Schedules & Organization

Sarah over at Kindergarten Korner was asking about schedules and my mind immediately started racing. I have to go back to a kindergarten schedule rather than a 1st grade schedule! My little ones won't have as much stamina to start with as my firsties did! Ack! Then I took a deep breath and remembered that I am extremely lucky and I am only mandated to have 1 hour of direct math instruction and 1 1/2 hours of language arts instruction. That's it. Everything else is up to me!

So, I thought I'd share very quickly what my day looks like, at least for the first semester:
Schedule

Not bad, eh?  I totally love the freedom of being able to have free choice centers at the end of the day. This is also one of the things that I never take away, even for really bad behavior. I honestly think it's the most important part of our day as it gives my kids the opportunity to actually internalize our lessons. I usually walk around from center to center with a notebook and jot down quick anecdotal records so I can back up the learning taking place in case anyone asks. I also take tons of pictures! In each center the students voluntarily and independently incorporate either math, science or language arts into their "play". The conversations are usually phenomenal as they use math concepts in the building block area, read to their baby dolls in housekeeping, paint letters at the easel, or explore our science center materials.

As for rest time - it depends on the class. Some classes don't need rest time at all, others need extra time and some are content with 15 minutes with their heads down. I get a lot of children from homes where regular bedtimes are not enforced and they simply can't function in the afternoon without some type of break. That's also why I put my math block in the morning when they're fresher! Usually by 2nd semester we can slowly eliminate rest time and I  use that time for extra writing or reading.Oh! I also incorporate my Social Studies and Science into my Math and Language Arts - didn't want you to think I just skip them :P

Now onto Organization Day....hmm totally lost track of the days! I know I'm supposed to keep organizing until the 14th, but I'm honestly losing steam. I'm hoping I can hang in there and get all the boxes in the garage organized, but I'm not going to bet on it. Today I organized my computer closet a little bit - some things still need a better home, but at least everything is together in one place now so I'm not searching through the 5 cardboard boxes I used to have in there!

 I bought this organizer in the fishing section at Walmart. I love that you can adjust the compartment sizes!

 My BragTags are ready for the new school year!

 My pony beads are organized by color.

 And I'm starting to organize all my googly eyes as I find them (thanks to Maria from Kinder Craze for the idea!) I am storing some hot glue sticks in the long compartment because it's easier to adhere the eyes that way and sometimes I can't find my glue sticks when I need them lol!

So, not too shabby in the organizing department, but there's still a mini mountain waiting for me!

~ ~Squirrel ~ ~

hehe, when we took this picture with Dog at California Adventure my husband yelled "Squirrel!" and darned if Dog didn't run around looking for one. I wonder how many times a day the poor guy hears that one?

Anyways, for those who might be interested, here's what my breakfast looked like this morning:

2 over easy eggs with bacon and cherries on the side! My 12 year old is getting tons of cooking practice and I am getting spoiled this summer! I don't know what I'm going to do come school time when I go back to just a cup of coffee for breakfast.

Also, have to brag on my husband a little as he finished the plaque he was making for his commander's going away party:

Now he's going to start making my "Where the Wild Things Are" cut outs! Each one will be about 4 feet tall!

~ ~Squirrel ~ ~

In other news....Zulily is having a fabulous sale on all things Seuss until Monday! Check out some of the neat things I found:

They also had a ton of baby items in case anyone is doing a Dr. Seuss nursery! 

Organization Day 3 (Freebies)

I had some requests for the theme labels from yesterday so I went ahead and made them into a pdf that you can get here for free! If there are any other themes you want let me know and I'll see what I can come up with! In case you missed it, here's what they look like:

Today's organizational task was putting the labels on the boxes and starting to put everything into the boxes.
I am going to try to keep my beginning of the year themes upstairs in my computer room closet for easy access. This means I'll have to rotate boxes at some point in the year, but that's what husbands are for, right?

I also played with spray paint today! There are two things I like about spray paint -1) they card you when you buy it at Walmart which always makes me giggle. And 2) it's super easy so even I can't mess it up! I sprayed my clothespins and then organized them because this year I was constantly searching for my different colored pins. I used the 7 tier behavior chart and every time a student ends the day on the top color they got a sticker on their clothespin. After 5 stickers they got a new pin in a different color. I underestimated my kiddos last year - they worked for those pins lol. Last year I started with a plain wooden pin, then they earned a bronze, then a silver and then a gold. I meant for the gold to be the last clip and didn't think many would get it, but I had some that even went beyond so in the 3rd Quarter I was frantically buying more clothespins and trying to figure out what could top gold! Thus I added more colors this year. Oh and I'm changing the stickers to hearts or stars drawn on the clip with a Sharpie because the stickers were forever falling off and getting lost.

Here are my clips for the year:

 After a plain clip they earn their green clip.

 Then they earn a blue clip.

 Next is purple

 Then bronze.

 Silver.

 And finally gold!

I decided to change up my clip chart to match my "Where the Wild Things Are" theme, so look for that in the next day or two. I ordered mine from Vistaprint last year when they were having all the specials, so that's what I'll hopefully do again this year. I got the small banner size and that fits 3 clip charts so I just cut apart the charts and gave the extras to my neighbor teachers. This year since 3 of us are doing the "Wild Things" theme it works out perfectly!

