#2getherwearebetter ALL THINGS BULLETIN BOARDS!

Why hellooooooooo there! I am SO stinkin' excited to be doing this link up with Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd ad Lucky Little Learners. They are geniuses and I can't wait to see what everyone does with their bulletin boards!

Picking a Background

I LOVE solid backgrounds on bulletin boards! I feel like they are clean, inviting and you can accessorize with LOTS of different borders. I also LOVE fabric. Now I know what you're thinking. "Soney, I'm a teacher. I don't make enough money to go buy yards and yards and yards of fabric!" 

I understand completely! I didn't start using fabric until my 3rd or 4th year of teaching because it is quite an investment and a big part of why I choose to use SOLID colors. I can switch up borders from year to year. There is NO WAY I am changing out my fabric from year to year and if I hang paper, I would have to switch it out every year because it fades. The money is worth the time and effort to me.

 So I haven't been able to get in my room just yet but will walk you through what I do.

         Step 1: Measure the HEIGHT of your walls.
         Step 2: Go to Hobby Lobby WITH your 40% off coupon!
         Step 3: Find ONE color of fabric you like.
         Step 4: Get way more than you THINK you need (you'll need it) but have the lady cut it to the   same height of your walls. So If I was doing a red wall, I would tell her that I wanted 12 yrds but cut into 3 yrd sections. I'll explain later about why and how this is helpful.
         Step 5: Check out WITH YOUR COUPON!
         Step 6: Repeat daily until you have every color you want.

Now, I know that seems like a lot of trips to Hob Lob and it is! HOWEVER, that is how you're going to cut down on the expense of buying fabric.

I get asked a lot if I iron or steam my fabric. The answer is no. I attach it so tightly to my walls that there are not any wrinkles in it.

Hanging your Background

Ok so remember how I told you to have the lady at HobLob cut your fabric to the exact length that equals how tall your walls are? Here's why. You obviously are going to be standing on a ladder, table, desk, chair, or something to get up to the top of your wall right? Well you don't want to worry about cutting anything so if you can staple your fabric to the top of that wall, let it hang down, then it's super easy to just staple and apply border! No cutting needed! 

Now, when I do this, I staple the entire top and then as I go down each side, I pull the fabric tight so that it doesn't have wrinkles. The best way to do this is staple 2-3 times on the left, and then 2-3 times on the right until you're at the bottom. In the even there is a little extra, just fold it under and staple. The border will hide it. 

Borders!

Now I love borders! They are (normally) pretty cheap and a super easy way to refresh your room without the mega cost of doing something like fabric! I really like am obsessed with CHEVRON! If my husband let me, I'd decorate the whole flippin' house in anything and everything chevron. L.O.V.E. it! Anyways, last year, I decided to just order online some super cute chevron borders! I got WAY too much and have TONS in my back cabinet. I'm pretty sure I bought all of what Really Good Stuff had! 

Last year, our school theme was 'License to Learn' so everything had to deal with driving. So this was my bulletin board outside of my classroom.

This year, we are a western theme. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do yet but I'm thinking maybe a black background with burlap ribbon as the border. Maybe I'll get some bunting at Michael's and stencil on the words "Howdy Partner!" and hang it with clothes pins from some twine. I'm not sure what to do with my kids' names though...

So, if you have any thoughts, let me know! Do you use fabric? Do you love chevron as much as I do?! I'd love to hear your tips and tricks as well! Stay tuned for my entire room reveal on September 2nd!!!

                                         

I CHALLENGE YOU! #Beliefs into Action

Hi Everyone! 

I just love that Whitney at With Love From Texas, thought of this blog hop to do! What a perfect way to get my brain ready for school and centered on the kids! 

While in college, I was introduced to a quote that I just LOVE. Haim Ginott was a Israeli teacher that studied how to speak to children. He wrote a book called Between Parent and Child. His communication approach is amazing!!! Here are his ideas:

• Never deny or ignore a child's feelings. 
• Only behavior is treated as unacceptable, not the child. 
• Depersonalize negative interactions by mentioning only the problem. "I see a messy room." 
• Attach rules to things, e.g., "Little sisters are not for hitting." Dependence breeds hostility. 
• Let children do for themselves what they can. Children need to learn to choose, but within the safety of limits. "Would you like to wear this blue shirt or this red one?" 
• Limit criticism to a specific event—don't say "never", "always", as in: "You never listen," "You always manage to spill things", etc. 
• Refrain from using words that you would not want the child to repeat.

How true is this!? So, my favorite quote from him really drives my beliefs. 

So, let me back up... When I was a freshman in high school, my cousin had a little boy. Immediately they knew something was different and immediately took him for testing. He was diagnosed with Down syndrome. The diagnosis was crippling and deafening for a lot of my family. I felt bad for my cousin as she thought she was carrying a perfectly healthy baby. The joyous revelation that they had another son was quickly ripped from them when she looked at him and saw that he didn't look 'normal.' It was heartbreaking to watch. I immediately knew that I wanted to help families dealing with anything that came with a child that had a disability. He is the reason I went into Special Education. He is THE most amazing kid in the world!  

