Slow progress and Target/Staples/Borders finds

   I went into my classroom today to continue working on my book collection.  I spent most of my time just sorting.  This is only about 1/3 of all the books I have.  Stacks Stacks and more Stacks.

 Here are a few treasures that I found in Target's dollar section over the last few weeks.

   I love these double sided dry erase boards 4 for $1.  A new Word Work activity, yippee!

Staples had these great dry erase notebooks to practice printing and number formation.  Cheap at a $1.  I bought 6.

       Look at these cool things, Wonder Tubes.   I know everyone has heard of discovery bottles that you can make.  Well, these are tubes that have lots of little sequin and pictures inside to discover.  Each label has I Spy riddles and rhymes of things to find in the tube.  I think at the beginning of the year I will have them use the tube to find different items and write what they find into their vocabulary notebook.  Each tube is different.  I love the sparkle.  I bought them at Borders Books for about $2.50 each.  I will probably only use a couple at a time to stretch out the activity throughout the fall.  There is an A set, a B set, and a C set.

We finally had some rain today!  It was a much need relief from all the dryness.

Have a great day!

   

  aClaire

    

New Design

   Well, I was ready for a little change.  I've been playing around with a new design and I decided to use images that my students created of themselves.  I think it looks great.  Tell me what you think.
    I am happy that the hot sticky weather has finally moved on.  I love the sunshine every day, though it is pretty dry and we really do need rain, I love not mowing the lawn every week.  My deck garden is thriving because I'm able to water it every day.  My pool is sparkling and warm.  I just love summer.

I changed up my picture, too.  

Enjoy,

  aClaire

The Middle of Summer

    I just love summertime with it's warm sunny days and beautiful peaceful evenings:)  My on-deck garden is flourishing and my pool is crystal clear.  I just finished my first book of the summer called Bossy Pants by Tina Fey.  It was so funny.  Just what I needed.  I love easy mindless books in the summer to just relax with.
      I got a call 2 days ago, that my room had been finished, (you know cleaned and ready to be put back in order).  So yesterday I headed over to Highgate to start the process of reorganizing and rearranging.  I told myself that my goal this summer was to reorganize my massive book collection.  I spent about 3 1/2 hours yesterday and really made some progress.  I completed one corner and was able to throw out quite a bit of stuff.  Boy, I am such a pack rat.   I started to organized my collection according to the calendar and the themes.  It will definitely make my life easier at the end of every month when I switch out the books. It's funny how as the year progresses I seem to run out of shelf space to house all of the books.  All I really need was a little organization and boy, now I have lots of extra space.  I really like going into my classroom for a few hours at a time during the summer to get my self reset for the fall.  Once or twice a week takes away the stress of "how will I ever get all of this done".

        Here are 2 shots of my before.

   As I go through the process of setting up and reorganizing I plan of posting a few more pictures of the room.  

     I came across this great internet Chicka Chicka Boom Boom project that I joined today.  Brooke Perry on her Primary Perspective blog is setting it up.  Check it out!  I am looking forward to this project.  I hope more first grade classrooms join in.

http://www.eduperry.com/2011/07/chicka-chicka-boom-boom-letter-exchange.html

   I hope everyone is enjoying a great summer!  I think the weather is grand!

Claire