Freebies & Oraganization Day 2

Kleinspiration has a great link going with tons of bloggers linking to freebies on their blogs! Head on over to check it out! For my freebies, just click here to go to all the freebies I've ever posted on my blog - isn't it nice having them all in one spot? Make sure to follow my TPT store too as that's where I put all my freebies now! Now onto Day 2 of Organization Mode:

Today I woke up and did not want to organize at all! Luckily my sweet daughter who has culinary aspirations made me an awesome omelet and my sweet son made me a huge mug of coffee. After we ate breakfast and cleaned up a little I sat down to organize. I had to think long and hard about this one. How do I need to organize my materials - what will be the most effective way? Since I have limited space and part of it is indoors and part of it in the garage, what am I going to put in which location? What am I taking back to school with me and what am I going to leave at home? As you can imagine, answering these questions took a bit of time - I did a ton of blog surfing while I thought :)

Here's what I came up with:
Since I teach by themes, I'm going to organize my boxes accordingly rather than by month or skill. For example: generally I teach Apples in the Fall sometime and thus all of my apple stuff has beginning of the year skills. Some months I use one theme for the whole month, other themes are just a week or two long. It really depends on a) how much stuff I can find on that theme and b) how much I enjoy the theme. I've taught themes I didn't like in the past and it wasn't a fun experience for anyone, so now I skip over themes I don't like - gotta leave something for other teachers to cover, right? So, here's my theme list, arranged somewhat in chronological order:

So, that's about 24 themes which means I need 24 storage containers - some larger than others! What I put in my containers is varied - generally there are classroom decorations for each theme - cut outs, window clings, a tablecloth for housekeeping, maybe a stuffed animal or two, all of the math/literacy stuff that corresponds to that theme, any special t-shirts or apparel items that I wear exclusively during that theme, and any art items that solely relate to the theme, including templates and samples. My books I have organized ala this idea:

(click the picture to be taken to the post about it which links to the book dividers freebie)

So now I don't have to worry about fitting theme books into each theme box - which saves me a ton of space in each container! So today what I decided to do was to create a label for each theme, so I can see at a glance what is in each box. Some may call this procrastination, but I promise I will start the real organizing soon! I used 3 1/3" x 4" Avery labels which come 6 to a page. Large enough to see easily, but small enough to be economical when printing.
It took me forever to make them because it's in Word and I've grown used to the ease of using Power point instead. Still, they came out rather cute I think :) If you'd like a set, let me know and I'll see about making them into a PDF, right now I'm headed to bed - I think tomorrow will be our first pool day of the summer :)

Edited: Click here to download the labels for free in my TPT store :)

Organizing Day 1

I thought about taking Before and After pictures, but honestly, you don't want to see my mess. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worthy of Hoarders or anything, but it's still not something I'm proud of. My Dutch mother is probably rolling in her grave about the state of my closets/garage! She was one of those "so clean you could eat off the floor" type of people while I'm more of a "I've got a full-time job and 4 kids, I'll get around to cleaning that some other time!" person. Of course she was a stay-at-home mom even when all of her kids were school aged, so it had to have been easier to keep a clean, organized house. Not to mention she didn't have a mini Mount Rushmore of teaching supplies to clean and organize!


Alright, enough about my mother. On to my day at Walmart - I say day because I ended up going to two Walmarts. The nearest Target is 1 1/2 away, so don't judge me for going to Walmart instead :P

I started off at the regular Walmart, spent an hour wandering aisles and then decided that the "fancy" Walmart might have a better selection so I headed there. Does your town have a "fancy" and a "trashy" Walmart?  Ours are seriously totally different - one is clean and has more selection while the other is dirty and has more "clearance" merchandise.
Unfortunately I live closer to the trashy one, so I stopped there first, but didn't have much luck. So then I headed across town and went to the nicer Walmart. Once there I spent at least an hour - most of that in the container aisle, trying to find lids to match the various containers, or trying to find containers to match lids. Seriously, there were a ton of lids that just didn't fit on any of the containers. I debated colors and sizes and types and stood there in a dither because I had no clue how many to buy and the sizes I needed. In the end I went with four 58qt blue containers. I already have some that are about that size, although in a myriad of different colors, so hopefully I can fit everything.

I also bought this baby which only took me 20 minutes to put together and is super cute! I think I'll put it by my desk and use 5 of the drawers to hold Monday-Friday work and the other 5 drawers to hold forms and Literacy 1st  and Title I files.

So that's where I stand - Day 1 and no organizing done, just containers bought lol! Oh! My Happy Nappers came in - Best Buy had a deal on them a couple weeks ago and I ordered 6 just because I couldn't pass up the price - I figured they might become reading buddies or something in my classroom. I didn't count on my family loving them so much though! You would have thought it was Christmas when I opened the box! My husband claimed the unicorn to bring to work for when he takes a power nap at lunchtime. He has a thing with unicorns, so it was no surprise that he wanted that one. My 4 children claimed the monkey, dog, dragon and penguin though which leaves me with the ladybug which is perfect because I collect ladybugs! Here's a pic of my kids with their new pets:

Yes I know my youngest looks crazy in this pic - but trying to take a picture where all 4 kids are a) looking at the camera, b) smiling and c) not putting  up bunny ears takes a small miracle. By the way, do you like the boys' summer haircuts? Daddy buzzed them all last night. It's topping 95 degrees here already so they needed the cooler hairdos!