Classroom Reveal 2015-2016

New city, new school, new grade level, new class! So much new-ness (yes, that's made up) starts on MONDAY when all 21 fourth graders walk through my classroom door. I'm so excited, it *almost* feels like Christmas Eve around here :) Here is what my kiddos will see when the come to school everyday this year. I present to you, my classroom!

*I have linked most of the products to their websites, so click on the words if you are interested!*

Our school is a private catholic school that has been around since 1885. I am the only 4th grade teacher, and I have 21 students. 

The hallway/entrance

Welcome banner, border, subway art poster from Hope King

The back of the room:

Behavior chart, rules poster

 Back wall

The Word Wall was made from cork boards from Hobby Lobby! I used the online 40% off coupon and went 3 different days to get a board. I stuck them together on the wall and covered them with paper, border, and letters. I plan on using it for math vocabulary!

 Pencils, lunch bucket, tissues/hand sanitizer, news board for announcements, pre-cut letters

 Reading and Math centers: I have 4 reading centers and 8 math centers. The reading centers are changed weekly and the math centers are changed every 2 weeks. Centers are completed Monday-Thursday, and Friday is used for assessments/Free Choice Friday. The blue pocket chart is for reading centers and the red is for math (still being assembled). Each student does one center a day.

*Be Sweet, Earn a Treat: whole class behavior reward system.

 Bookshelf with extra school supplies

 Jobs board and 1,000 chart

Special reading chairs: I have had these since I was in elementary school..crazy!! I got the rug on clearance from At Home

The side walls:

I have a whole wall of huge windows and shelving! :) Books will be on display when we study themes.

Math manipulative baskets, hooks for backpacks, reading library. Some hooks have bags on them because those students did not make it to Open House to get their little gifts. 

 Fiction books are labeled by AR reading level. Nonfiction books are labeled by subject. Series books are labeled together.

The front of the room:

My desk area, calendar

 English/Language Arts focus board for objectives, standards, anchor charts, genre posters.....etc. Pre-cut letters from Mardel, burlap banner from Hobby Lobby

Math focus board

 Y'all, these carpet squares beside my desk...amazing and FREE!! When I got my first teaching job, I had nothing for my classroom...it was so pitiful. I asked a local carpet store to donate discarded carpet squares for my classroom, and they filled my little Camry with FREE carpet squares! Now that I have a rug, my students use them for center work on the floor. They are a hit!

Small group table, cursive alphabet, laptop stand.

LOVE these subway art quotes from Hope King! 

Student desks:

They are HUGE! Sadly, I couldn't fit 21 desks in groups and still have room to walk around comfortably, so they are in semi-groupings. They bottom part offers great storage for books, spirals, workbooks, and folders. The top smaller part is for supplies/personal books.

My organization:

Copies for the week with labeled binder clips/materials

Daily take home folders (red basket for red folders, of course!)

I can't wait to start filling up the walls and halls with my students' work and our anchor charts throughout the year! Fourth grade will be a new journey for me, and I'm so grateful for how the Lord has worked in my life to get me here. 

Here we go!

Christmas in July {SALE} - Christmas Products

Today is the last day of the Christmas in July sale in my TPT Store. What better way to wrap it up than 20% off all Christmas products?? These are some of my favorites in my store and my classroom.

I wanted to focus on Christmas Writing Prompts because these are my favorite! These writing prompts are super fun and full of holiday spirit. There are how-to prompts, fictional writing, and responding to questions prompts - a variety of options!

Also, I put December Morning Work back on sale since it is, after all, full of Christmas spirit as well as academic content! Also check out Snowy Subject-Verb Agreement for some wintery grammar practice.

Thanks for being so great during this sale!

Christmas in July {SALE} Part 2 & Win-it Wednesday!

We are smack dab in the middle of my favorite week in the summer - Christmas in July sales!! Thanks to everybody who has been checking the blog and my TPT store for my morning work sale. Let's keep the party going, shall we?? :) (Stay tuned to the end for a chance to win a product!!)

Wednesday and Thursday are devoted to various reading resources I have used and plan to use in the classroom!

SO fun for a 2nd grade classroom!

This year, I am making the transition from 2nd grade to 4th grade! So far, I have made centers and charts for the first unit in our school's reading program, Treasures 2011 series. They are listed individually and in this money saving bundle in my TPT store!

Head on over to Cecil Classroom Creations for these reading resources and more on sale NOW! 

And don't forget to come back on Friday for the last part of Christmas in July.

Now, for the giveaway!! If you missed the morning work sale Monday and Tuesday, you can win the August-December Bundle by entering the contest below! The contest will close by 12 AM Thursday, so go ahead and enter for your chance to win! A winner will be announced on Thursday :)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Christmas in July {SALE} - Morning Work

It's the first part of my Christmas in July Sale event!

Aren't those precious first moments in the classroom crucial?! And if your classroom is anything like mine, those moments are filled with attendance, parents, notes, checking folders, about a thousand questions or stories from the kiddos, and getting the day started! How is one person supposed to handle of that??

