Snowflakes for Sandy Hook

I can't put into words my feelings about the events that took place on Friday, December 14th.  Absolutely devastating.  So instead of writing about my feelings (that I can't put into words), I wanted to share something I found on another blog that I'm going to do with my class (without them knowing what it's for).

We are going to make coffee filter snowflakes to send to Sandy Hook to help create a 'winter wonderland' for students and staff when they return in January.  Please see the letter below and the link for the original post where I found this: I Heart Naptime

Welcome Students to a Winter Wonderland

When school resumes for Sandy Hook, it will be in a new building. Parent-volunteers are working to ensure that the students are welcomed back by a winter wonderland with the entire school decorated with as many unique snowflakes as possible. We encourage senders to be as creative as possible, remembering that no two snowflakes are alike. Please make and send snowflakes by January 12, 2013 to the Connecticut PTSA address at the end of this email.
Donating and Organizing Fundraisers for Sandy Hook Elementary School
Donations will be accepted indefinitely to the Connecticut PTSA “Sandy Hook Fund” to provide ongoing support to the community. Please send checks to the Connecticut PTSA address listed at the end of this email. Group fundraising projects may include walk-a-thons, spirits days, pajama days, etc., which may be scheduled at your convenience.
For student-run coin drives, please submit all donations by February 14, 2012.
The Newtown community has requested only monetary donations at this time. For service or product donation inquiries, please contact newtownboe@gmail.com. To contact Sandy Hook PTA, please email sandyhook@ctpta.org.

Please send all snowflakes and donations to:
Connecticut PTSA
60 Connolly Parkway
Building 12, Suite 103
Hamden, CT 06514

 

Classroom Blog

This is my first year having a classroom blog and wanted to share it with you!

http://mrscoffeyskinders.blogspot.com/

I will use it basically as a home base for information and will do posts now and then- no student pictures, not going to even go there- even with permission forms. Parents too unpredictable these days.

How do you use your classroom site/blog?


 

Back to School Packet- free download!

Tomorrow night is Back to School Night where I do my big presentation to parents!  Below is my Back to School packet that I decided to send home with parents on the first day of school (last Thurs.) rather than tomorrow night. I figured they can formulate questions and have some more time to process all the info so we'll see if that's helpful. If you would like this in a word doc let me know and I'd be happy to share it. I add a lot of other things in but they're not scanned documents, so they're not included in my packet you see below. Enjoy! Back to School Packet

Kindergarten Classroom Tour!

I can't believe school starts TOMORROW....

I snapped a few quick and low quality pics on my phone before I left my room finally tonight... still not feeling ready.  Wonder if that feeling will ever go away?

We do teddy bears for the first week! Each student will get a welcome note along with a Welcome to K sticker when they come in.

View from the back- green and blue book boxes on the left where they store their backpacks.  These will be filled with leveled books once we start reading groups.

Themed book shelf

Reading tent (closed for now), classroom library, writing wall, word wall

New crate seats (owls, of course), small group reading table and inquiry wall (for LEAD21, our reading curriculum)- covered with stuff for tomorrow.

Cubbies and sticker charts in the back

Listening station

Writing station and manipulative storage

View from my desk

View from the door

Welcome! :)

Funny story/not funny- haha- Tuesday was our Supply Drop Off/Meet the Teacher night and there was a sewage/water break.  This is what teachers got to wade through... fun times.  There's my SUV on the right.  The water had to be shut off at the school in the midst of our cookout/meet the teacher/ice cream evening. The district also forgot to send a grill for the hotdogs and so they were all frozen, and had to be nuked in the microwave.  Nothing like starting the year off with a bang! 

If you were wondering, no, it wasn't sewage that I had to literally wade through.  My principal assured me it was "muddy water." Let's hope so. :)

Here's to a great school year~!!

