LOVING Listening

In our school district, the students come in two groups, A.M. and P.M. However, it's not the typical A.M. and P.M. that you would think of, like in kindergarten. Instead, I have half the class come at 8:00, and the other half comes at 9:15. The students who came at 8 leave earlier at 2:15. The students who came at 9:15 stay until 3:30. This is just so that we get small group literacy time, which is uh-maze-ing. You just ease in and out of your day. I mean I'm here from 7:30 to 4:00…but who's counting?

During these small group times, we do our literacy centers. And believe me, even with only 13 kids centers can get wild. So what does a teacher do when she wants her class to quiet down? Create a listening center!

And I'm in LOVE. It's working. They're quiet. And busy. It's lovely.

I bought this little table at Ikea that took approximately 4.5 minutes to build. I bought the little rug so they can sit at/around it, also from Ikea. We only have three or four people per group, so command hooks are holding the headphones (on the side of my desk- talk about multipurpose!). The stereo is underneath, as well as the drawers holding the books, CDs, and response papers. It's the perfect little setup. 

I taught the kiddos how to use the stereo and how everything should look when they are finished, and they have yet to disappoint! I'm a proud mama/teacher. But sometimes they really do call me mom so…

Below are pictures of the center, as well as the response paper that we are using. Thank goodness for Pinterest and TPT, right?

Click HERE for this response sheet

Calendar Art

So I'm the new girl in school this year (obviously), and the teachers here have Christmas presents already in place for the parents (which thank goodness)! We do art for each month of the year,  resulting in a calendar for mom and dad! It's probably the most thoughtful school Christmas present I've ever heard of if I'm being honest, and I didn't have to come up with it! *Double win* 

The downside to this is we have twelve months to complete….and we're on number four. And it's November. So, as I've been telling the munchkins, "It's do or die time!"

Seriously, multiple times today. I think we maybe even yelled it. 

So here are the months that we have completed- or are in progress. We are going to have January snowflakes done by the time this week is over, or so help me. Just help me.

May flowers

July fireworks

November turkeys (in progress)

December Santas

Woah.

How does my kidney table keep going from this…..

To THIS?!

I blame Halloween.

And maybe the early out day yesterday with a mixed in specialty, which meant that even though it's early out day and I have my kids for an hour less, they randomly had P.E. for 45 minutes. Which meant we got about 20% of anything done yesterday.

But we definitely succeeded at making every possible table or countertop look like this.

Anchor Chart Madness

I told you I'm addicted. 

I used to feel so bad that my classroom didn't have cute posters all over it. But the teacher store ones weren't cute enough, and the ones that were over the top adorable on Pinterest needed to be printed in color and we can only print in black and white. Talk about a bummer. 

So I started making anchor charts. And never stopped. And let me tell you, these other teachers are jealous of my anchor charts. They come admire my work while I go, "Oh, no, it's nothing…I just threw it together". (Usually that's actually true for lack of planning, but that's another story…..)

So here you have it. Anchor charts. In between kids forgetting underwear, hitting each other, and giggling through what are supposed to be educational videos. Just a day in the life around here. We're just trying to get through the day.


Also, this isn't quite an anchor chart, but it did turn out pretty cute. It's amazing what some butcher paper can do for ya. Eventually it will get laminated, but I'm always to anxious to get it up to wait.