Idea!

I may be a complete dork {hold back your comments}, but I do so much reading with all my graduate work and school information. I have such a hard time keeping everything straight! Often, I'll be writing a discussion post that requires a reference citation, but I am at a loss for where that snippet of information has come from.
So, today, after my wildly crazy morning watching four-year-olds tackle their way across the basketball court {yes, you read that right!} I started in on my Reading Teacher Journals. I tabbed each article with a code word to help me see the topics in each journal. {I'm too anal to tear my journals apart...you never know when you may need them all nice and tidy!}.

These are my journals with the tab work from today!

An up close shot of the tabs and the subjects available within each journal.  There are a wide range of topics.

As you can see, this might prove to be beneficial! I can take these and file them into my brand new navy blue file drawers {see previous post}!

A New Pencil Sharpener-Maybe!

I was revisiting my Martin Luther King Jr. lesson plans for the week and came across a writing bulletin board that I have done with my students in the past.  We read about MLK Jr. and make a list of  his accomplishments.  We talk about what he is most known for...his "I Have A Dream!" speech.

The students think about a dream that they might have.  It can be one for their own personal life, our school or their future.  The theme of the lesson is "Every Good Thing Begins with a Dream!"

The students then make a mini head clone out of construction paper.  (They really get into this!)  Their dream then goes in a thought bubble and can be illustrated.  I hang them in the hall on the board to display our various dreams. 

My dream during the year I first taught this lesson revolved around pencil sharpeners.  I believe that by the time January rolled around that year, I had gone through three or four pencil sharpeners.  They were lousy!

I just wanted to find a pencil sharpener that would work!!! {I'm still on the maddening search!}

In my blog stalking, Farley over at Oh' Boy 4th Grade, is offering a giveaway!  {YES! It's supposedly the worlds BEST pencil sharpener!}

So here goes:

Currently:

Listening:  "Waiting for Tomorrow" by Mandisa
Loving:  The laughter that my children bring to my life.
Thinking:  I could really use a snow day to organize my classroom!
Wanting:  One of those really cool pencil sharpeners!
Needing:  The merger mess at school to be done!
OLW:  SUCCESS!

My Lovely Classroom

I thought I would open the doors to my classroom to show you what I live in 40+ hours out of the week!  Keep in mind, we are half way through the school year, and...there may be some messes around. :-)

This picture is from the front of my room.  I love the theme posters that I downloaded from Beth Newingham's post on Scholastic.  She is such an amazing teacher, full of ideas!  The two mailboxes in the back of the room are used for communication with students.  The taller gray one is used for material that needs to go home (i.e. newsletters, notes, monthly lunch menu, etc...)
The shorter mailbox is used for what we call Weeks Worth of Work.  Every Tuesday we send home the graded papers from the previous week.  There is a 1/2 sheet cover letter that gets stapled to the front of the packet.  Parents sign and write notes for the classroom teacher and return it the following day.  This mailbox system replaced a file box.  The mailboxes are much better because I don't lose papers between file folders like I did before.

This picture is taken from the other side of the front of the room.  From this angle you can see my group meeting space.  I also have some tall bookshelves that were made by a friend of mine during my first year of teaching.  They are made up of 4 sections that stack on top of one another.  This makes it nice to rearrange the classroom in many different configurations.  These shelves are currently housing my students literacy boxes. 

This side of the room looks a little cluttered.  I have a string hung across the room and have my Daily 5 "Status of the Class" board hung there.  I also hang strategy posters as we learn them in class along this line.  My 'desk' is in the top left of this picture.  Our rooms are so small, and I realized that MY desk area was taking up about 1/4 of the space of my room.  I decided to do away with it last year, and lived with an empty desk for a month before I actually had it hauled away.  I have NOT regretted it since!  The BLACK HOLE is gone, and I can easily find things in my classroom.

This is the front of my classroom.  My new find from earlier today will probably mean that I'll be able to get rid of the smaller blue bookshelf, and possibly the green one that houses my leveled readers.  

I have the most amazing best friend who teaches down the hall.  We are both implementing the Literacy CAFE this year, and she found the cutest little chef and kitchen theme for us to use in our classrooms.  She is the best! 

This is where I have to share some frustrations...You can see how much room the desk in the front of the room takes up.  I have begged and pleaded and simply asked to have the projectors mounted from the ceiling.  They won't do it...

Frustrating, I know, but being in an old building has it's benefits...

I get to paint my room what ever color (or colors) I want to, which isn't true in the new buildings in our district!  (Plus, my indecisive brain gets to move the room layout as much as I want to!)

I hope you enjoyed the tour!  Come back again real soon!

One little Word

So, in my Blog stalking this week I found a great idea from Farley over at the "Oh' Boy 4th Grade" blog!  (She's wonderful...check her out, if you haven't already!) 

I'm in total agreement that resolutions are stupid.  If I want to set myself up for failure, I'll bake a cake and set it on the counter!  Not sure about you, but failure sets me into a tailspin of comfort eating and depression.  Farley suggests picking One little Word to focus on for the year. 

This is how it works:

You pick ONE LITTLE WORD
and hold onto that word for the year...or longer...
focus on this word until you have mastered it.

During our church service today my word came to me! 
Pastor Brad suggested that not a single resolution would be made for the New Year that would be detrimental to us.  I mean, no one ever makes the resolution to be a horrible parent, or get further into debt.  ALL resolutions are made because we want to improve in some area of our lives. 

So instead of a resolution,I choose to focus on a word this year.  One that I can hold on to and focus on throughout all triumphs and trials 2012 may hold for me... My word...

SUCCESS

(I know...it sounds like an overachiever word!)  But, hear me out!  If success is defined as having victory over areas of weakness, than my word covers a vast amount of areas of my life!  Success in maintaining my weight loss; success in being a good mother, teacher, wife; success for my students on EOG testing and future endeavors of their lives.

I believe the real definition of SUCCESS is doing life the way GOD has called me!  WOW!  We learned today that:
1) God WANTS us to be successful! (1 Kings 2:2-4)
2) Success comes from following God's instructions (Deuteronomy 17:14-20)
3) Not following God's instruction leads to destruction (1 Kings 10:14-15; 1 Kings 10:26-28; 1 Kings 11:1-4)

Not to get too Sunday morning church on ya, but ... WOW!  (Check out those verses and how they're tied together!)

So, my ONE LITTLE WORD for this year is...SUCCESS!  What word would you consider as your focus for this school year?