Library Labels Freebie

This is my first freebie and my first time using googledocs so hopefully it turns out well for everyone. Please let me know if something isn't working, or if there is a better way to do freebies.

My classroom library has been an absolute mystery of organization. I have been blog stalking and web searching for ideas of how to organize and maintain the mess of my classroom library. Well after loads of research I complied a couple of ideas for my library.
I made genre labels for my book bins and coordinating labels for each book. This way the student librarians can put books back in the correct spots at the end of the day. I also took a lesson from Miss Clutter-Free Classroom and only put out some of my many books. That will hopefully keep the kiddos more interested in reading and less choices for browsing through their reading time. So without further ado here are my library book bin labels and my library book labels. I hope they are helpful to you. Pictures of them in use will come shortly.

PS I can't believe that school starts is less then 30 days!AHHHHHH.

Creekside Teacher Tales Giveaway

Man I wish I could do a giveaway but as of today I have nothing worth giving. I am hoping to win my first giveaway which is an amazing prize pack from Creekside Teacher Tales Someday when I get 100 followers I'll do a giveaway! (maybe before that)

First Day Jitters! (A Blog Hop)

Two linky posts in two days... I think I deserve some type of chocolate reward for that!

I am joining up with Ashley in Fierce in Fourth to share first day jitters. I was reading a lot of the other bloggers' posts and found something in common all of us are having the "First of the Year Dreams"so I thought I would share mine because I've been having some pretty awesome nightmares!

Link to the party! 

Things I am concerned about for the first day of school:
1. I am moving classrooms. My room used to be a very large room with built in storage and huge windows inside the building. Now I am moving out to the Relo's (Relocatable classrooms, portable classrooms, I've heard them called many things). There are a few perks to being outside: I control my heat and a/c, my class can be as loud as we wish, my relo is never closed and alarmed so I can visit any day any time. But this move is causing me to experience lots of silly dreams. Example: last night I dreamt that it was the first day of school. When I showed up my principal promptly told me I was late and my students were in the Relo waiting for me. Since we all know how students might take to waiting, I busted my butt to get outside to my Relo only to find that the back field of my school where my relo is located was full of relos and cabins. There were close to hundreds and I had to race through them all to find my class. I spent the whole dream running around like a chicken with their head cut off.
Another example: I get to school the first day and am informed that my relo isn't done being finished so I can't use it that day. My class gets to spend the first day of school in the copy room trying to fit and appear normal.
I love back to school dreams!

2. This year I am going for it! I am starting the Daily 5 for my reading block. All over the blog world I keep hearing about Daily 5 this and Daily 5 that so I purchased the book last December and started reading. I loved what I read and tried a few things but decided it would do better to start the system at the beginning of the school year and go from there. I am so grateful for the many bloggers and pin-ers who are helping me set it up.

3. The last thing I am nervous about is something that I always get nervous about. I am scared of the students. It's always exciting to think about the new little people who will be such a huge part of my life for the next 9 months of my life. Oh but I love them!

Those are my worries, but I am so excited to get going. Summer has been wonderful but I'm ready to get on with my school life again.

If you enjoyed reading my thoughts please follow my blog so I can keep learning from amazing teachers in the blog world!

Mrs. W

My first Linky Party..How cute!

Amy over at Step into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemons is having an "About Me" linky party. I thought this would be a perfect first linky party to try because I'm still very new to the blogging world and what a way to introduce myself to everyone. So here goes.

link 

1. I am currently in grad school. I am going to WGU online (I am usually in my pjs) and am excited to get my master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction.

2. My favorite sport is lacrosse. My husband and I both played in high school and so we love to go to BYU Lacrosse games (men's and women's) in fact that was what we did for our first date.

This is a glamourous photo from my high school lacrosse days! 

 3. I love to travel! In college I was able to do a Study Abroad to Jerusalem, Jordan, and Egypt. It was so amazing! There was a definite culture shock when I first got there but boy was it amazing to see all those sites I'd only read about in school.

