Classroom Rewards Catalog...FREEBIE!!!

Hello!!! I just finished my newest product and I am so excited that I had to put it on my blog before I went to sleep.  After reading lots of other blogs, I have decided to do away with my prize box and implement a classroom rewards catalog.  I saw a lot of different ones while I was searching, but none that fit my classroom exactly. Plus, I enjoy making these products, so...I made my own (animal print, of course!). I told my kids about it today and they are sooooo excited for it! Even more excited about the catalog than they were when I told them about the prize box!

Here is the picture of the cover, to spike your interest.   Click here for more info on the FREE classroom rewards catalog that I made.  There are a few more pictures of some of the pages on my FREEBIES page of the blog.  Click here if you would like to download a PDF version for FREE to print for your classroom.

Anyways, happy printing! Goodnight!

Animal Print!

As I said a few weeks ago, I was in the middle of redecorating my classroom. I am OBSESSED with animal print! I just think it is too cute. The past four years my classroom has been "kid-colored themed" with everything being red, yellow, blue, and green.  This year I decided to change my theme to animal print (hence the name "Wild in Room 111") and began redecorating my room a few weeks ago.  So far my students are LOVING the new changes. I am not done yet, but as I said in an earlier post, I will post some pictures of my progress so far.  To see all of my redecoration changes and for ideas on organizing your classroom,Location  click here.

This is a picture of the wall behind my desk.  That is an animal print plastic table cloth I got at Walmart for  99 cents! I am using it to display my days of the week and months posters and some outstanding student work.

This picture is of my student mailboxes. I had some old cardboard "bankers" mailboxes that I have had for the last four years. However, they were pretty battered and beaten up from having four different classes using them and suffering a move from Gary to Lafayette.  So, I decided instead of spending a ton of money on a nice wooden one (though it is still on my wishlist for next year's supply order), I bought animal print duct tape to cover the old blue cardboard.

Going along with my animal print theme, I found some animal print scrapbook paper on Oriental Trading. I folded each piece in half, labeled it with a genre, and laminated it. Now I use these as separators for my books so I can easily find books according to their genre.

FREEBIE...Substitute Teacher Packet

Good morning! I have some great news! I have finally finished my first item for my teacher store! I have been meaning to make a new substitute teacher packet for my classroom this year, and it is finally complete! I think it turned out SUPER cute, and it has all the information that my sub would need for my classroom. The best part is that I designed it to be EDITABLE and FREE! I have decided to make my first few items free to try to get some practice and good feedback. So please take a look at my packet and if you think it would suit your needs, please download it and customize it for yourself! Also, leave comments if you think I should add or change anything!

Here are a few of the pages from the packet:

These can be found for FREE at my teacher store by clicking HERE!

My next venture...Emergency Lesson Plans....Stay Tuned!

Finally, A Routine!

This is the first week of school that I finally feel that I am FINALLY keeping my head above water! Getting used to a new school, new curriculum, and new students while being a mother of a ten month-old can be challenging.

So the past few weeks since my first post, I have been searching around on the Internet in order to learn more about the whole "digi-scrapbooking" craze. I SOOO want to learn this! I enjoy creating and designing, but right now I don't have any scrapbooking software. So, for now I am downloading lots of free scrapbooking items and fonts. That way, when I do get PhotoShop or another program, I will be prepared and I can start playing around with it right away.

I wish I could have started this blog back in August before the year began. I am really OCD about the way things are organized and I would have loved to have my blogs beginning at August and not October. But too much was going on over the summer to have time to even think about blogging. So this blog is going to be a little unorganized in the beginning until I have time to upload all of the things I worked on at the beginning of the school year.

I have been doing random reading and math centers that are tied to our curriculum map, while I get myself organized, planned, and comfortable in my own classroom.  Take a look here to see what I began doing this week for my literacy centers.

Welcome!

Hello all! Welcome to my blog! I am new to this, so please feel free to leave comments, tips, and advice for improving my blog.

To start off my blog, I think a little background is necessary. I'm a first grade teacher in Indiana. This is my third year teaching first grade (previously I taught third for two years), but it is my first year teaching in a new school corporation. My first four years of teaching experience was in a charter school in an urban area, so the transition to a public school has its challenges. However, I am very happy in my current position and I LOVE my new school!

This past summer was very busy for me because not only was I moving all of my teaching "stuff" to a new school, but I was also working on my final portfolio for my Master's degree. Near the end of August, I attended the "new teacher" training for those new-to-the-corporation employees. Probably one of the most valuable things I learned at the training was about Pinterest! Prior to this training I had never heard of it! Anyway, after hearing about all of the great resources that are on Pinterest for teachers, I quickly became obsessed. I am happy to say that I even have some followers on there now!

At first, when using Pinterest, I was only pinning (or repinning) ideas of things that I would use later this year, or start doing next year. At the beginning of the school year, I still felt overwhelmed with learning the new curriculum and adjusting to life in a new school. However, after a few weeks of getting used to things (thanks to my awesome grade level team!), I began exploring Pinterest more and more, and I began to understand how it worked. I found all kinds of great blogs on this site, with tons of free stuff, and great stuff to purchase as well. I became familiar with the TeachersPayTeachers store also. So, to make a long story short, I have finally found the time to start the blog that I have been wanting to create, as well as sign up for a TPT account. I have tons of things that I have created these past four years, but nothing is uploaded as of yet.

I am in the process of re-organizing my classroom and redecorating it (with some ideas of my own and some awesome ideas from Pinterest). I am going to upload pictures of my classroom to this website when I am finished. Then I will begin my TPT store, all the while continuing my blog.  Thanks for reading, and bear with me while I figure things out.  I would love tips and advice on how to make my blog cuter and more customized (I'm SUPER new at this, and don't really have a grip on HTML). Anyways, feel free to leave a comment!