting and laminating, I save it for next year in this drawer.  I keep as much digital as I can.  I have MANY files digital sorted in the same manner as these for next year printables.

I have the stacking drawers that have a shelf for scholastic (a big paper source), my sub binder, an extra's pile for those early finishers, and a file shelf (for if I dont have time to put the items in their files in the cabinet. 

When students finish their work, the put it in "the high five basket"  The high five basket is a paper catcher I got from the dollar spot at target that has hand prints on it.  Somehow, it got a name as high five basket and it stuck.

If they need do do more work on the item, the put it in the blue basket.

Anyway, I take the work from the basket and put it where it goes next: Alphabet books, home, or grade.  If it needs to be hung on the wall, I post-it note the pile and put it in the aide's baseket.

If RSVPs come for our many school sponsored events, these go in the RSVP drawer to tally later.  They are recycled after the event has finished.

If I need to make copies, it goes in the copy drawer. The drawers are removable, so I can take the whole drawer with me when I go to make my copies.

Clutter Free 2013 (week 7 Catch up)

This weeks job was to catch up!  It was nice to feel on top of things for once rather than like I was trying to keep up with the projects.  

I spent the "catch up week" labeling my recycled "bubbles" I use to organize a variety of materials.  See Post.  My shelves look less cluttered and this eliminates the problem with having containers match and being the right color.  They are clear so students can see what is inside and they fit well on the shelves. I chose labels that fit what is in the bins, but when they change seasonally, students still know what to put in there.

I got my scrapbook wall art board done!  I made a checkerboard pattern of the scrapbook paper, with each child's name on the top left and bottom right corners of the paper.  I put two students to a square because I have so many students, but when picking which students to put together I put students I typically get art from and students I don't typically get art from together.  Students give me work and they can choose if the work they like is one they want to replace the one on the board or not. If they replace it, the old one goes into my "love book" (a binder with page protectors to put students work in--another great idea from Clutter Free Classroom).  If they like their old one better, I put the new one in the love book.  It is filling up quick and looks great, but keeps them organized and helps them make choices as well.

I am so excited my Thirty-One bag came in!  I ordered the organizational tote and the file holder. The file folder holds the hanging folders and the file holder fits right in the bag!  It has made a great bag for conferences with my assessment binder in there and all student files with me. It looks much more attractive sitting next to me at conference time than a stack of files.  I can pull the file holder out for storage and continue to use the bag.  I love having the flat bottom on the bag!

I had conferences this week and then we had a snow day on Friday which was a no school day but a conference day. Now I have to make up conferences on my own time, but I digress.  I came up with a very cool system for my conferences.  I stand a non-lined note card up so it is taller than wide.  I whole punch the card with 2 holes on the left hand side. The student's name goes on top, meeting date and time on the bottom.  I put them in my assessment binder in chronological order, and then I put a post it note on the card that NEXT.  The post it note covers up the data for the next student so when I give the conference there is no privacy problems.  It also marks where I am so I can pull the tab when referring back to the card.  The cards have a bullet point for strength, weakness, strength.  I put any notes at the bottom.  I found the system to be very successful, efficient, and quick.  If you need a better explanation, please let me know!  I love being able to help and share ideas that work (and don't).

I have been making sure to leave my desk clean at night and do a clean sweep of surfaces at night when I can.  I love having someone tell me ideas that help make me an organized, more efficient teacher.  If you haven't started, now is the time!  Make your Classroom Clutter Free in 2013!

Clutter Free Room #6

 Challenge #6 "Organize your Teacher Resources"

This week is to organize the materials, specifically the teacher guides and school purchased curriculum. In cleaning up my work space If found that I did this pretty well.  

My material is not "really" in kids sight as I have all the material that is not kid friendly either out of site or behind my desk.  This is basically my under the stairs storage and/or binders.  

My textbooks live under my stairs, bottom shelf, and all in the left hand basket.
School purchased ones on the right, self purchased ones in the same crate on the left.

Craft ideas and such are also in these books, on this bottom shelf. They are on the right hand side of the basket as well.  

The mimio's box and user guides are all together on the bottom shelf right hand side of the right hand basket.  If  I need the mimio or the directions for it, I simply look there.

On the top shelf, right hand crate, I have my binders.  White (extra for now), Blue is for bulletin boards.  This binder includes pictures of boards, materials used, and even font/cricut letters used and size.  Purple binder (not pictured, already in my bag to go home tonight) is my assessment binder.  Yellow (extra for now).  The pink binder is my birthdays and calendar binder.

Purple assessment binder.   In this binder I keep all my checklist observational assessment forms.  Each student has one and they are in alphabetical order.  I used tabs made form post it notes for each child's name.  Observational Assessment form, available TpT.  I also keep a simple checklist to make sure I get to everyone.  In the back, I keep my abc reading chart, colors chart, etc.  That I need to show students in a formal assessment.

Pink calendar/birthday binder.  This binder is 12 binder tabs and 12 page protectors.  At the beginning of the year, I make out all my birthday cards/badges, and put them in the correct tab in it's page protector.  The front page is a list of birthdays.  If they are summer birthdays, it indicates what month the child's birthday is celebrated and materials held.

 I also put the calendar numbers and month title in the page protector. Each month, I am ready for the birthdays and calendars.

My Teacher Binder is in my bag at all times.  It contains student info, standards, calendars, meeting info, etc.

My Substitute Teacher Binder is on the shelves to the right of the chair on the shelves.  This contains emergency procedures, lesson plans, transportation information, and procedure lists.

My file cabinet is where I keep all of my thematic information.  Each season/month has a hanging folder.  Each theme has a manilla folder. I put originals, extras, and games such as bingo in these folders.

Each letter of the week has it's own folder as well.  The folders contain: My printable alphabet book pages for that letter, the  handwriting sheet for this letter, and the cricut cut letters to hang on the board.

Any other professional development, curriculum, and data the school gives me, I put in the file cabinet  in a labeled folder.  The folders are in the hanging folders according to category.

For my weekly organization, I have drawers.  I love my plastic drawers.  I have weekly materials.  These drawers are behind my desk and students do not go into them.  The labels on the front keep me organized and hide the clutter behind.  The black drawers are shorter and work great for when you have less of certain materials (like RSVPs, an assignment to grade, etc).

Finally, for thematic materials (everything from thematic books for the book shelves, thematic games/centers, and decorations) are kept out of student's eyes as well.  I have a closet that is organized by these themes in basic chronological order.  I have book boxes laid backwards with their label on the "bottom."   I then put a small, covered, plastic shoe box with the materials in them under the books.  For decorations, I have very large poster boxes (so posters don't need to be folded) on top of these shelves in my closet.