I quickly learned my first year teaching Resource how true this quote was. My kids could tell how I was feeling, how stressed I was, how inadequate I felt, and more times than not, our time together was NOT beneficial AT ALL! How scary is that?! Looking back, there is no telling how many kids I screwed up or didn't teach them all I could because I let my crap get in the way of their learning! I believe ALL kids deserve an education and with a teacher that WANTS to be there and is always striving to be better. Hence my education beliefs were born and they are what I try and put into action daily in my classroom: general education or special education. 



I also believe that, we as teachers, must realize that we teach far more than standards. We teach compassion, tolerance, manners, etc. and most of the time we don't teach with our mouth; we teach with our actions. Kids are watching us AT ALL TIMES and we need to be cognizant of this and always be striving to be more.  
Well that about wraps up what I try to do and be as a teacher and why. Hop on over to  Stevie Kampakou at Power Teaching to read her beliefs and how she puts them in action in  GREECE!

#TexasSizeLinkUp #Back to School Organization Part 2!

Howdy y'all!!!

I am so happy to be part of the #TexasSizeLinkUp ! Isn't it the worst when you can't find something you need?! I love organization and love staying organized so that when someone pops in and needs something, I'm not scrambling! One way that I stay organized is my Teacher Binder and Back to school forms. My back to school forms are FREE on my TPT store and you can read my blog on it here.

Anywho, I NEED dividers and binders to keep it all together so my Teacher Binder keeps me super organized! I have so many different ones and its so hard to just pick one for the school year! It has my calendar, roster, notes, contact logs, birthday list, and TONS of cover pages to divide my binder into sections or use at inserts for different binders! Click on any of the pictures below to see it in my TPT store and enter the Rafflecopter below to WIN one of YOUR CHOICE!!!

 

Back to School Organization Tip, FREEBIE and Periscope Party Hop

Hey Everyone!

I am so excited that Lindsay over at Primary Polka Dots allowed me in on the Periscope Hop tonight! I loved hearing about everyone else's tips and tricks and hope you did too. In case you missed it, here is what I talked about...Organizing your data before the year even begins.

I don't know about y'all but as soon as I walk into school the first day with kids, I do not have time to be worrying about setting up my data binders! Ain't nobody got time for that right?

So, before school starts, I have everything ready to go. I have created these little forms to track their reading throughout the year so that anytime anyone walks in to my room, I can whip this out and show them everything! So because I teach first grade, I wat to know where the students were at the end of Kinder. I want it all out on one form so that I can see who might be able to be grouped together for guided reading. Our district uses istation (ISIP), DRA2 and PAPI. I then mark whether or not they were below level. If they were below level, I then go to my AP and ask if they went through the RtI committee. 

So after I have all of that filled in, (I type the students' names before printing and fill the rest in by hand) I store that in the front of my ELAR data binder. I think it's easier to use these binders and stay on top of data when the cover is so cute. Does that help you too?

When I set my binder up, I make sure and grab the numbered dividers from Target, Office Max, Staples or wherever I can find them cheapest! They look like this but I get the set of 25 since I won't have more than 25 kiddos in my class. 

Each student is assigned a number (alphabetically by last name) and all their data for the ENTIRE year goes behind it! Every time I do a running record, DRA, take any anecdotal notes, this is where it goes! Remember the End of Year Kinder form from up there^? I have the same thing printed out but ones for beginning of year, middle of year, and end of year of 1st grade. 

As the year goes on, we also do a monthly online reading assessment and I track their progress on one page also. This joins the End of Kinder, BOY, MOY, and EOY Assessment pages at the front of my binder.

 Now, when I go to an RtI meeting, or have a PLC about kiddos and comparing our data, I take ONE binder and it has ALL of my Reading info in it!

I do the EXACT same thing for my Math Data binder. The only thing that is different is my data sheet. In my district, we have 4 Math CBAs per year. So, I keep ALL of their testing data on ONE PAGE!!!! I do keep all of the CBAs in a different binder just in case anything is ever questioned but not in this binder. 

How easy is that?! Now. I have a few other binders that I keep as well just to stay organized. 

I must have an IEP and 504 folder. This SAVED my life last year. I had 20 kiddos last year and SEVEN of them when through a SPED eval. SEVEN!!!! That is a lot! So, this is where I kept all of that paperwork and evaluations, accommodations, schedules, etc. 

SST is my districts RtI committee. Since I had 7 go through a SPED eval, you can bet I used this binder as well to track all the interventions before we went through the evaluation. 

LLI is the Fountas and Pinnell Literacy Intervention that my district uses. I taught LLI and had 4 kids from other classes I was keeping data on for their teacher. 

