December Catch Up

I know it probably seems like I disappeared this month but it has just been too busy.  I am very much looking forward to a new year and a new start. Mostly, I'm looking forward to the busyness of this month to slow down.  However, January will bring some changes for me with a new student in my class and a new assistant. I also have several IEP meetings that I know will keep me busy. Regardless, a new year is always exciting as you think about a new start.  But I wanted to end the year with a recap in pictures of my December.

Max, our classroom elf on the shelf.

Max enjoyed partner reading to his friend Mr. Potato Head.

He also loves stickers and got a little carried away. 

My handsome puppy ready for Christmas.

I took Jack to Petsmart to get his first "pawdicure."

My cousin got me in interested in the fiddle and I ended up buying one!

Well that is all for this year! I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve, see you next in 2015.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Today I'm linking up with Wordless Wednesday to show what I've been up to outside of school lately!

Thematic Thursday - Pumpkins

I'm loving all of the fun themes for the month of October! This week I have been working a lot with pumpkins.  I still need to get tomorrow's activities ready so this will be a quick post.

 

Bottle Cap Area- My third grade is beginning to talk about area and perimeter in his regular class so we did a bottle cap pumpkin this week.  We talked about area being the amount inside of a shape and counted how many bottle caps we could fit inside.  I have different size pumpkins for us to use as well so we will discuss the concept of larger and small and determine which sizes have more surface space. 

Make a word- I have all of the letters of the alphabet in pumpkin die cuts which are fun to use to have students make more words out of October words.  Since we are focusing on pumpkins this week, we tried seeing how many words we could make with "pumpkin." 

Pumpkin Addition/Subtraction- I bought cupcake toppers and this craft pumpkin at Dollar Tree but a cheap $2 math center.  I will give my student a math problem and have them use the spiders and the pumpkin to solve the problem. This was great for motor skills too because it wasn't too easy for them to push the spider in.

Pumpkin Pals-  This has been a week long project of painting pumpkins and writing about them.  We are writing a pumpkin pal story about the life of their pumpkin.  We are also working on question words and doing interviews with their pumpkins.

I've done a lot more with pumpkins this week but just haven't remembered to take pictures.  Next week I will be finishing up pumpkins and then moving to spiders! 

Sunday Scoop

As much as I didn't want summer weather to be over, there are many things I'm looking forward to this fall.  Since this is the first full week of fall, most of my Sunday scoop link up is about getting ready for fall activities at school.

3 things I have to do: Tomorrow we have an early release day at school and we are doing a potluck lunch.  I'm bringing ham & swiss croissants so I definitely have to make those tonight.  I also need to make IEP data sheets to track my students goal progress and make reading group lesson plans for the first grade group I work with. 

2 things I hope to do:  I have so many files saved on my computer that if I just added some cute clipart to I could easily put on Teachers Pay Teachers.  I really hope to get on that sometime this week.  I also hope to make time every day to take my dog, Jack for a run.  He doesn't go outside and play as much when it's cooler so I've got to start making it a point to go for a run with him.

I am very happy to go shopping today for some crafts for my fall units.  I have planned pumpkin, leaves and spider units and now I just need to get the the materials I want to use for the activities. I'm pretty sure getting to do so many fun hands-on activities is one of my favorite things about elementary school. 

Click my Sunday scoop picture above and join in on the link up!

Wordless Wednesday - Independent Work

I've been so busy lately to be able to blog, so with Wordless Wednesday I'm able to make a quick post! This post is to give some ideas of what I use for students to do independent work. With my students, anything independent is not desired. They always want someone to work with then but with different grade levels and abilities, I usually have to work just one on one, which leaves someone doing independent work. So here are some activities I use that my students usually seem to like. 

and of course, the iPad! 

What type of independent work do you give your students?

Classroom Reveal

    It didn't take very long to get my classroom ready for the school year as I am sure it will change the more I get to know my students. This year I currently only have four students on my caseload. My room is definitely not overly decorated.  I plan on saving wall space for posting student work.  I also can't have too many distractions with my students so my room is pretty simple.

This is our good behavior board. As students earn dollars they add them to their envelopes and then during reward time can spend them on a prize. There is also a free choice if they decide they want to save their dollars for a bigger prize.

This is our morning meeting board. My favorite thing about this board is that I made it interactive.  The word of the day pieces use velcro so that I can scramble the letters and have my students rearrange them to spell the correct word.  The coins in the treasure chest are also on with velcro so I can change the amount.  I use the pails under days in school to add popsicle sticks each day and count by tens and ones.

This is the cool down area for anytime a student needs an emotional break from an activity or group time.  They just have a sit at the desk and their are cards that tell them what they can do to calm down.

This is my lesson plan bookshelf.  On the top I sit my lesson plans for each student.  Each shelf holds the work that I want each student to try to accomplish that day.  My assistant or I pull the activities based on when it works best for the child to learn. I don't really stick to a set reading or math time because my students moods for working on certain things at certain times varies so much.  

This just shows how I have a table surrounded by bookshelves.  Each shelf holds bins of books based on subject.  None of my students can read these books but they enjoy looking through them during independent reading time.

