Monday Made It!

I'm joining up with 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made it series. I'm excited to show you what I've been working on!

I made some Pinterest inspired alphabet magnets! These are fun and SUPER easy to make! I bought the clear stones from the dollar store then just traced them onto scrapbook paper and put on a letter sticker. Then you just attach the paper onto the stone with mod podge. When that's dry, use a hot glue gun to put on a magnet and then you're done! Easy peasy!

In case you missed my post the other day, here is a free Classroom Scavenger Hunt I like to use at open house night. If you want it, click the picture below!

We just got back from a trip where we spent 18 HOURS driving. How did I entertain myself? I played on my computer and whipped up these fun fix it up sentences! I used them last year (only they were not as cute looking) and my kiddos loved them! It's a great way to get them in the habit of checking for capitals, periods, spelling, etc. You can click the picture below to take you to my store!

 

Throwback Thursday

Happy 4th, everyone! I'm linking up today with the fabulous Cara Carroll from The First Grade Parade for her Throwback Thursday party!

I want to share something I used at the beginning of the school year last year that my kids LOVED! I even had parents ask me about it because their kids would talk about it at home! One parent told me she wanted to use it to motivate her kid to do chores around the house :)

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originally posted August 26, 2012

School has been in session for a week now and I am T-I-R-E-D. Those firsties are dang cute, but man do they know how to suck the energy right out of me!

The first few weeks are filled with practicing routines/procedures over and over and over again. I try to stay upbeat and excited, but really...I get bored! Which is probably why I never have my class practice as much as I should in the first month of school. Oops! Well, I am SUPER excited about this new, fun idea!

One of the awesome 2nd grade teachers at our school had the idea of doing an olympic theme with the classroom procedures since a lot of kids watched them over the summer. *LOVE!* So I made this poster for my classroom...

I'm NOT the best artist....please don't judge! :)

We started off briefly talking about the olympics and how the olympians were nearly perfect at the sport they were competing in. I asked them how long they thought those olympians had to practice to get so good. One replied "Probably 2 whole years!" Haha, precious :)

We then talked about how there are things we do in our classroom that we practice LOTS at the beginning of the year because we wanted to be able to do those things perfectly...just like the olympians! Because...if we do, then we will get to spend more time doing fun things!

Well, they totally bought it. Hook, line, and sinker. Right now we are in the Olympics 'prelims.' This gives me an excuse to make them practice over and over and over again :) I'm watching to see who will qualify to compete in the Classroom Procedure Olympics Games (all of them will, but shh! Don't tell!) When we have our olympics games, I will watch and see who performs the best at each event and they will get THIS...

I will be printing these babies off and hanging them onto a string or ribbon. I found this at my favorite clipart site Melonheadz Illustrating. You can click the picture to take you to her site! This one happens to be a freebie :)

I will be choosing a few gold medalists for each event so that all of my students receive one. Hopefully after all of this they will be well trained and the rest of the year will be a breeze! :) Depending on how the year goes, I may need to give out some gold medals randomly throughout the year to keep the kiddos motivated. We'll see :)

 

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Just in case you were wondering...this worked so stinkin' well! I found that my hardest kids were really motivated by the gold medals so I ended up giving 3 out at the end of every day to people that worked really hard to follow our rules/procedures.

Be sure to visit Cara's blog to link up and/or see who else has linked up!

Sight Word Linky Party

Time for another linky party!! I love linky parties--I find so many great ideas and stumble across tons of awesome blogs! Today, I'm linking up with Katie at Teacher to the Core to share some of my sight word ideas.

I am so excited about this party...sight words are HUGE in first grade, I can't wait to get some new, fun ideas!

I'll share a quick, easy no-prep game I play with my kids and an organization tip.

The game is called The Flyswatter Game. My kids always cheer when I bring out the fly swatters. They LOVE it!

Here's how you play:

• Write some sight words on the white board. 
• Split the class into 2 teams. Have 1 person from each team come up, stand facing the class and holding a fly swatter. 
• Call out a sight word and they turn around, find the word, and slap it with the flyswatter. Whoever slaps it first, gets a point for their team. I let them choose someone on their team to come up next. 
• (I also give 'bonus points' to teams that are being respectful and being good sports..and take points away for teams who are not)

I absolutely LOVE the way my sight words are organized. With the help of co-workers, friends, and pinterest, I have (almost) perfected my sight word system and it works amazingly well!

