Getting Ready for a New Year and a Freebie!

So this year I am starting at a new school..... in a new district ..... in a new state! I am excited about this new adventure but it has been a long time since I was the "newbie".  It will take me a while to find my fit so right now I am just focusing on trying to get my boxes unpacked and room set up so I can spend preplanning absorbing the changes this new year will present to me.

Not only is my new room smaller than what I am use to but I will be having more students that I have had in the past and it's yellow! So . . . time to rethink my classroom setup and decor. I have decided to go with a colorful patterned look - I'm loving Creative Teaching Press's Dots on Turquoise Collection.  Here are some of the products I'm using:

Trimmers from Creative Teaching Press:

Word Wall Letters also from Creative Teaching Press:

And to match, this Job Chart from the same collection:

Ok, now for my newest project and a freebie! My alphabet line was looking pretty dingy after 7 years unliminated, so I decided it was time to look into purchasing a new one. The only problem was that I couldn't find one that I thought looked nice but also had pictures to relate to each letter's sound.  I like to go through each letter every day saying the name of the letter, its sound, and a word that matches. Unfortunately alphabet lines that had pictures of x-rays on X and owls on O, just wasn't going to work for me.  After hours of looking for one that would work for me, I decided just to make one. You can nab your own FREE and editable copy here at my TPT store!

Once I'm all set up, I will post new classroom tour pictures. Guess that's it for now. Happy "New" Year!

Tears and Cheers

Well we've done it - We have finished another year. This one was extremely close to my heart as it was my last year at Apollo Beach. My husband and I have decided to relocate back home to Ohio and I will be leaving the school I've been teaching at for 6 years! It's bittersweet, as I am so excited to start this new adventure but hate to leave the students, parents, and staff I have grown so close to. Here is how I closed out the year:

Throughout the week we worked on our end of the year memory books. I used pages from Lisa Frase's. Find it here for free! 

I also allowed the students to take over as teacher's for the day! Each student was given 20 minutes to teach small groups a lesson of the choice. I don't remember where I got this idea, so if it was from you, please message me so I can give you credit for it. Click here to get the documents to do it in your class!


Monday: Reading Camp out. Students brought in tents, flashlights, books, sleeping bags, stuffed animals, and dressed in pajamas. We camped out around the room and read our favorite books.

Tuesday: Minute to Win It - thanks to the ideas of over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits, I was able to set this activity up pretty quickly. We also had snowcones and a dance party out on the courts as a reward from admin for us winning the National School of Character title.

Wednesday: Board Game Day - Students brought in board games to play during "down time"

Thursday: Water Day and End of the Party and Awards:  We have stations set up around the campus for students to make a "splash." Stations included : bubbles, snowcones, chalk, sponge races, shaving cream fight, sponge volleyball, water balloon toss, and kiddy pool bottle cap hunt.

After students dried off, we had our end of the year party and I distributed the candy awards, also found at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits.

Friday was our last day, we watched a movie and had popcorn, as I distributed report cards, portfolios, and end of the year gifts. For the students: I got each a book, a bookmark with a poem on it, slideshow of our year together, and a candy that says Owl miss you.

Social Studies Fair

This week was our Social Studies Fair at school.  My team divided standards up to display at the fair. My class displayed - Benchmark #:SS.1.A.3.2 Create a timeline based on the student's life or school events, using primary sources. So we created our own timelines! They came out so cute. Each student brought in 5 - 7 pictures, they ordered them sequentially, and then wrote descriptions to match.  Here are how some turned out: 

Teacher Appreciation Week

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week and boy did I feel the love! My students and parents showered me with goodies, gifts, and straight up pampering.

Here's how my week went:

Monday - Administration provided us all with Panera lunch and my students let me know how "sweet" the are on me with a bucket of my favorite sweets, Starbucks' gift cards, and a tag that said "Mrs. Keene is so sweet!"

Tuesday - PTA sponsored a delicious breakfast of pancakes, bagels, fruits, and pastries and my students showed me that "Mrs. Keene deserves to be pampered" with a basket of lotions, spa supplies, nail polishes, and a gift certificate for a pedicure. 

Wednesday - We had a "beachy lunch" catered by our PTA and my students made me a literacy basket because "Mrs. Keene is keene on reading!"

Thursday - PTA turned our media center into a Spa and I got my eyebrows waxed and received a 20 minute massage! Plus K-Kids filled our lounge with goodies galore! My basket today was "Mrs. Keene we can supply you school needs" and was filled with school supplies.

Friday - PTA turned the media center into an island oasis smoothie bar, gave us special cups, and invited us to order custom smoothies.  My kids made sure I was entertained with a basket filled with gift cards to restaurants, the movies, and popcorn. 

All in all I had an incredible week! I can't believe how amazing my school is and how much they spoil me! I hope all the other teacher's out there felt the love too! 

Keep a Poem in Your Pocket

What a great way to end April! Today my students held our 6th annual Keep a Poem in Your Pocket Poetry Day!

All through April we study poetry in Writers Workshop. Students write poems using the crafts of  rhymes, repetition, alliteration, and onomatopoeia. We used poetry all year during Shared Reading to help learn phonics and increase fluency. Today was the culmination of all the students work.

First students started as a group reading - It's Poetry Time By:  Lee Bennett Hopkins

"It’s poem o’clock.

Time for a rhyme—

     tick-tock

     ding-dong

     bing-bong

     or

     chime.

Poems are

     wistful

     wish-filled

     sublime—

Come.

Unlock a minute

for

poetry time."

Then students explained the purpose behind using poetry in the classroom and explained that this why we believe you should always keep a poem in your pocket. At which point students read, Keep A Poem in Your Pocket By:  Beatrice  Schenk de Regniers

"Keep a poem in your pocket
and a picture in your head
and you'll never feel lonely
at night when you're in bed

The little poem will sing to you
the little picture bring to you
a dozen dreams to dance to you
at night when you're in bed

So-
keep a picture in your pocket
and a poem in your head
annd you'll never feel lonely
at night when you're in bed."

Finally, students "mingled" around the classroom reading the poems in their pockets to parents and administration. The poems in their pockets were a mixture of poems they wrote and those we read throughout the year during Shared. 

Along with the "mingling" students' BioPoems with self portraits and I Wish Poems were displayed for students to read.

BioPeoms:

 I wish poems:

Blogging Take 2

So . . . this is take 2 on "Keene on Education".  I started it once before and got so frustrated that I ended up shutting down and in my haste, I accidently deleted everything!  Well I've let some time pass and calmed down, and with the encouragement of my sister (visit her blog: weekly wanderlust) , I've decided to give it another go.

It will be a work in progress and I'm still not totally sure how I will utilize it, but I know it will focus around my work in Education. So check it out periodically, hopefully I get some good stuff up here soon.

Christmas Celebration

Before our Christmas party, we were working on letter writing in Writer's Workshop. Each student wrote a note to Santa and they were so excited to receive a response all the way from the North Pole from Santa!  Each notes was personalizes based on what the students' wrote along with some special information that there is no way Mrs. Keene could know (unless she talked to mom and dad. <insert smiley>.)

After we opened our letters from Santa we enjoyed some treats and then had our Christmas Book Exchange. Each student brought a wrapped book (under $5) for our book exchange:

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!