FREEBIE! Transportation/Emergency Contact Form for Parents

Hello! This is my first time uploading something to share with my faithful and few readers out there. I created this today to put out at our Supply Drop Off Night tomorrow night at my school (Meet the Teacher night). Please feel free to download and use as you wish! Enjoy! Transportation Form

Type A in Pictures: a couple classroom pics

This summer, my addiction in my classroom has been labeling literally everything. These pics were taken on my phone so aren't super good quality- well, they're pretty horrible- but you'll get the Type A-ness through even poor quality photos. :)

Half of my writing station- the red bins will stay the same all year, except for the theme bin that I will add themed-activities into.

area that used to store construction paper- total waste of space. All the paper was moved to the office and I got these shoe boxes from Target- labeled them all and filled them with manipulatives.

What have been YOUR classroom addiction?

PS: classroom tour pics to come!

Classroom Progress in Pictures...

My productive Thursday:

these are the clips I use with my stoplight classroom management system.  instead of getting new ones, i spray painted these white and will just write over them in sharpie.

I don't have pics of all fo them, but I got ALL 6 of my bulletin boards done! 2 in my room and 4 outside in the hallway.

We adopted the LEAD21 reading curriculum for this schoolyear and I am especially excited after having piloted it January-May and it being chosen!  A huge piece of the curriculum is inquiry (kids doing an ongoing collaborate project through the 4 week unit). The inquiry wall basically a collage that we will add to as we go through units.  The border is a wood pattern that I found at Mardel's.

Nothing too exciting but a math focus wall. With some hooties. :)

This picture came out horrible (serves me right for taking pictures with my phone) but this is a burlap welcome sign.  I used burlap scraps, black spraypaint, and stencils.  It says "WELCOME." :) I hot glued each pennant onto a rope like string.

View from the hallway. So far.

2 bulletin boards awaiting student work to the left of my door.

More pics to come! This is what a 10-5 work day during the summer gets! Whew!

Word Wall Word Organizer

I've been keeping all my word wall words in a ziplock bag for the past 2 years in ABC order which is fine and all but not OCD enough for my taste so here's my solution:

Got this box from Mardel's today, along with the ABC dividers.  Total I think it was 8 dollars or so. 

My word wall words are laminated and I just made them on the computer. Nothing fancy. :) They have magnets on the back and go on our back wall which I will post pics of later once my room looks decent enough to be photographed. :)

Going up tomorrow for a long work day in the classroom... hoping to get pics up soon!

Crate Seats- DONE!

Crate Seats- DONE! :)

What you need:

• Crates: I got mine from Target @ $3.49/each so about 20 dollars total for 6
• Fabric: yard and a quarter of owl fabric from Joann's- $2 off a yard (orig. $9.99/yard)
• Glue: Elmer's craft glue from Joann's
• Foam: from Joann's- 27 inch by 42 cut (use a coupon- this stuff isn't cheap!)
• Staple Gun
• Plywood: 42 by 26 cut (already had some in our basement)- would vary based on the size of your crates
• Ribbon: if you want to make a little thing to pull up on- I used brown satin that I already had from Joann's 

How do you do it? (in very NON-technical terms!):

Basically, you just cut your foam to fit your boards- spray glue onto the boards and press down on the form.  Cover the foam/board with your fabric and "wrap" like a present on the ends.  I did about 3 staples on each side of the board so 12 staples total (not including 2 staples for the ribbon to hold it down). 

Wow! I'm so impressed, Megan- Did you do this by yourself? HECK no.  When it comes to powertools, I do not do things alone... Chris cut all the wood and helped me get the hang of the staple gun which is actually kind of therapeutic. hehe I used a hammer to get the staples in further.

There are lots of great tutorials out there- just google crate seats or look on Pinterest.  These were super quick to make and I can't wait to use them at my small group reading table!

PVP Pipe Phonics Phones/Crate Seats

You would think that sinus surgery would knock a girl out- not I.

I am taking full advantage of my couch and lounge time to plan yet a few more classroom projects. :) Just keep that Hydrocodone comin'!

