TpT FREEBIE!

I know most of us are in the middle of summer (some blogger friends just started summer, craziness!) but I'm already planning to go back to school at the end of July. You read that right, JULY. Technically students don't start until August 1, but teachers report back much sooner. So I better get ready!

I just made these cute dismissal tags to use with my students this year. My plan is to print and laminate them, then punch holes and attach to their backpacks with zip ties. I think it will definitely help in the beginning of the year with the dismissal chaos. I will probably also put a label on the back side with the student's name and my name. That way if a child gets separated from the "herd" during dismissal, another teacher can easily identify them and help get them to the right place. Goal for the 1st week of school? NO LOST KIDS! haha

Best part? I'm offering it you to FREE! Just go to my TpT website and download the file. Then print and use as necessary. While you're on TpT, be sure to check out my other products! 

**UPDATE- since this has become so popular (and my cute hubby isn't working so we need the money) I'm now selling this on TpT for just $1. Sorry y'all!! But it's still a great deal and super useful in the classroom. Also you can message me if you need custom tags made, and I'll put them up on TpT for you. Thanks!

Center time!

A huge part of our day in my classroom revolves around centers. We do language centers, math centers and free choice centers just about every day. My language centers are the most organized, so I wanted to share with you how I do it.

Here's a pic of the set-up on my board:

Each center has a picture, so that the kids who aren't reading yet can still know where to go. I have a few centers that are kept in baskets that change some times, so those centers are just pictured with the color of the basket (blue crayon=blue basket). The kids names are next to what center they go to that day. Each morning I come in and take the picture at the bottom, move them all down and then the bottom goes to the top. Its so great because kids can just look and see where they're going, and I don't have to keep up with it!

Some of my centers that don't really change are: magnets, book center, computers, listening and puzzles. These stay the same, but the skill at each changes as the year goes on. For example, at the beginning of the year at magnets students are working on building their names and matching letters. The middle of the year they're making sight words. And now at the end of the year they're creating whole sentences. I love seeing the progress!

This is a system I will definitely take with me to my new job. Can't wait to see what that classroom looks like!

(note- I just had my evaluation meeting and my principal noted how she loved this organization system I have going! yay!)

Books, books, everywhere!

**this is a guest post I wrote a few weeks ago and just realized I never published it here!

Hello everyone! This is Clare from A Day in the Life. For my guest post I wanted to share with you how I organize my classroom library. Even though it's only my 3rd year teaching (is that all? feels like much longer!), I have a TON of books! I've been collecting them for years- picking them up at garage sales, rummage sales, used books from the library, etc. And for the past 2 years that hasn't really been any rhyme or reason as to how they were organized. They were just flung on a shelf and I had to sift through them all when I needed a certain book.

At the end of last school year, my long term sub (I was out on medical leave) packed up my ENTIRE classroom. So when I opened all the boxes with books and saw they were all jumbled up, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to reorganize. Here's what I came up with!

These 4 tubs have my science/social studies books for our four "modules"- Community Helpers, World Cultures (USA for my class), Weather/Seasons and Animals.

This is a bookshelf I got last year through Donor's Choose. It's hard to see the labels, but the books are all sorted into categories: rhyming books, math books, ABC books, various Lang. Arts books, school books, books about feelings, and fairy tales/fables.

And here's my last bookshelf! It has all my author tubs as well as other categories.

Here's a close up of the labels I made. You can find some of them HERE on my Google Docs. Sorry I don't have them all to share, I can't find the other file (I made some 2 years ago and I guess I didn't save that file!).

The first day of school, the kids won't be able to see any of the books. The shelves will be "wrapped" in butcher paper, and as we learn classroom rules and procedures they'll gain book privileges. Last year I had to limit their access because they kept putting the books back in the wrong place, but I think this year with plenty of practice it'll work great!

Looking forward to a great school year and no more searching for lost books!!

Organization station

Have I told you that I love organizing? Because I do. Like, seriously. If I were not a Kindergarten teacher, I would be a professional organizer and go into people's homes and get paid to organize all their stuff. Luckily, being a Kindergarten teacher is often a LOT like being a professional organizer. My favorite bookstore in town closed back in December :( but the one good side to that is that in it's place we are getting a Container Store! Until then, I am usually a bit creative when it comes to organizing things in my classroom.

Here is one of the bookshelves in my classroom:
It has all the "series" books sorted into tubs, then the tubs are labeled with the name of the books and a picture. You will find a lot of pre-made labels for book boxes which are great, but they just have the words. K students aren't reading yet (for the most part) and need the picture to go with the words. My kids NEVER put a book in the wrong place because it's pretty obvious where it should go. Time is precious and if I don't have to be constantly re-organizing my books, I think it's a good thing.

One goal for this upcoming school year is to have a new book center that has leveled books out on display. I'm working on it some this summer and hope to have it up by the time school starts. Stay tuned!