It got overwhelming for me, so I turned to these morning work packs to help me keep my sanity!

Each sheet has 7 problems that match Common Core standards. August Morning Work focuses more on easy review/1st grade skills to ease those summer brains back into school mode. :) These pages do not have page numbers, so you can put them in any order you choose! 

I printed one page for each school day of that month, and I copied them two-sided. Each child had a "Morning Work Folder" to hold the hole-punched pages.  After unpacking backpacks, the kids would grab breakfast (our school had a grant) and start the next page in their folder. I would check the page before we started our day. I checked them because 1) it held the students accountable for completing the work and 2) it showed me which students needed more support or what skills we needed to review later in the day. 

I have bundled the 1st semester morning work packs for BIG savings! AND it's on sale during my Christmas in July Sale event! Just click on the image to take you there :)

Be sure to come back for the other two parts of the sale. Happy shopping!

Christmas in July {SALE}!

I'm back!

It's been a crazy few months around here because....
1) My husband matched into a pediatric residency in Little Rock, Arkansas!
2) We moved from Alabama to Arkansas.
3) I had to leave my 2nd grade position :(
4) I got a new job in 4th grade! :)
5) We bought a house!

See? I told you ---> craziness!

Now that we have a functioning house (it's beautiful!), hubs has started his new job (he finally gets paid!), and I have a few weeks until school starts (eek!), I can get back into the blogging world!

Since I won't have 2nd grade sweeties anymore, I changed my blog/TPT name to a more generic elementary name - Cecil Classroom Creations! And to celebrate all of these new and exciting changes, I'm throwing a sale! {{Not just any sale, but a "Christmas in July" sale!}}

There will be 3 different sales this week. Come back to the blog for each sale to see what the products for sale are and how I use them in my classroom.

The wonderful people of Blog Hoppin' are throwing a Christmas in July sale, so be sure to go check it out! 

March Madness: Sweetie Style

March was an exciting month for us! We had our big field trip, Spring came (and so did spring break!!), and we flew through a lot of material! Here's a recap of our madness:

1) Pronouns
We continued practicing our 5 week study on pronouns. Miss Priscilla Pronoun from Step Into Second Grade came to visit our class and help us remember how to identify pronouns.

I also found these beauties for whole group language lessons. We used them to identify pronouns in sentences. They are magnetic AND dry-erasable, so they are perfect for anything! I got these from a local education store, but you can order them from Learning Resources here.

2) Fractions
I hate that we only have 2 weeks to go over fractions because there is so much you can do when introducing them! We didn't have time to do a lot of the stuff I wanted to do with it, but we squeezed in as much as we could.

We started with Blair Turner's Interactive Notebook with some flapbooks to define fraction vocabulary.

We also used Fraction Friends and Fraction cookies from Amy Lemons' Fraction Fanatic unit. These activities were done in partners to save time and paper! Plus, creativity is more fun with 2 second grade brains :)

Amy's fraction unit also has a fraction hunt which my class LOVED! Cards were posted all over the room. The kids put their recording sheet on a clipboard and had to write the fraction for each card on their recording sheet. They followed directions perfectly and were really motivated to find all the cards and write the fractions correctly. I need to be doing more scavenger hunts like this because it got them up and moving and learning.

3) Chattanooga, TN Field Trip
Our school's 2nd grade does a BIG field trip every year to Chattanooga, TN, which I had the pleasure of coordinating this year. We left the school at 5:45 a.m. on a charter bus with 55 kids and 35 chaperones. We went to the Tennessee Aquarium, ate lunch at the Chattanooga Choo Choo, saw Ruby Falls, and explored Rock City. Then, each kid got their own $5 bill to spend at McDonald's on the way home. We finally got back to the school at 8:30 p.m. WHEW! A full day! We had lots of fun and no major incidents which makes this field trip coordinator happy. :)

4) Food Fight Parent Night
Last year, our faculty tried a new kind of PTA night called "Food Fight". This parent night was divided into 2 parts. Part 1 consisted of a free dinner of pizza, which is the "Food" part. The "Fight" part was Part 2, when the parents and kids go to the classrooms and have a friendly math competition. We had a sheet of problems that would be common in our 2nd grade classrooms and had all math tools needed available. It wasn't who could solve the problems faster, but who could explain their thinking the most explicitly, which is always harder for the parents to do because they aren't exposed to that kind of math instruction every day. The kids loooooove proving their answers to their parents and showing off their knowledge :)

5) The Very Hungry Caterpillar
I whipped up this little mini unit during one of our many weather days while parking myself on the couch :) We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and focused on life cycles while using reading skills and standards. This unit has comprehension questions, vocabulary quiz and cards, sequencing cards and writing pages, ABC order, and more. Not to mention we learned a little about caterpillars and butterflies along the way. It was such a great way to welcome Spring!

Here is a preview of the mini-unit. Click here or on the picture to view it on TPT!

Lately, we have been doing a study on fairy tales, which I hope to get up here soon! Our school started testing this week, so we've been on a small lockdown in our classrooms the past couple of days. We will survive!