So that is how I keep myself organized during the school year. It is crucial for me to prep it BEFORE the year even begins because there is no way that I have time to do it after. If you'd like to get started on prepping binders for your class, head on over to my TPT store for editable versions of all these forms and binder covers for FREE!!!

 How do you organize your data? I'd love to hear about it in the commets below! 

Who doesn't love The Kid President?

Hey y'all!

I was watching Hope King's periscope the other night about her classroom set up. She went over her inspiration wall with different quotes. Basically what she does is she has some great quotes framed above her board but they are all covered up at the beginning of the year. One by one, she reveals a quote and has the kids jot down what they think that it means! What a great idea, right?! So, I took that idea and I'm going to do that too. I have made several packs of Kid President quotes and put them up in my TPT store. Some have one set, some have two or three (color coordinating) and then there is a big bundle so you can get ALL of them. Each bundle has the same quotes just different colors. Isn't this such a fun idea?

I think we'll use it during our class meetings this year. We'll make a big deal about 'unveiling' them and then the kids won't be able to stop writing! Plus, who doesn't love The Kid President?

Anywho, once they are up and framed in my room, I'll upload a picture here but until then, hop on over to my store and find a set that works for you!

What are your favorite quotes to inspire kiddos?

Meet the Teacher Night FREEBIES!!!!

HOWDY Y'ALL!!!

Ok so real quick I wanted to let you know that I have a FREEBIE up in my store tonight. If you caught me on Periscope earlier, I talked about a tutorial I saw over at Sharing Kindergarten on how to use Google Forms to streamline your Meet the Teacher Night paperwork. You can make your Google Form into a QR code and put it on this super cute half sheet for Meet the Teacher Night!

 Also, I included a form that I am going to use this year to decrease the 'conference line' that seems to form on that night. When a parent comes up and wants to talk about everything. under. the. sun. (ammiright?!) then point them to these little notes and a bucket for them to drop you a note. Make sure you make contact with these parents pretty quickly either that weekend or first day of school to let the parents know you appreciated the note and that you are on top of whatever their concern was.

Well that is about all I have so hop on over to my TPT store and download these for yourself!

Have a great night! 

I'm back with 3 tips to working with....PARENTS!

Hey everyone!

Ok so, PARENTS!!! Do parents tend to freak you out? I know that on Meet the Teacher I'm already assessing, watching, and analyzing ever parent interaction with their kid and other families. Their interactions with their own kiddos can SPEAK VOLUMES!!! Now, if you are in any grade other than Kinder (sorry guys) you have resources to ask about kids and parents...the previous teacher, right? If you're not using that person as a valuable asset, you should. So, here a few tips to ensure that you can and WILL have great relationships with parents.

1. Make them FEEL part of the team.
    Parents want to be heard. They give us their best everyday and they have a right to have a say in their child's education whether it is right or wrong, brilliant or stupid. Even if you don't do what they recommend, if they feel heard, they most likely won't get their panties in a wad about something later. So, hear them out.

2. Know something non-academic about their kiddo.
   Something. Anything. Show them that you are invested in their kid and their life outside of school. That doesn't mean you have to go to every baseball game or dance recital (although showing your face from time to time doesn't hurt). But the fact that you know that their child plays second base for the whatever team, will tell them that you actually listen to their kiddo. This is huge for parents who have a child has an IEP. A lot of those kiddos might NEVER be in your room. So? We need to be treating those families the EXACT same as we do others! They don't fit in anywhere a lot of the time and we need to make them feel part of something. They are so alone in their diagnosis that if you walk into that IEP/ARD meeting and have a funny or surprising story about their kid or know their favorite TV show or color, that mom and dad will melt. They might still be difficult, but they are going to go easier on you because you clearly took the time to get to know their child.

3. Send random happy emails to ALL parents at some point in the year.
Ok so you've heard this before, If you talk about the good most of the time, when you do have to bring up the not-so-good stuff, it will go over easier. So, one thing I am doing this year once I get my class list is write a student name in my #erincondrenplanner at the beginning of the week for the entire year. I will repeat my list probably once. Whatever name is tied to that week, those parents, both parents, will get an email talking about how much I love their kid and tell them good things they are doing in class. Now, my harder kids will get emails first so that they get one in the first month or 6 weeks  during the 'honeymoon' period and then again after Christmas when things get harder. If you can tell them great things, they will listen when you have to tell them hard things.

Ok so those are my tips for working well WITH parents. We are all in it for the kids. Even if their mom is Maleficent and dad is the Green Goblin, their kid is their kid and they want what's best for them. So as we're all starting to turn our brains back towards school, keep these things in mind.

What good tips to you have? I'd love to hear them and add them to my list!!! I'll see you next week with tips on having a collaborative relationship between special ed and general ed!

~Soney