Sun
21 Sep
2014
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Back to school names and descriptions

This is going to be great year! I am teaching a wonderful group of 26 secondgraders.  And I am also teaching ART in English during specials!!!

 

I know it sounds busy, but I could not miss this opportunity. I taught ESl to these kids while they were in Kinder and I am their Art teacher now. Teaching art is my favorite! I don’t have much time for planning. But who needs time when you have pinterest? 😉Follow Lita Lita’s board creative art in my classroom on Pinterest.

I have found so many cool ideas that I won’t have time to fit them all in a single school year.

 

I needed a simple craft to start the year and review some colors/numbers vocabulary. I found this cute one in pinterest and it worked wonders! Check it in Michelle’s blog I loved how she arranged the bulletin board.
This craft does not need lots of preparation. But as I only get 40 minutes a week for each group I prepared it as much as I could so it would fit in only one lesson.
The craft had to be a purpose for using English language so before making anything I taped the color on the blackboard (Yes, we still use blackboards… ). Then we wrote their names and counted the letters. They quickly understood it so we moved on with the making.
At first I stood by the colored papers so every kid should ask: Can I have some ‘blue’ paper, please?

Then I had to move to help some kids with the tearing process… It can be difficult for some firstgraders. One of the kids was in charge of the paper. And when they finished they could help the kids with the longer names.

 

I could not be happier with the results :)In my own classroom we were working with descriptions. I created a simple handout to write about themselves and a template to draw their portraits. You could use it in different ways.

We used the first paragraph to write about our face, the second one was for general appearance and  the last one for our personality.
We did not write our names so we could use it as a guess who game during Open House next week.
If you like the border it is from my good friend Mel (Graphics from the Pond) you can get it here for free:
As the kids were drawing I realized how similar their drawings are to my own clip art. This makes me feel honored.:)
                   
Sat
06 Sep
2014
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Back to school week!

We are back to school again!
This has been a crazy week. But I am happy to be back in the classroom again. I bought bookmarks in Target during my Summer trip and they loved them.

This year I will be teaching second graders. Half of my students were in my class last year but I wanted all of the them to feel welcomed. 

We made this interview to know more about each other:
The link is at the end of the post 😉
We created some cool badges to have wear on our school bags.

We laminated them so they can last a bit longer.
If you liked this click here to get all the printables.

Have a great week!
Wed
20 Aug
2014
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Trying to be organized

Today I am linking again with blog hoppin’. I can’t believe I am blogging three days in a row!
During the Summer conference I made a trip to Target and bought this cute planners I want to use this year.
As I have said we are not back in the classroom until September so almost everything is in the school. My favorite organizational supplies are binders! I have tons of them.
This is an old photo and I had not include the labels yet. But you can see some of my binders to store assessment, group work, students information, worksheets…
I try to keep my classroom as organized as possible as I want to be a good example for my students. They don’t come to my house, so that is a different thing. 😉
In the craft folder I keep each craft in a plastic sleeve with an example for easy reference.
My term folders are my favorite! Everything I create/purchase for my classroom goes in them.
When I arrived to my school printing or photocopying was a big deal so I got used to print at home. When I get to school I make the copies and put the originals in these display folders.
I have one for each term and each one has 60 plastic sleeves so everything is organized by week and by subject.
I insert a sticky note with the objectives for that week.
I can’t wait to see how you organize!