I have written a blog post explain exactly how I manage sight words in my classroom. Click the picture above to take you to the original blog post! There is also a little sight word freebie in that post as well!

And of course check out the linky party for more fantastic ideas or link up to share your own!

Teaching Tips

I'm linking up with Miss Kindergarten for a teaching tip party!

Here are a few things that have worked well for me: 

Tip #1: Highlight your masters!

Have you ever accidentally put your master in with your stack of copies to hand out to the kids? Make a mark on it with a highlighter so that if one of the kids happens to get it, they know to give it to you and to get a copy WITHOUT a highlighter mark.

Tip #2: The fix-it game

I use this game when I want my room cleaned and straightened FAST! All I have to do is say "Mrs. Abeyta has something that needs to be fixed!" That is their signal to go around the room fixing as many things as they can. Whoever fixes the thing I'm 'thinking of' gets to pick a prize out of my treasure box (really, I just pick out someone who has been an extra hard worker that day and pick something they fixed...shh! Don't tell!) After the room is neat and tidy, I tell them to stop and they all come over to the carpet. I give them 3 clues (first letter of their name, last letter of their name, how many letters they have, a word their name rhymes with, etc.) for the person that fixed it.

Tip #3: Cutting out lots of things at once

Ok, so this is a trick Mr. Abeyta came up with. I needed to cut out some little booklets for my kids (I knew there would be no time during class for them to do this) and recruited Mr. Abeyta to help.

I was cutting out 3 at a time...because if I did more than that, the pages would move while I would cut. He takes one look at what I'm doing (and how many more pages I have to cut out) and says "There has to be a faster way to do this."

And there was.

He took a stack of about 7-10 papers, stapled them together at the top and bottom of the page and began cutting away. Genius! No papers moving around! Doing this seriously cut my time in half....maybe even more.

Tip #4: Make the small things fun!

I honestly feel like a large part of teaching is figuring out how to constantly keep them engaged...a.k.a 'entertaining them'. Doing random, silly things has helps me get/keep their attention. Here are a few examples....

• When we are sitting at the carpet, sometimes I need them to turn their bodies and face a different direction (like when I want them to face my big white board instead of my easel). To do this, I say "I need to you to swivel and face the white board in 3." Then I count "1-2-3 SWIVEL!" When I say the word swivel, they swivel their bodies FAST and are in listening position. For some reason, they get a kick out of doing this...and I don't lose their attention during the transition. 
• When we are getting ready to read something with a pointer, I make sure everyone's eyes are following my pointer...I'll (dramatically) move my pointer up, down, side to side, all around and wherever I move it, they follow it with their eyes so I can tell they are watching...and then we begin!
• When I dismiss them back to their desks, I'll make them go back doing silly ways....like on their tiptoes, or marching back to their seat, dancing back to their seat, etc. But HOWEVER they go back, they are expected to go back quietly otherwise Mrs. Abeyta will go back to dismissing them the boring way (walking)
• During calendar time, we will skip count by 10s, 5s, 2s while we do jumping jacks, hop, do a funny dance move  etc. or sometimes we will have a 'skip count contest' between girls and boys (whoever counts the loudest and stays together wins). 

 Make sure you head over to the party to get lots of tips or share some of your own! There are some great ones there already...and many more to come, I'm sure! 

Monday Made It!

I'm linking up over at 4th Grade Frolics to show you what I've been working on!

Made these from empty Chlorox Wipes containers to hold my walmart sacks and ziplock bags

My students get one of these (along with a birthday bag) when it's their birthday!  I printed the balloon template from HERE  and taped the balloons onto crazy straws. When it's their birthday, they get to use the crazy straw at lunch if they would like!  

This calendar holder got a little makeover! I painted it black and added corkboard in it.  To be honest, I haven't decided how I'm going to use this yet...

Should I use it to hold my calendar? Necklaces? Pictures? Notes/Reminders at school?  What do you think? 

xoxo,

Jackie

Back-to-School Book Linky Party!

I LOVE picture books. I could read them all day long.

First Grade Found Me is starting a series of linky parties to share our favorite holiday books. This party is for Back-to-School books!

Here are some of my favorite picture books I read during the first week of school. 