 4. While in Jerusalem I got kissed by a camel named "BMW" All their camels names were "BMW" or "Muhammad" PS Camels have nas-tastic breath!

5. I am of course a teacher (duh) this fall will mark my fourth year as a third grade teacher. 

6. There is a small scar on my tongue from where I bit through it when I was 2. Apparently I thought myself to be a master pianist, but I couldn't even stay seated long enough to play. 

7. I am married to the best man I know. We have been married 18 months, 3 days, and several hours. He's a dream boat if I do say so myself. 

8. There is not enough money in the world to get me to eat anything that comes from an ocean, or a large body of water. YUCK!!!

9. I am secretly hoping someone will read my silly blog and choose to follow my blogging adventures. 

Thank you for letting me brag without any guilty feelings attached. Hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little bit more. 

Adios Amigas! 

Class Shirts

My third grade team does a wonderful thing; we make class t-shirts to wear every Friday and anytime we leave the school. These are not only adorable but they help to build the classroom community.

As you can see these shirts are freakin' adorable, and so different every year. I plan to do this every year I teach and then make a tshirt quilt out of them. We get them from Whitney Daniels Designs. (click on her name to go to her website) and it is so easy. The students draw their face on a regular index card; first in pencil then after it gets the teacher approval they trace it in sharpie. Its a fun little lesson about how each of us is different and we have things that we like. Then you print off the order form from the website, select your color and order them. 

We have gotten so much parent support on these. Whitney's website has a parent order form all ready to print off to send home. We ask our parents to "donate"/pay for their child's shirt which is about $7. The kids love, LOVE them! We would wear them every Friday without fail. 

They are also so nice on Field Trip days because each 3rd grade class has their own shirt color so we can easily see all 4 classes lined up and its easy for the parent volunteers to keep track of their specific students. I would highly recommend making classroom shirts. 

Our Principal retired last year so we got our staff to make a t-shirt. They turned out so well I thought I'd include a picture of them as well. 

Here are my two latest shirts side by side. (Blogger was against letting me rotate the picture the correct way, so you'll have to lean your head to the side) This year I'm going to go with Stone Blue or the Daisy color. I love these shirts! 

Mr. Potato Head

I was at Disney World last June with my in-laws when we happened upon a store where you could build your own potato head. The deal was you got a small box and whatever Potato Head parts you could fit in the box you could buy for $20. I got excited but first I had to justify why a 24 year old w/o kids would spend $20 on Potato Head parts, then my little light bulb went off.

http://pinterest.com/pin/222013456600961959/

I remembered seeing this on Pinterest somewhere and decided that I wasn't buying the Potato Head for me, it was for the students. :) So I packed in all the Disney inspired Potato Head parts and am so excited to have something so fun motivate my students. 

Remember it was all bought for my students, NOT me, but I had to try out all the fun parts so here you go. 

Classroom theme

Staying up to date on a blog is a lot harder then I thought. I'd get online and look at everyone's blogs and then lose track of time. OOPS! This upcoming school year I really want to work on updating my blog and making it more public. Any advice would be wonderful since I am totally new at this.

I have a hard time with themes. I start off the year with all the ideas of having a theme and pulling everything together but by October my theme usually dies out. This year I have decided instead of a set theme I'll stick with a specific color theme and not worry about being cutsie with everything else.

My color theme is: pink, green and browns. I have been moved to a relocatable classroom (also known as a portable) which is very old, yucky and has tiny windows. Thus I decided against using blacks and have chosen colors that are bright and will add to light not take it away.

I previously bought pink and green book bins from reallygoodstuff.com and decided that I love those colors and would love to use them throughout my classroom.

www.reallygoodstuff.com

The other thing that I love and will probably have throughout my room is owls. I personally love owls, birds, birdcages, twigs etc. and I will probably be doing a lot with owls throughout but I don't want to commit myself to an "owl theme" just yet. I don't know as I'm writing this I'm rethinking my idea. Maybe it would be fun to do a whole theme with owls and not just colors. I don't know. Any advice? How are you consistent with your theme throughout the year?