DIY

I have become addicted to DIY projects.  I know I am not alone when I say Pinterest now takes up a good chunk of my free time (when I do have some).  Not only do I love Pinterest for school ideas but also the DIY projects and recipes.  My husband and I are usually pretty good and make a recipe off of Pinterest once a week or every other week.  I have also made some really cool DIY projects throughout our house.  In fact, most of my daughter's nursery was from ideas off of Pinterest!  Also, just to prove my addiction to Pinterest, my friends and I have a Facebook group where we plan get-togethers to make projects off of Pinterest and share DIY projects we do on our own...

I thought I would share my latest DIY project I did last week.  It took me all of 10 minutes with a little bit of help from my husband.

Here is the hair bow organizer I made for my daughter.  I got so sick of digging through a basket of hair bows to find the one I am looking for.  So, I made an organizer for her room.  I know I have seen variations of this on Pinterest but never really saw anything I liked so I just made it up as I went.

I took a white canvas and covered it with Chevron fabric (I LOVE chevron) and then I wrapped two different colors of pink ribbon around it.  I used a staple gun to put everything on, used my husband as an extra set of hands and...viola, I'm done!  I have it hanging next to her changing table and it has proven to be more useful than I ever thought it would be.

Wow it has been a while (and that is an understatement)...

So it has been a long, long time since I have blogged last and a lot has happened since the last time I have been on here.  Looking back, my last post was in November 2011, right when I found out I was having a baby.  Needless to say my life and my priorities have changed a little bit from that last post.

In July 2012, my husband and I welcomed a beautiful little girl into our family.  And 2 months before we had our daughter, I got a new job teaching in my hometown.  So in the last year, I have gotten a new job, had a baby, and completed my first year of teaching in my hometown.  My life has been more than wonderful and I count my blessings each day, however...like I said...my priorities have changed.

I have also decided to change this blog a little bit.  I would like to continue blogging about my life as a special education teacher but I am also going to include things about being a first time mom and our wonderful, crazy life.

Just to update people on my new position...I now teach in the same elementary school I attended with many of the same teachers I had, that is a bit of a learning curve!  I am a special education teacher and teach K-5 grade students with Emotional & Behavioral Disabilities and Autism.  I love my new job and it is everything I expected it to be plus more.  It is wonderful working less than 5 minutes from where I live, my previous drive was over 40 minutes.  This allows a lot more time to spend time with my daughter and husband and I am also able to get more work done at school without having to drive so much.

Now that I will be starting my second year at my new job I plan to get back on here more often.  I am currently sitting in a technology class about blogging so it seemed like a perfect time to start blogging again.  Please stop back soon...

Moving Monday...Top 10 Lists

Here is the next active learning strategy to help get your students up and moving and learning at the same time, it is called Top 10 Lists.

This is a great review activity for the end of a lesson, day, week, unit, or year.  There are many ways to incorporate this active learning strategy into your daily lesson plans.

Let me know how you adapt this activity for your classroom and your learners.

Download Here: Top 10 Lists

From: Udvari-Solner, A. & Kluth, P. (2007). Joyful learning. Active & collaborative learning in the inclusive classroom. Corwin Press. See www.paulakluth.com for related content & ideas.

Daily 5 EEKK Poster

I have been making more anchor posters for my classroom.  Here is the poster I made for EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) for the Daily 5 rotation Read to Someone. 

This poster really helps my students remember what EEKK means with the spider on it.

Enjoy!

SNOW

We got our first snow storm today in Wisconsin and no I am not excited about this.

Not only did we get way more snow then they originally predicted but it started 6 hours before they said it was going to.  That means we had a whole school full of kids who were so excited about the snow they could barely control themselves but no snow clothes to go outside at recess to play in the new packy snow.  So, all of the recesses were inside today making the students become even more stir crazy and itching to get outside.

And, I forgot to mention it is WKCE testing, our wonderful standardized testing.  So now we have students who just want to go outside but instead they are stuck inside taking a test that means nothing, nothing to them and I spent most of my day making sure students' eyes were in their test booklet and not looking outside.

Anyways, here is a picture from the window in my classroom.  Wonderful, isnt it?

Hopefully it melts by the weekend, I think it is suppose to be in the 50s!

Field Trip to Cranberry Marsh

So, it has been a while since I have blogged and I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.  School has been pretty busy so I plan on taking the next week and updating my blog with activities that we have done and pictures I have.

First, today I have pictures from our trip to the Cranberry Marsh.  As part of the 4th grade curriculum, the students learn about the process of growing cranberries and how they are harvested.  Part of the curriculum is visiting a Cranberry Marsh to see how the grow and are harvested first hand.  This is a great trip and the students learn a lot, I even learned a lot, who knew that cranberries did not grow on top of water (the commercials are so deceiving)!

Walking around the marsh.

More walking and looking at the bogs to the right.

Harvesting of the cranberries.  That big machine sucks up the cranberries off the top of the water and separates the berries from the leaves and stems.  The trucks then bring the cranberries to the Ocean Spray plant for processing.

Eating lunch in a park after visiting the marsh.

Tomorrow is our Cranberry Fest at school.  More pictures to come...

Guided Reading PLUS

This year, I have decided to use Guided Reading Plus as a framework for my guided reading intervention groups.  So far I really like having a specific structure to follow, especially that I am still a new teacher.  I feel like I learn more and more about Guided Reading each day and this has really helped give me an easy framework that I can follow. 

Guided Reading Plus is also a research based RtI intervention so I feel better knowing that I am doing something that has been proven to work. 

Here is the lesson planning sheet that I have made.  I have a different sheet for each of my groups (3 right now) and I keep them at the back of my lesson plan binder.  This has really helped me become more organized and not like I am grabbing at straws during Guided Reading. 

Please use if you can! Lesson Plan Sheet