I just realized how blurry this picture is, however this just shows my back corner.  This is the area where all my teacher resources are kept. There is also a round table to bring a student to and work one on one.  If there is another student working in the front of the room with the assistant, I have a blue divider I can use to block our view from them so no one is distracted.

Just another view of the room.  This shows student desks, although they usually only sit at them during morning work. 

This is a visual schedule for one student. I use these so students know how many works they need to do until reward time. It is also helpful so that don't continually question things like when is lunch or recess. I will post more on this later.

Teacher Week Bloghop- Who am I?

I'm so excited to link up this week for teacher week with Blog Hoppin'.  Every day this week there will be a different question to answer.  It's a great way to get to know other bloggers.  Click the button below to join in!

Alright, so on to telling a little about myself.

About Jamie

I live in North Carolina and am a graduate of Appalachian State and North Carolina State University. I've taught two years of sixth grade and am about to start my first year teaching elementary behavior support.   My hobbies include playing with my dog Jack, selling Mary Kay, blogging, photography, shopping, running, and making crafts from Pinterest.  

Since I love taking pictures here are some photos that will help tell a little more about me.

I love the outdoors! Running, hiking, kayaking, anything.

My favorite TV show has always been I Love Lucy.

My best friend in the whole world would have to be my dog, Jack.  This is us after I ran the Color Me Rad run.

I love going to NC State football games.  I really miss being a student there sometimes.

I love this picture from the mission trip to Belize I went on last year.  I love mission work and hope to go on many other trips.

So who are you? I'd love to learn more about other teachers I follow, so go link up! 

Five for Friday

   There hasn't been too much excitement in my life this week but it is Friday, so here is my 5 for Friday with:

{1}

I started working in my classroom this week.   It doesn't look like I've done much to it but I did get the boxes out of my basement from my old classroom and was able to find places for everything in my new room.  I'm trying to stick with a pirate/treasure theme for the room so you can see I have started my bulletin boards to go with it. 

{2} 

I got this book I ordered in the mail and so far it is really helpful.  I would recommend this to any teacher to learn how to handle challenging behaviors.

{3} 

My Mary Kay team had a project runway viewing party on Thursday.  We watched a video that showed us how to get the emerald eye look from the show and then practiced on each other.  It was really fun and inspired me to start trying other looks.  You can see a look I did today with purple eye shadow on my previous blog post. 

{4}

I had to take my dog Jack to the vet this week.  He was sneezing pretty badly for a few days and was laying around instead of wanting to play.  It took us 4 hours at the vet just to get him a shot and some medicine. It ended up costed me $179 for everyone.  Jack and I did not have a pleasant visit and plan to go to a new vet next time.

{5}

I did get the chance to lay out by the pool some this week.  Sadly, it looks like I may only have a couple more days of nice weather before teacher work days begin.  It is calling for rain here the next several days. I guess I will have plenty of time to read my new book! 

Back to Work Looks

    Who says teachers can't look amazing at work? I think that we should always try to look our best as teachers and role models.  I know some days it can be hard to want to get up early and put on makeup though. That is why I have started to create looks that you can put on in just a few minutes. The look I did today uses just one eye palette from Mary Kay called "On the Horizon."  So if you just want the eye look, you can get it for just ten dollars!  The picture below shows step by step what I did to get the look.  It is simple enough for anyone to be able to do it.  My biggest tip is that when you use more than one eye color, make sure to blend with a brush.  You don't want to be able to see a line where one color ends and the other begins, it should all blend together.

I used all Mary Kay products for this look.  Here is the list in order of application.You can click each one to be taken to my Mary Kay website to learn more about them.

1. Foundation Primer with spf 15
2. Facial Highlighting Tool- I use this underneath my eyes to brighten them
3. Beige 1 Creme to Powder Foundation
4. On the Horizon Baked Eye Trio
5. Black Gel Eyeliner
6. Black Lash Love Lengthening Mascara
7. Ivory 2 Concealer
8. Ivory 2 Mineral Foundation
9. Mineral Foundation Brush
10. Cranberry Cream Eyeshadow
11. Au Naturel Nourishine Lipgloss

The final look!

Want to get this look?  Shop my Mary Kay Website and get free shipping plus two free samples with any order!  

Next time I post a back to work look I will have to include a teacher outfit.  I love shopping for fall teaching clothes.  Maybe we can even make a bloghop out of it?

Throw Back Thursday- Special Education Bloghop

  I wanted to quickly join in on Throw Back Thursday because I have a great previous post for this time of the year.  Not too long ago I started a special educator bloghop.  Sadly, I could only run it for 33 days before the trial ended on inlinkz.  However, so many special educators joined in and shared their back to school advice.  If you haven't checked out all of their great posts and blogs, now is the perfect time.  If you want to join in the fun and weren't able to before, just add your post to the comment section here so that everyone can find you! Here is the link to the original post.

To join in the blog hop create a post that describes what type of special education you teach, what grade, how long you've been teaching and then your best piece of advice for starting a new school year off right.  You could also include a link to an old post that you think would be helpful. Make sure to link back to my blog and come back to meet other special educators who have linked up!   You can grab the button above to add to your post if you'd like.

I'll get us started!

Enjoy linking up at the bottom of the page. Feel free to use my graphic below to add your own information in.

Don't forget to check out the other fun Throwback Thursday posts!