I'm a mom too!

 I'm very excited to be done with grad school and can focus on my classroom this year with all my new learnings!  I also want to make it pretty but I need a little help.  All my teaching blog friends have beautiful classrooms and I want one too!!  I also want a new kitchen so spending money is not really an option right now.  Here are my classroom pictures.  I have a lot of work to do still!!   As you can see my classroom is huge.  It is both a hindrance and blessing.  I really want to fix my book bin labels.  I  have a hodge podge of labels from Kelly's Kindergarten and Jessica Meacham.  Any ideas??  A very white,  and long white board.  Any ideas for these boards?  They need to be year round.   L to J graph display goes here.  Huge alphabet and numbers go here.  Hubby has to help with this because I am too short.  Unfortunately this won't get done before open house.   Much better.  Orange is my word wall.  Names go on first and the students will help me with that.  S

Since a lot of my followers are moms to toddlers & preschoolers I thought you would enjoy this blog I found  Lessons from my two boys .  She has a lot of great tips!!

SHOPPING HIGH Our small town bookstore is going out of business :(.  I am extremely sad about this because they carry teacher stuff along with everything else a bookstore carries.  They would also order absolutely anything you ask them for.  Currently everything is 70% off today I got: 2 new books by Donna Smallen--The one-minute organizer and the one-minute cleaner.  Expect quotes to show up here. A booklight for someone because we go through them like water (I should've bought 4).  However when hubby came home he was so touched that I bought this for him that I didn't have the heart to tell him it was for us to share.  (Shhhhh, our secret).  M is on board--phew.  J is the one that loses them so yeah we need to keep this one out of her hands.   AND 2 printer cartridges at $8 a pop!!!!! Now what can I print??? Things I Love My pedometer.  I've battled weight gain my entire adult life.  Most of you probably know how it is gain some, lose some, gain some more.  My trusty ped

I love bags!!  I am hoping to win some here

I want to spend Wednesdays talking about my favorite websites and just got a Back to School tip link from one of my favorite websites  weather.com . I am also a weather nut.  I have a love/hate relationship with extreme weather.  2011 has been a crazy year for weather.  My town has been flooded since early June and many families are displaced still.  Luckily our drinking water stayed safe and my house is unaffected.  What extreme weather have you seen this year?

I am determined to run a smooth ship at home so that I can run a smooth ship at school too.  Therefore I have created a doc for my back to school routines  here .  What do you have the hardest time with going back to school?

I just entered this contest at  Here we go Loopty Loo!   I hope I win!

I entered my second teacher give away here

Tomorrow I get the key to my classroom so I don't expect to be around much.  So I wanted to get this thought down. The real motivation for starting this blog was to hopefully show parents that it doesn't take much to raise a reader (I know most of you wonderful friends/followers already know this but still.)  You see my oldest reader M (age 8) floored me when she picked up at new book Grandma's at age 4.5 and read it cover to cover.  Then when she went to K I learned that she knew 520+ words.  I never  knew that she knew so much OR how she learned it.  I thought it may be a fluke.  Good genes.  Lucky.  I'm still not sure but I'm pretty sure that I am going to do the very same things with T girl #2, J (age 3).  Here are the things I believe you need in your home to raise a reader.  Hold on to your seats because it is really VERY simple. 1.  Have a bedtime reading routine (we set aside 30 min. but of that time I only read 2 books and they read on their own.)  Some n

I just purchased my first packed on Teachers Pay Teachers and it was worth every penny!  I was tired of my old sight word games, If you have not checked this out yet go quickly to Kindergarten Crayons !

I've been trying to fly for awhile, although it is very hard during the school year.  This year I am delegating to my third grader (OMG, I HAVE A THIRD GRADER, WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN!)  Anyway, it is time for her to really clean her own room, and since she shares with her 3 year old sister.  I have crowned her manager of her room and she allowed to delegate to her.  To get a copy of the student back to school control journal click  here.