Hello Cold Weather!

I have to admit that I am finding it challenging to keep up with this blog, my class webpage with all the other things I have to do on a daily basis. I think I need an app on my phone! I haven't created anything new to share but recently I did purchase a great journal writing set on www.teacherpayteachers.com! The set includes all four seasons of journal jar writing prompts! Very cute! I grabbed some vintage style mason jars at Wal-mart to put them in!

Here in Oklahoma we have had our first snow for the season! With that snow school was cancelled tomorrow due to icy roads, that is just the way it goes around here in Oklahoma. This school year so far has been mostly awesome! I have a great bunch of students this year! I had to change rooms before school started and I was so stoked about having a window in my room, but apparently the trade off was I have no working smart board! Thanksgiving is upon us and still now smart board! I am surviving but it is a bit frustrating knowing I am missing out on so many technological opportunities so far this year. I am crossing my fingers and praying that Santa brings me a working smart board installed and ready to use by January 2nd! 

I have had to make a few changes to my room, one that left me sad but I am in the process of compromising with myself. I had to take down my 3-D alphabet that I had strung across my room because it was apparently causing a problem with some motion sensors?? The alphabet will be relocating to the wall soon. :0) I have also recently added a second listening center! I will post pics soon!

Stay warm!

Willy Wonka Classroom!

This was a real work in progress. I have a few tweaks to still finish but here is what I have done so far!

I ran a clothes line alphabet strip across the room for a 3-D effect. 

My CAFE and Daily 5 wall and part of my reading area. 

My door! Can you see my door? 

A shot of my window and my candy word wall tree! Are those gobbstoppers on that tree? (that's what they are supposed to be)

Here is more of my reading center. Notice my reading boxes for use during Read to Self, and Buddy Reading! I got those on amazon. I keep buckets of special books that are rich in color and vocabulary etc. Books like I Need My Monster, The Monstore and more. 

My listen to reading center from Daily 5 is in the middle of my two carpet areas. I have a bucket of CD books and books on tape. I am still gathering some chairs and setting up the equipment. 

I LOVE these! They were so easy and affordable to make. The crates are 3.47 at Wal-Mart. I bought 1 yard of pink satin material at Hobby Lobby for 4.99. I used old regular pillows and cut in half for the stuffing, they fit perfectly on top of the crates I hot glued the seams of the pillows. For the candy labels I printed off google images of candy boxes and laminated them. Then I backed them with construction paper for border. Thats it! GREAT seating! The kids LOVE them too!

My white board on this wall is unusable and waiting to be replaced at fall break. In the mean time it became the pocket chart wall! 

I am still finishing up my little corner!

I added Welcome Oompas Loompas and little men outside the door! I didn't take another photo yet, but I added twirly pops in between the oompas! I am adding a sign with all the kids names on the other side! 

That is most of the room. I have a few things I am tweaking. I finished adding border to two of my bulletin boards today for Wonka Writing and Reading Land! Enjoy! I hope you like my ideas and they foster some ideas for you too! 

Awesome High Frequency Word Activity!

I came up with a great practice/review activity for high frequency words. You could use this activity to review anything though! Math facts, spelling words etc! I took balloons and blew them up small, about the size of water balloons. I used a sharpie and wrote my HFW for the week on them. My students are set up in six tables of four students each. I started with table 1 and started handing them balloons, each student had to read and say aloud the word then pass it to the next person. When everyone at the table had done it, they passed it to the next table. I kept giving them balloons until I was out and then I had them continue to pass balloons until they had completed it three times! They LOVED it! There was giggling and a little bit of dropping balloons on the floor but overall they handled the activity very well! This is a great way to engage them and to get kinesthetic, visual and audio learning all in one! All the balloons will go on my word tree in my room! I will use this activity again for math facts and more!

My Tree.....

Great Expectations Eight Expectations in Cupcake Theme

Here is another creation for the Willy Wonka Theme, Candy Land or Cupcakes Theme. All images came from Bing!

Here is the files for printing! 