This book is AWESOME to help teach your kids about the importance of  waiting your turn to speak and not blurting out. 

We read this then talk about not taking things that aren't ours and about what we should do when we find something that doesn't belong to us. 

My students always love this book. We read this then talk about appropriate playground behavior. 

This is a darling book! I read this on the first day then the kids get to cut out and color a bunny. On it's tummy they write something they were worried about for the 1st day of school.

Okay this is my FAVORITE FAVORITE book! I get a kick out of this book! It's great for teaching your kids about friendship. 

There you have it! Make sure you check out the party to see all of the other Back-to-School book suggestions!

xoxo,

Jackie

Guilty Pleasures Linky Party

Alright, I saw this linky party and could NOT pass it up!

The Resource Room Teacher is hosting a Guilty Pleasures linky party! Ha, love it! 

Guilty Pleasure #1: Wild Cherry Pepsi! 

Ah...I love this stuff. It helps me make it through my afternoons!

Guilty Pleasure #2: All things chocolate!

I love ALL things with chocolate! Chocolate covered strawberries, Dove chocolates, and Reeses are among my faves! But as a general rule...if it has chocolate, I love it! 

Guilty Pleasure #3: Pinterest

I think this is a big one for a lot of people! I am definitely a Pinterest addict! 

Guilty pleasure #4: Shopping!

This is a guilty pleasure I try not to indulge in too often. If I'm having a particularly rough/stressful time with work, I like to go buy myself something new to wear. Having a new outfit makes me excited to go to work the next day so I can show it off! This excitement helps me push aside any stress I'm feeling.  

Guilty Pleasure #5: Buying tubs and containers

 

This may seem like an odd one...but I have always had this strange obsession with buying tubs, baskets, organizers, etc. And the thing is....I buy them without even knowing what I am going to put in them...so a lot of times they just sit in my closet until I find a good use for them :) 

Guilty Pleasure #6: Oldies Music

I always listen to the oldies station in the car. You know when you look over to the car next to you and see them singing along with the radio? Yep, totally me. I can't help it...oldies music just makes me happy. 

There you have it...my guilty pleasures in life. Make sure you check out the party!

New Bloggers Linky Party

Grade Three is the Place for Me is having a linky party to connect new bloggers with each other! Such a fun idea!


Here are the questions...

• 1. What state are you in
• 2. Your current teaching position
• 3. Your teaching experience
• 4. When you started blogging
• 5. Share a blogging tip/blogging resource

And here are my answers!

• 1. I live in beautiful UTAH!
• 2. I teach 1st grade...such a fun, cute age! I love it!
• 3. I have taught 4 years...starting my 5th in a month!
• 4. I started blogging about a month ago
• 5. This isn't necessarily specific to blogs...but I know a lot of you post your creations on your blog. I have been using word to create things for my classroom. This past week I switched to using powerpoint and I LOVE it! It's so much easier to use and move things around!

Make sure you head over to check out some amazing new teacher blogs!

Linky Party!

Fabulously in First had a linky party to share tips for new teachers! I didn't see this party in time to link up but still wanted to share my advice. Here are a couple of tidbits of wisdom I have gained in the last 4 years...

• I did NOT learn this my first year of teaching :) In fact, this is one that I have had a hard time learning. My first year, I worked on school stuff/thought about school non stop. DO NOT DO THAT! Give yourself time EVERY DAY to relax and get your mind off of school...even if it's just 15 minutes! You will be happier, less stressed, and have a clearer mind when you get to school the next morning. I promise, you will be a better, more positive teacher. AND your students will be better behaved, because when teacher ain't happy, ain't nobody happy! 

• Let's face it, teaching is HARD. And it's not what you expect. You will make mistakes. Probably lots of them. I know I did! Accept them, learn from them, and move on! 
• My fellow teammate told me my first year, "Your 1st year you focus on surviving. Your 2nd year you focus on how to effectively teach the curriculum. Your 3rd year (and up) you focus on what your students need to learn and guide your instruction to that." It is so true! Survive your 1st year and remember that it will get better!

• Oh, I could go on for DAYS about my amazing team. LOVE them! Become friends with those on your team. Ask them for advice and help. Rely on them for support and encouragement...and remember to encourage them as well! Having a great relationship with your teammates will make your year leaps and bounds better! 

Make sure you visit Fabulously in First to see other teachers advice!