A New Idea!

I'm sure you all, like me, start the school year with new ideas that you can't wait to try out. Some of those ideas work out and others don't. Here is one of my ideas that I'm planning on trying this year: 

My idea started with begging my dad to cut my extra spiral notebooks in half. Luckily he agreed and they turned out perfectly! 

This year we have Chromebooks for every student and I am very excited about it! I plan on using these notebooks as a response log to NewsELA. Each day the students will have to read and respond to one NewsELA article. 

The students will respond to the articles by filling out a reader's notebook response page created by Michael Friermood. 

The completed response log will be glued into the spiral notebook. I plan on having a share time every Friday where students can talk about the articles they read throughout the week. I am thinking I will collect and grade these notebooks each Friday. 

Look What I Got!

Now that I finally have my room back together, I am ready to start planning and making copies! Today I wanted to share some of the awesome products that I purchased during the TpT back to school sale! 

I can't wait to start using these products! What products did you buy during the sale that you are excited to use?

Excuse me while I vent.......

Please don't feel like you actually have to read this post...I really just want to complain for a minute.

I went into school for the first time yesterday. Even though school starts Friday, yesterday was the first day I was able to be in my classroom due to construction. I got into my classroom to see that all of the furniture had been stacked up and moved into a corner of the room! This is what my room looked like after I had moved furniture for an hour.....as you can see it's still nowhere close to being finished!

Clearly I have been spoiled in the past because having to move heavy bookcases and filing cabinets in a room that did not have AC running was horrible!!! I did finally manage to get all of the desks down only to realize they had not been cleaned and were filthy! Needless to say I spent most of the day cleaning.  After an almost full 8 hour day at school, the room is almost put together. 

I feel like I should mention that I may have spent the first couple hours going around and catching up with coworkers :) Does anyone else find that their first day back to the classroom is usually spent catching up with coworkers and just looking around your classroom at all that needs to be done and then you don't actually get much done? Hopefully this isn't just me! 

I'm headed back to school today and I'm hoping to be able to share more progress tomorrow! How are your rooms looking?

Monday Made It!

Hello! Remember me? I've been missing for a while, but that's because I got married this summer! My focus for the summer has been all about the wedding and honeymoon. Now that summer is almost over, I'm realizing I really got nothing else done. So this week I've been busy working on my to do list! Today I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It linky to share one of the house projects I finished.

A few months ago I bought this old dresser at a garage sale and I finally got around to refinishing it. I used a gray chalk paint, and I love how it turned out! What do you think?

Before

After

What projects are you trying to get finished before school starts back up?

The Magician's Elephant

My students just finished our latest novel, The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. 

Here is the description that is found on the back of the book:

"When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square of the city of Baltese, orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the questions that he needs to ask: Does his sister still live? And if so, how can he find her?

The fortuneteller’s mysterious answer (An elephant! An elephant will lead him there!) sets off a chain of events so remarkable, so impossible, that Peter can hardly dare to believe it.

But it is―all of it―true."

I was excited to see that Renee Smalley had a novel study to go along with The Magician's Elephant. She creates the best novel studies!

The end of the book project that goes along with this novel is a story cube. My students had a lot of fun creating these. Below are some pictures of the final products. 

And now to pick out our next novel!

Stitch Fix #18

As you all know, I am obsessed with Stitch Fix! I'm here today to share with you what I got in my Fix #18!
I was so excited when I saw that my stylist was Sheri again. My fiance just happened to be there when I opened up my box, and I made him read the personalized note that Sheri had written me because I was so excited that she mentioned that she had read my blog! My fiance totally burst my bubble when he said, 

"You know that Sheri isn't real right? It's probably just a computer that writes this stuff."

Well, I don't believe that for one second. Sheri has to be real and if we were to meet we would totally be BFFs!

Ok, onto the good stuff.......

I still haven't decided what I'm going to keep. After trying it all on, I really want to keep it all! Decisions, Decisions!

I'm curious if any of you Stitch Fix lovers have received a pair of shoes? I am in need of some new shoes to wear to school and am thinking about requesting a pair in my next Fix. 

If you have been wanting to try Stitch Fix out, I would love it if you used my referral link :)

Stitch Fix

Flash Freebie! Literature Term Word Wall Cards!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I am stuck at home with a cold and sore throat, so I decided I might as well finish up a product that I have been working on. 

Literature Term Word Wall Cards

This product will be free for the next hour! Click on the picture above to head to my TpT store to download. If you download it, I would appreciate it if you left me feedback :)