Fun in First

A Teaching Blog by Jodi Southard

Classroom Decor

1st Day of School Tips

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It’s time for another Linky Party and this one is all about the 1st day of school.  This will be my 12th year of teaching and I still get soooo nervous before school starts.  No matter how prepared I am, I know I will toss and turn all night and get no sleep.  So, for the new teachers reading this, you are not alone!  The only thing you can do is get everything organized and prepped as best as possible and hope for the best.  Hopefully, these tips will help you out this year.
 

 You can download a copy of these by clicking on the first picture above.
I also recommend that you make your lessons very detailed for the first couple days of school.  I have included my first two days of lessons below.

“The First Day of School” book from Day 1 can be found in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  The download includes a full page version and a half page version.  {If you have purchased this in the past, I updated it with some revised fonts and pictures if you want to go and redownload it.}

 
The first day of school can be nerve racking, but it is also such an exciting time.  The most important thing to remember is to teach procedures for EVERYTHING! {Do not expect them to know how to do something.}
If you have tips for the first day of school, grab the button below and link up.
 


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Five for Friday

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My summer is quickly coming to a close.  Teachers return to school in one week and the students come back the following Monday. 
I’m linking up for Five for Friday today to give a recap of my last full week of summer.

 
1. Our school has been under a major remodel this summer, but we were finally able to get in for a couple days before they started waxing the floors.  I was able to get some things finished, but I still have more to do.
This is my classroom library area, my guided reading table, and lanterns above my desk. {I am loving my new crate seats!}
 
I purchased some new tubs from Big Lots for my classroom library.
 
 I also relabeled my classroom supplies.
 
I am in love with my desk area.  I just used my Silhouette and vinyl to make the polka dots on my desk.
 
2.  Last Friday – Monday, we made a last minute trip to Saint Joseph, Michigan.
 I had never been before and it is gorgeous!  {A huge bonus is that it’s only 4 hours away, unlike Florida beaches.}  The weather was perfect and Saint Joseph is such a great town!

 
3. On the way back, we made a detour through Indianapolis to visit the new Lakeshore Learning store.
 
4.  Yesterday we went to our children’s museum.  I am trying to take advantage of every last moment of summer.
 
5. Just in case you’re not a Facebook follower, here are some of this week’s Daily Tips.  Click here to follow me on FB.

 
 

Shopping for the New Year

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Even though I can’t seem to get into full on school mode yet, I have been doing some online shopping for my classroom. 
First off, I ordered my parent brochures from Vistaprint.

These used to be so much cheaper, but they are really good quality, plus they’re saved in my Vistaprint portfolio so I’m not rewriting them each year.
I also ordered a new behavior chart.
This is just a PDF file that I uploaded onto a small vinyl banner.  I had one made 3 years ago and it’s still in perfect condition, but I wanted to update for a Hollywood theme.  {Of course, now that’s it’s ordered and on the way, I think I’m ditching the Hollywood theme and just going black with bright, colorful polka dots.}
If you want to download the chart above, click HERE.
Graphics by Melonheadz
 
I also ordered these magnetic business cards with my contact information that I give out to the parents of my students.
Everyone loves a great t-shirt.  How cute is this one!  I LOVE the sparkle.  It’s from Teachershirts.com.  You can click on the link below to check out the site.
 
I am also really excited about my new bean bag chairs that are on their way.
I ordered a red one and a blue one from School Outfitters. They contacted me a couple of weeks ago and offered me $100 dollars to spend in my classroom as well as $100 to give away to a blog follower!!!!! I found SO MANY great things on their site.  They have furniture, technology equipment, rugs, teacher resources, etc. 
To enter to win $100 at School Outfitters, check out their site, head back here and leave a comment about which item you would LOVE to have.  Then enter the rafflecopter below. 
 
 


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Throwback Thursday

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It’s Thursday, so it’s time for another Throwback Thursday post.
This one is coming from almost 2 years ago.  I posted my lessons for the first 2 days of school.  As school gets closer to starting this year, I will update this and change some things, but this gives you a pretty good idea of what the start of my school year looks like.
 
