Happy New Year, Goals, and Leader In Me News

Well, hello 2013 and happy new year to all my readers, followers, and people that stop by courtesy of Pinterest.  How've you been?

Me?  I've been good. In fact, I've been great.  I have been loving the two weeks we had off from school.  My husband and I flew back to Seattle to see our families and we froze our buns off while we were there.  We are 100% Texas converts and 30 degrees is darn cold.

Now, I'm back and ready to kick off my year right!

Ahhh...don't you love the beginning of the year.  You can start over fresh.  You can push aside all those bad habits and proclaim... "This year will be different!"

And with that, I have decided to share with y'all my three goals for the new year.

#1) I will cook at home more.  Now, I currently eat at home a lot, but I don't always cook. I'm pretty sure there is a big difference.

#2) I will get heart healthy. Lately, I've started to feel old and I'm beginning to worry about my achy joints and muscle pain.   It is time for some action.  So, I started taking vitamins loaded with calcium and vitamin D. I have been going to the gym <insert shocked gasp!> and drinking lots of water. Bad soda bad!

#3) I will (and this is where y'all come in) blog five times a month.  Five is really a fairly arbitrary number, but it just feels right, so I'm sticking to it.  I will put down my books, flip off the TV, and spend some quality time getting back to blogging about what I love...teaching!

The good news is that it is finally pleasant to be in my office again.  You may or may not remember, but something died in my wall during the last part of the summer. Ugh! It was awful and almost impossible to sit at the computer for any length of time.  Naturally, we tried to cover it up with every air freshener possible.  This only enhanced the headache while inside because you were hit over the head with "air freshener" and could still smell death.  No good I tell you, no good. So, months later... I'm back in business and ready to begin #3 of my New Year's goals.

First post of the new year:

Our Leader In Me School

This is our first year launching the Covey Leader in Me program at my school.  We are the anomaly in our district because we are the only title school committed to the program.  If you are not familiar, it is a great school-wide program based on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that promotes student leadership in the classroom, around the school, and within the community.

Now, as I said, we are only in year one, and it takes baby steps to change the culture in your school, but I wanted to show off what we've done so far.

Our first step was to make some changes to our school environment and (of course) we needed our own 7 habits tree. Voila!

One of the teachers in our building designed the tree.  The rest of us just painted within the lines. See those rays of the sunshine and all those black letters?  Yup, I painstakingly painted those. 

(Learn Together, Live Together, Lead Together is our school mission statement.)

Here is a close-up of the tree.  The frames around the 7 Habits signs are made out of twigs. Cool, huh?

This is a second mural in the front entry way.  Those letters (by the way) totally done free hand. Not by me, but still...impressive, right?

Naturally, our fourth grade hallway needed a tree too but after painting two we went with paper.

This is the last picture for today.  I just love the colors and it is the perfect Leader in Me message.

So, halfway through the year we are getting the hang of Leader In Me.  My students have got the language down (with hand movements even) and they always catch me when I am not using Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, Than to be Understood.  Ha! I typically catch them not putting first things first.  *wink, wink*

I really do love this program and the habits it promotes in the classroom and around the school.  It's been a slow start at our school, but we are hoping to steamroll it with the new year.

Anyone else starting the Leader In Me program?  I'd love to hear how it is going in your classroom and at your school...especially if you are at a title campus. The more insight the better.  Please share!!

Happy New Year!

Gallon Man...Fiesta Style!

Viva Fiesta!!

As those living in San Antonio already know last week was Fiesta.  

Fiesta is San Antonio's biggest P-A-R-T-Y! This year there were over 100 events in 11 days including parades, concerts, coronations, exhibits, festivals, athletic events, and more. What fun!

So...to celebrate Fiesta and the completion of our state test, we had a little FUN!

 Thus...Gallon Man...Fiesta Style!

Gallon Man is an old classic.  It was the perfect activity for my students after testing all week.  They colored their little hearts out and then we added the San Antonio flair.

 Ahhh.. aren't they the cutest?!?  They really took pride in their Gallon Men People.

We wrapped up the day with cascarones. Hooray for confetti eggs!

