Lightbulb Moment!

Clipart: Wizard of Boz

Ever have one of those lightbulb moments?  Or maybe it's called, duh-why-didn't-I-think-of-that-before moments.  You decide.  Either way, I had one of those moments this week.

The Common Core stresses (reallly stresses) Non-Fiction reading.  Unfortunately, children's book publishers don't as much.  I really struggle to find non-fiction books that aren't too simple for my students but aren't too challenging either.

I realized that Scholastic News (as well as Weekly Reader) puts out a Non-Fiction "newspaper" for students every week!  Some weeks we read them as a class, some weeks we read it in partners and some weeks we don't get to the Scholastic News at all.  I thought, why not laminate them so that the students can keep them in their book bags?  Lightbulb Moment!  I laminated two of each volume so that the students can read them in partners, as well.

Scholastic News distributes different ones each year, so I can continue to build my non-fiction collection.

The Scholastic News bucket in my library (it needs a label!):

These are the small ones that are cut apart and made into books:

And these are the normal size Scholastic News:

The students will each have on in their book bag along with their fiction books! 

Happy Friday!

Book Bin Labels

Yesterday I blogged about my Guided Reading binder being my most prized possession.  Today I'm here to tell you about my favorite part of my classroom - my library!  Apparently reading is my favorite!  I arrange my library and rearrange it...and rearrange it...and rearrange it.  Well you get the picture.  I want it to be the best it can be for my kiddos!  I just want them to love reading, that's all! 

I have posted many pictures about my classroom library.  Here is one post.  I decided to make new labels for my book bins because only my non-fiction bins had pictures on the labels.  I often have students who are very low readers so I've decided to make ones that do have pictures.

I was also inspired by a post over at Classroom DIY.

Nicole from Teaching with Style uses plastic badge holders for her book bin labels.  That way she doesn't need to laminate them, but can switch them if she needs/wants to.  Genius!  So I created my new book basket labels to fit perfectly in the badge holders she suggested.  These are the badge holders from Amazon:

Here they are:

You can grab them in either of my stores.  It's on sale in my TpT store for tonight only!!

{TpT}

{TN}

Polka Dotted Freebies!!

I have a new obsession with polka dots. A major, crazy obsessive obsession. It's outta control. So I thought I would share with you! I downloaded these polka dot frames for free from Karen Cox on TpT and my classroom has been converted to full on polka dots! Okay, it's not that bad. But definitely go check out her product - they're awesome!

Here are some ways that I've started to use them in my classroom (and I've included some freebies from my TPT store!)

This is my "Where are We?" (click the link for your freebie!) poster that hangs on my classroom door. I have many, many students who are in and out of my classroom throughout the day. My line leader changes the 'where are we' circle to where we are at the moment. This way, if a student comes back and our class isn't in the room, they know where to find us.

Next, I made a new Book Nooks poster. Learn more about my Book Nooks here. My old one used clothespins and they were just too heavy. So I decided to make a....can you guess?...polka dotted one! This one is just wayyy more colorful too! I love it! Click here to get the freebie!

And, lastly, I made new book basket tags for my classroom. I'm so excited to have ones that all match. The tags are color-coded (i.e. leveled books are black, author baskets are orange, genre baskets are red, etc.). I chose to keep my non-fiction book labels (on the top shelf) because they had pictures on them, which I felt was helpful for some of my second graders. Here's a picture of my whole library and then a close-up.

Now, I just need matching baskets!

My Week in Review

Hmm...so what did I do this week?

Well, it started with me getting married! We had such a great day on Sunday, with all of our family and friends. It was supposed to rain, but it turned out that we didn't get a drop! So thankful that we were able to have our ceremony outside as planned (the rehearsal was inside due to a downpour). Here is a picture of our bridal party:

I took Monday and Tuesday off to spend time with my new hubby. We spent the two days in beautiful Newport. So awesome and relaxing! I'm still looking forward to our real honeymoon next summer.

However, I also missed my new kiddos so much! I'm happy to be back to school and to be able to completely focus on my class. Side note: I lost my girly-girl gene somewhere along the way and was getting realllyy sick of wedding planning!

When I got back, I started to introduce my students to our classroom Book Nooks. I got the idea from Beth Newingham's website. She has great ideas - go check her out! During Reader's Workshop, my students rotate through a variety of stations. Each day they visit a different station. They listen to books on the Ipod, tape player, CD player or computer. I also have special "reading spots" in the room, such as bean bag chairs, beach chairs, and pillows. Here is a picture of the rotation schedule right now (sorry for the horrible picture):

Each clothespin has one student's number on it. The classroom librarian rotates the clips every morning. I would upload the document to share, but I can't figure out google docs!! Every time I try to upload, my document comes out all funky and not the way I made it. Help!

Anyways...here are some classroom pictures of my Book Nook spots:

This is the listening center. It holds the CD player and the books on CD (green basket). It also has 2 tape players. The headphones are in the blue basket. The pink bin holds the Ipod and all the corresponding books.

Below is the shelf that holds all the books on tape. Each basket has a different book.

Two view of my classroom library (my favorite part of my room!). There are bean bag chairs, a black comfy chair and a pillow chair.

And, finally some of my classroom computers. These ones are actually kinda illegally in my room, but shhh. (I have 2 others in my room) The students listen to books at Storyline, a website that has celebrities reading books aloud. (Notice the math board in the background created by Clutter-Free Classroom!)

Ok, so this is a really long post so I won't go into everything else I did this week!

Happy Weekend :)

I linked up with Clutter-Free Classroom's Peek in my Planbook.