Project #1: Crate Seats

Does anyone else have this problem? During reading block, when my kids are at literacy stations, I'll call them over by groups for small reading group time. This also involves mass chaos of kids finding chairs to bring over to the kidney table. I found this tutorial off Pinterest that Chris is going to help me complete to help solve this problem (and add some serious cute-ness to my room, as well). :)

Link to the Tutorial

 How cute and functional are these?

I called over to Target today and put 6 of these white milk crates on hold for 3.49 a piece.

link to crate on Target

Now I just need to pick out some fabric and Chris will help with the powertool part. :) I'll be sure to post pics when they are completed!

 Project #2: Phonics Phones

link to tutorial

I've always wanted a set of these for stations and small reading groups but have never wanted to shell out the who knows how much to Lakeshore/Really Good Stuff or any other over priced teacher stores. How easy are these to make? This is all you need and the video on the site shows you how to make them.

· 2 - 3/4" PVC pipe elbow joints

· 1 - 3/4" PVC pipe (purchase in 10' sections)

· Optional: decorative duct tape

Life Update/Sinus Surgery Take 3

What you see here is a very sideways picture of Chris and I's feet and our wonderful dog last night watching the Doctors. Good times.  I had my third sinus surgery yesterday and have been recouping very well since- so nice to have it overwith and not looming over my summer anymore. 

Question: How do I get pictures from my phone to actually show up the right direction on here?

Anyways- I am due for an update!  This has been the BUSIEST summer- I wouldn't say it's been the most relaxing, as I always seem to book literally every hour of my day. Not neccesarily a good thing.

• I've been tutoring 3 timse a week, 5 different kids- that's gone great and has been a nice little extra income to cover my crafting and Sonic Happy Hour drinks. :) 
• We've been on a rampage cleaning, organizing, and decluttering our house (pics to come- working on the pantry, craft room, closets, etc.)
• I've been making all sorts of yummies off of Pinterest- many which I need to share on here with you!
• Crafting- did I alredy say that? I've had a few crafting "dates" with a good friend of mine and we have had a blast sewing and creating all sorts of fun things while having Dawson's Creek on the in the background. :)
• Exercising! Whew! I love summer when I actually exercise my poor deprived body. May try to keep this up during the schoolyear but who knows.  We'll see who shows up on August 16th.  That may be a deciding factor. :)
• Enjoying some good Teen Mom and other classic trash TV. I guess mainly Teen Mom. and I'm currently on season 3 of Dawson's Creek- never gets old!
• In the sloowww process of getting Scout certified as a therapy dog (certified to do visits to nursing homes, hospitals, etc.) through a group called Pets for Life.

Enjoy some pics from the summer!

made this pennant banner from crafting night- used this tutorial: click for tutorial

I made two and put one above my start board and one on the backwall.

clearly have a lot to do in here. :) Neverending...

Made some poof balls for the classroom...

Exercise! My usual eliptical overlooking our golf course- very relaxing. I've also been enjoying yoga, pilates, power pilates, you name it- however I am now on a sad hiatus with my surgery recovery... :(

MIRACLE at home recipe for stain remover- these are before and after pictures in our once-nice-looking guestroom. This was a stain that came from a dog we were petsitting that was VERY sick.... won't even tell you what this came from... but let's just say it's been there since May and I've gotten almost ALL of it out using the following:

click here for original post

1. Scrape up the liquid (I had already done this weeks ago).

2. Sprinkle baking soda or cornstarch on stain to let absorb for 10 minutes and then vacuum.

3. Mix one tablespoon clear dishwashing liquid and one tablespoon white vinegar with two cups of warm water.

4. Using a white cloth  sponge the stain with the detergent/vinegar solution and blot until all the liquid is absorbed.
5. Sponge off with cold water and blot dry.

I couldn't end this post without another Scout picture.  This was on the 4th of July when he decided to go dumpster diving through the trash to see what goodies he could find. The Christmas Tree is a toy he high jacked from a petsitting client who was staying with us. :)

Stay tuned for the "crap/craft" room reveal! Almost done!