TX Teacher Mama

Well, I should have known! It has been over a month since I have blogged. Somehow every year I allow myself to forget how crazy August & September can be. They are crazy in a good way, but crazy nonetheless. August was full of a week of PD (mostly upper elementary writing and science), two weeks of inservice on campus, and then there was that crazy Hurricane Harvey the weekend before school finally started on August 29th. I have a long list of things I want to share with you, but perhaps most important is a classroom tour. Below I have included some pictures of my room with any explanations necessary. Please enjoy and feel free to ask any questions! This is the view of my door. You will notice the balls and the chairs. This is simply the easiest place for me to store the balls when not in use because they roll all over the room. Those desks are a work place where students may choose to work but they double as a table for me to leave out hand outs, etc. The chairs are availa

A few years ago, I was introduced to Kahoot during a staff training. If you have never used it before, it's a free website where you can make different quizzes and games that your class or group of teachers can interact with on their laptops, iPads, or phones. Since learning about it, I have used it with second graders to create end of unit, group review quizzes. This summer though, I have been thinking about what a fun tool it would be at the beginning of the year. My disclaimer is this: I haven't actually tried  any of these ideas, because they are just that, ideas. So here they are and if you take any of them and run with them please  let me know how it goes for you! 1. Two Truths and a Lie Have all of your students write down two true facts and one "alternative fact" about him or herself on the first day of school. After school or on your planning plug them all into a Kahoot quiz. Have your students guess the "lies" by taking the quiz in gro

I am always looking for new back to school read alouds. In the past I have read Chrysanthemum , A Bad Case of Stripes , and Pout Pout Fish Goes to School , among others. This year especially I have been looking because I am about to have a "new" batch of kids, many of whom I taught two years ago in 2nd grade. Honestly, I have probably been too worried about this for too long until I found the book Teal  by Renee Galvin. This book is about a beautiful, confident teal crayon. He knows his worth and is generally a happy guy until it comes time to clean up. As all of the crayons go back to their labeled boxes, he feels alone. He's not quite blue and not quite green so he doesn't know where he belongs. After much thought and hard work, he finds a solution to bring all of his crayon friends together! I absolutely love this book for a number of reasons: 1. It's so relatable. After all,  everyone  has felt left out at one point in their life, even if they ge

I am so excited because I can finally get into my new (well new to me, but very  old in terms of years) classroom tomorrow. I may be unique in this way, but today feels like Christmas Eve. That's the nerdy teacher in me! It's no secret that I have been back to school shopping literally all  summer but that's for two reasons: 1. I love being a teacher and creating the best possible classroom for my kids and 2. my son loves shopping! I know, I know, you read #2 and you are thinking, "she's just saying that as an excuse to shop." But no, it's completely true! If my child sees a shopping card he literally lurches out of my arms and is happy as a clam the entire time we are in stores. So on those 100+ degree afternoons when he is throwing tantrums at home you betcha I load him up and run to literally any store to save our sanity. Last week we took a quick trip to 5 Below (because I had already been to Target too many times to count last week) and we found

This is a reality check. I think every August (in this case, July) I end up giving myself the same reality check. I am thrilled, excited and frankly overwhelmed about the year ahead. My brain is running a thousand miles a minute about routines, procedures, lessons, and classroom arrangement. I stay up late at night thinking about morning meetings and flexible seating. Visions of anchor charts, read alouds, and writing lessons run through my head. My list of things to talk to my team about is a page long. My classroom to-do list is another page. The number of new ideas I want to add to my teaching practice is too many to count on one hand. Honestly, it's too many to count on two. And the crazy thing is I HAVEN'T EVEN GONE TO PD YET . And I am teaching a new grade level. So yeah, this is my reality check that it's not going to all happen. It just can't. Yes, that Ron Clark book I read was full of teaching brilliance, but I can't do it all . Yes, my

How is it possible that we are a week away from August? Despite my excitement for the new school year, a new classroom, another chance to teach an awesome group of kids (that I had 2 years ago in 2nd grade), I am still experiencing that end of summer shock! One of my favorite ways of dealing with this shock is a nice, quiet afternoon stroll around Target with a Dr. Pepper in hand. I decided to hit the store yesterday after realizing that it had been an entire week  since I had last been to Target! I managed to find some awesome classroom ideas and I snagged a few things for myself too. 1. Motivational signs I snagged all five of these signs this month because they were honestly too cute to resist. The smaller ones are a dollar and the bigger one is 3. I figured they could give a bright pop of color and some motivation to my students (and me!) throughout the day! 2. Thank You Notes I am always writing my students thank you notes and I do my best to get the