Originally posted on August 8, 2011.
I officially have one more week of summer break.  Teachers meet next Monday for meetings all day, then we have our Open House/Meet the Teacher Night that evening.  Student’s first day is Tuesday.  Summer sure went fast!  I still have some work to do in my classroom, but as soon as it’s done I’ll post some pictures.  For now, I have finished my lesson plans for the first week and I’m sharing Day 1 and 2 with you along with many activities I will be doing.
One of the activities for the first day is Magic Playdoh.  I make this the weekend before by mixing 1 cup salt and 2 cups flour and 2 tablespoons cream of tartar into a saucepan.    Add 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, and 2 cups water and cook over medium heat while stirring constantly.  It will start to harden within a couple of minutes and will start to form a ball.  At this point, remove it onto a floured surface and kneed until nice and smooth.  Put it in a ziplock bag and place it in the refrigerator overnight.  The next day, roll this into individual balls.  Make an indention and put 1-2 drops of food coloring into the indention.  Close up the indention and place the ball into a Ziplock baggie.  Repeat for the number of students in your class, including extras for those that register on the first day of school. {This sounds time consuming, but it actually is pretty easy.}
Then I attach the following poem to each baggie. (I did not write this poem.)
Click on picture to download
You can read about the Gingerbread activity that I will be completing by clicking HERE.
The next activity is reading this book.
and completing this paper.



I use these to make our first class book.
You can find The First Day of School Book HERE.
The Find a Friend Activity and the Jitter Juice activity is from Abby’s Fun with Firsties unit that I purchased from TpT.
For the All About Me bags, I share mine first and explain each item. (I usually include a blue crayon, a picture of my family, a book, a picture of a runner, and maybe something from a summer vacation.)  Afterwards, I give everyone their own bag with this paper attached.

Click to download

The next thing we do is make a “How do I get home? Graph.”  I pass out the paper and have each student cut out the picture that shows how they get home.


Click on picture to download

I call students to come up and place their picture on the graph that I make on the board with bulletin board paper.  We discuss which one is the most and which is the least. 
The first day is so hectic, but so much fun!  My students seem to remember the activities from the first day for the rest of the year.

Day 2

I love Diane deGroat books and this is one of my favorites for back to school.

After we read this, the students complete this page about their favorite school supply they brought to school.


The “My School Book” and “Whooo’s Rule?” booklets are ones that I had gotten from Teacher’s Helper a couple of years ago.  The second day I do a lot of review of the rules.  Practice, practice, practice.  I try to spend a lot of time on rules and procedures during the first week of school.  It definitely saves time later in the school year.
Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to post pictures of our first days of school and I promise to post some classroom photos this week.



Chalkboard Craze

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Have you seen all of the chalkboard themed items lately?  Love it!  I would say that other than chevron, it’s definitely the latest craze.  So, I had to jump right in and find some of my favorite chalkboard fonts.
You can Google any of these to find them, but most of them I just downloaded from dafont.com.  The fonts are free for personal use, but they all have a commercial use license as well.  Always make sure to read the licenses before using fonts.
 
I also decided to redo my supply labels in “chalkboard” style.
 
I couldn’t decide if I wanted rectangles or ovals, so I included both.

 
 
You can find them below if you’re interested.

 
If you like the chalkboard style, check out this alphabet and word wall set from Lyndsey at A Year of Many Firsts.
 
 
So cute!!!
My printer is not going to be happy with me this summer 😉
 


Gearing up for December and Sparkly E

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Last week, we began working on words with silent e.  This is always a turning point for many of my students because all of the sudden, everything they think they understand about stretching out words, changes. 
You may remember this post from last year about Sparkly E.
I introduce Sparkly E to my students by saying, “Here is a word {mad} and along comes Sparkly e.  Sparkly e is just so beautiful and fancy that “a” has to introduce itself.  ‘Hi!  Nice to meet you.  My name is A.’  Sparkly e doesn’t say anything back because it’s silent, but the vowel says it’s name.”
Here is a song that we sing together.
 
We practice making words together.
 
Then the students make their own by using glitter glue on index cards and gluing them onto a popsicle stick.
 
I put the song and some word cards together into one packet that you can download for free by clicking below.

Example of the word cards.
 
I am also gearing up for December!!  I have completed my December Poems and Songs Packet.

 
I have also officially aligned my December, January, and February Fluency packets to the Common Core and have added the standards on each passage.  If you have already purchased any of these, you may redownload them to get the updated version.

 
You can also get ALL three months in one packet by purchasing the Winter Fluency Packet {which is also Common Core Aligned.}
 
Still to come…December Differentiated Morning Work.  I’m only about a quarter of the way done, but with only a 2 day week ahead of me and five glorious days off, I plan to finish it by next weekend 🙂