Willy Wonka Writers Eye Posters

Here is the latest posters for the Willy Wonka themed room. They have a candy background. I have printed and laminated them!

My Candy Alphabet!

I have been working hard trying to finish up my candy alphabet for my Willy Wonka themed room this year. Our school wide theme is "ticket to success" so the second grade settled on a Willy Wonka theme. I have high hopes! We have added two additional second grade teachers to our team this year making a total of six!! Last year I purchased two hanging lines for my room that come with colored plastic clothes pins (which I will be replacing with wooden painted ones). This past school year I hung some student work on the line but most went into the hallway. This year I came up with the idea of hanging a alphabet across the room to add a 3 dimensional effect. I created the alphabet using adobe photoshop and used photos of Willy Wonka candy in the background of the letters. It was a task. I printed two copies so that the alphabet could be seen from either side, then I laminated and trimmed. I will pin them to the line stretched across the room. I feel confident it will look awesome and everyone will be able to see it from any seat in the room. Each letter has a separate file so I can't post all the letters. Here they are!!

Bb has a background of Dots Candy

Cc has a background of Nerds Candy

Dd has a background of Pixie Stix Candy

Ee has a background of Laffy Taffy

 Gg has a background of Gummie Bears Candy

Wonka Crazy!

I am starting to get everything together for the new school year which starts for my district in about four weeks. I have begun this week getting a little Wonka crazy! I have created a "candy alphabet" to add to my candy expectations. I won't be able to take pics until I get in the room in about three weeks and I will share. I am making a list of Wonka ideas for the room which so far include: Golden ticket desk nameplates, Wonka's wonderful word tree with Wonka vocabulary gobbstoppers, Wonka Daily Five (Wonka read to self, Read to a Wonka partner, Wonka listen to reading, work on Wonka words and work on Wonka writing), Wonka's wonderful word journal label, Wonka mad science journals labels, Wonka's magic math journal labels, Wonka candy reading center and the Wonka class library, Wonka's daily wonky folder (behavior and homework), Wonka candy crates to sit on in the candy reading center, Wonka's writers eye posters and so much more!! I will post as I complete for anyone who may stumble across this site searching for Wonka theme ideas. I could not find any for classrooms but I found lots of birthday party stuff to give me ideas!

Wonka's Golden Ticket! Perfect for various uses in the classroom!

I am not sure what I am going to use this for just yet. I made it editable so that students names could be put in. These tickets could become part of a behavior reward system or just to put on the door with the students names on them! One other use I thought of was nameplates for their desks!!! ( I like this one the best)

My first Willy Wonka creation! Great Expectations Eight Principles Posters!

I am in full swing with creating things for my new room theme! I have created the great expectations eight principles posters! They are so awesome, or I think so! They are designed to print out on regular 8 1/2 x 11 paper, then just cut and laminate!!! Enjoy this freebie!!

More to come!!!

Links to docs for printing

I made it through my first year back!

This year has been crazy! I have been so busy I haven't had the time to keep up with my blog! I am trying to get into the groove of improving my time management skills. I will have plenty of time over the summer to blog ideas! Teacher pay Teachers has been an incredible resource for me throughout the entire year! I also have been following several teacher bloggers for great ideas! I have had to move rooms for next year and we finally have everything moved! We have two days of work left before our seven weeks of summer vacation begins and I am so ready! The school I work at instituted a school wide theme (seems more like a slogan to me) and this coming fall the new theme is going to be "The Winning Ticket". I was not big on having a theme because I like to be creative on my own but I did find some inspiration that has me already gearing up for the new year! I immediately thought about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Candyland! I pitched my idea to the second grade team which is adding two new team members and they are on board. If you have any ideas to share please do!!! I have hit the ground running with ideas. Last  night I watched the 2005 version of Willy Wonka with Johnny Depp and got tons of ideas! As this unfolds I will share! I couldn't find any other classroom themes online like this to draw ideas from but I did find plenty of birthday parties with the theme and even a few weddings??? Stay tuned!!! This is going to be fun!!