At the end of the egg smashing, there was confetti EVERYWHERE! On the floor... in the desks... in the supply cups... in my hair! I will probably be discovering confetti in the most random places for the rest of the year.  The custodians were amazing when they saw my room.  She sighed and said, "Ah... they sure do love Fiesta!" Thanks for being so great ladies!

Classroom Update #2

On Friday, I returned to my classroom and finished up what I could. (See my first classroom update to see how it all began.)  My goal was to get as much done as possible so that I can take off all (or at least most) of next week and enjoy the last days of summer.

And... the classroom library is finished! I feel compelled to share with everyone that the wall is not actually  THAT green.  It's bright, don't get me wrong, but it is not straight up lime.  It's softer and prettier... I promise.

This is my book award wall.  It's new to me this year and I am so excited about it! I got the idea from Beth Newingham. (Seriously, she is amazing!) I think my kids will really love voting on books and I am all for anything and everything that gets them excited about reading!!
Check out Beth's Scholastic post on Classroom Book Awards here!

 My computer station is hooked up and ready to go.  It isn't very pretty right now, but I will be covering those icky walls with anchor charts soon enough. I'm just happy that everything is functioning and I will not need to put any kind of work order in for my student computers! Whoo hoo!!

In my new room, I took action to get more white board space! I found a great deal at Staples for these mini boards... only $10 each.  I got two up and realized their was room for a 4th (yipee!), so I'm going to look this weekend for another deal.  Perhaps cork this time?!?

The best part about these $10 boards is that they are magnetic. My board before (far left) wasn't and you don't realize how much you rely on magnetic surfaces until you don't have them anymore.  I'm so excited.

So, as you can see I've been busy this week. Since I am changing grades this year, I wanted the week before school to be spent mostly on curriculum and planning.  Speaking of curriculum... I still need some of that.  My team is going from 5 teachers to 7, so we are waiting for books and TEs to arrive any day now. Oh... and I am still waiting on desks.  Oh teaching... always an adventure.  Once everything is altogether, I will post the "finished product."  

Classroom Update

Hooray! I'm so excited to be posting pictures of my classroom (finally)! Although I have moved rooms every year I have taught, I am still no faster at putting it all together.  Last year was my biggest change of all because I moved from Washington state to Texas.  Things are bit different down here; it was a huge learning experience.  This year, being the 2nd at my school, I feel more comfortable and I have really made my room my own. I'm very excited and have been HARD at work the past two weeks.

Here is what it looked like when I walked in.  Ugh!

Did you notice the ugly brown accordion walls? Yes, that's right.  I don't have 4 walls or a door.  (This is something that I am still not used to.) I have 2 walls and 2 brown accordion walls.  There is also no storage cabinets or built-ins, which means I have to great creative. :)

But... first things first... I had to paint! Goodbye faded yellow paint and icky blue! You'll see my new wall colors in the pictures below. 

My word wall is up!  I know, I know, I am not supposed to put all the words up to start, but I know they have had all these words in 3rd grade, because I taught 3rd grade last year.  I'm thinking that if I expected them to spell it correctly in May, they should probably spell it correctly in August. 

My classroom library is organized and ready to go.  Although, I am just now noticing that I need a label for my Harry Potter basket and another label is trying to escape.  Hmm... I'll have to take care of that tomorrow.

 

  Here is part of the front of the room, still working on the other half.  :)

I got the idea for both of these interactive bulletin boards from Beth Newingham.  If you haven't been to her website, go check it out and just click around! She's amazing and so inspiring!!

This is my teacher bookshelf behind my desk.  

 

My new calendar and classroom bingo board. 

Well, that's it for now.  More pictures to follow soon.  I'd love to hear any suggestions or ideas, especially for dealing with those pesky accordion walls.  :)

Classroom Bingo Board

Hooray! I love my new class bingo board I made today and just had to share.  It was so easy to put together and really inexpensive. I bought my supplies this morning and completed the project in about 15 minutes.

I made my board by modifying a classroom calendar and adding calendar numbers to match.

I also bought the paint splatter mini-accents for my class to use as markers on the board.  I will laminate everything when I get back to school and be ready to go!

Visit my post on Classroom Bingo to learn about how to use this bingo board for classroom management and positive reinforcement.