Classroom Tour 2013!

I've had this post as a draft for a long time! (Since last week!!) I figured it was time to just put it out there so that the world could see my classroom all organized and spiffy! I guess I felt bad just posting only photos, but I figure that you enjoy looking at them anyways. There's a fun video tour at the bottom, so keep that scrolling finger moving!

2012 word wall compared to 2013 word wall!

Cubbies, filing cabinet, and teacher work area! Love the openness of it.

Student supply area

Bookshelf organized by genre, theme, or author

My spiffy new bookshelf that I assembled all by myself!

View of the classroom listening station, tables, and other lovely things

Decently organized cabinet!!

Covered up my ugly shelf with pretty fabric.

Here's a quick video tour of my classroom in case you want to see a panorama!


2013-07-24 15.17.40 from Sarah Adams on Vimeo.

Hope that you enjoyed my tour. Leave me a comment letting me know what you think. When do you go back into your classroom to get it ready to roll?

I start back to inservice tomorrow...Pray that I can get up early enough!

Confessions!

When I saw #kinderblog13's most recent blogging challenge, I was not sure what to say. I don't feel like I have anything big to confess! After thinking for some time, I realized that I would post about things that I really love and don't share all that often. Here goes!

1. Blog designing!
I am now working alongside Erika and Misty at Honey Bunch Blog Design creating custom made blog templates AND premades! If you want to see some of my work, click this link or the image below. Blog designing has always been something I enjoyed doing for fun, and now I get to do it all the time!

2. Skype
I love Skype. I use it every single day, and don't know what I would do without it!

3. My journal
Last year, I started writing in my 5 year journal. It has one page for every day of the year with 5 sections in that day to write in. Every day, you write the year at the top of a blank section and write 3-4 sentences of what you did that day. It's really fun to go back and see all the cool things I did last year at this time.

4. Acer V5 Touch
I bought this laptop just a few weeks ago and cannot believe how much fun it is to use! It has a touch screen and Windows 8. I love the touch screen because I can flip through the open applications quickly and also click things faster than I did with a mouse. Fantastic little laptop!

5. Target and Dollar Tree
They have wonderful stuff there. Affordable enough for a private school teacher who doesn't make a fortune.

My last confession is that my inservice starts on July 31st...and I haven't even gone back into my classroom yet. The first day of school is August 9th!! Maintenance hasn't even cleaned our classrooms!! I'm getting a little desperate here. Scared and nervous that it won't come together in time!

Monday Made It! (and other news)

My wonderful followers, I did it! I Monday made it! 

I've never linked up to this fun party, but now I can actually show you something I made for my classroom. I'm going to go in and work some on my classroom this Wednesday, so I'll have at least one crafty thing to hang up in my room :)

I made these with my Silhouette Cameo! (My first ever project!!)
If you don't have a die-cutter, you need one. 

Like now.

I got the idea from Kim at For the Love of Kinder Garden.

She told me that one of the things she puts up every year is a collection of question words. I thought it was genius! SO, I created these. I will point at the words when I have the students ask questions. I want them to understand what the words LOOK like and not just how they sound.

Seeing the print is great for connecting the sounds to text. PHONICS! Labeling everything will help students grow their schema, so I figured that those words are super important to label. They use them on a day to day basis. (Especially "WHY??")

I also cut out these fantastic schedule cards from Barbie Roper's TPT page. They're too stinkin' precious! I think I love them!

I love the snack one! The kids are dressed as a Lettuce and Carrot! :)

I'm thinking about doing the Sterilite bins tutorial from Kinder-Craze. She's awesome, and totally inspires me. I got a 5-drawer bin last week at Walmart. I couldn't resist. It was calling to me. This last week I shopped till I dropped.

Here are some of the things I bought for my classroom!

Calendar kit with cute monkey number pieces from Lakeshore!
I RAIDED that store. Seriously.

Uppercase Letter magnets, a large stamp, color words
poster, and a Magna-Doodle!

A 6 foot tall palm tree for my wall. I may just end up
using the trunk!

2 sets of border and one PURPLE pointer! Oh my goodness!

I love shopping with gift cards!

In other bloggy news, I will be posting my technology tutorials on WEDNESDAYS from now on. I'm sorry I skipped last week. I had a lot going on, so please don't be too disappointed! I will post up this week's tutorial on Wednesday. You're going to LOVE it. You may already know the tool, but maybe it will help refresh your memory!

Name idea: Web Tools Wednesday?

Do you have a better name idea for my series of video tutorials on web 2.0 tools for teachers? Comment below! If you haven't seen one of the posts, you can find them here. I made a little handy link for you to click and take you to all of them! :) You can also look in the Tech Tutorials tabby page at the top of my blog.

Thanks for reading!

Make sure you click the follow button on the sidebar OR follow by Facebook! I'd love for you to stay a while and see what other goodness I have planned for this blog.

Thank you to 4th Grade Frolics for hosting this linky party. I love getting all those wonderful ideas for my classroom! It's such fun!

Oh, and please leave a comment! I love comments! It's similar to the feeling of opening Christmas gifts early. I will take the time to reply to each one of you, too! :)

Currently...JULY??

Oh my goodness, It's JULY!

I can't believe it.

This year is going too quickly...

And I'm getting really nervous about teaching in August.

 I mean, I can't WAIT to meet my littles, but it will be MY classroom.

It'll be my responsibility to teach the sweet children how to read and love it.

Does that ever scare you?

I know there's a lot of you veteran teachers out there who have taught 10-20 years.

Give me some advice! I'd love to hear some wisdom from you!

This is the first time I'll have linked up with





and I'm loving the idea of a Currently post!
I hope you enjoy it!
Here it is:

If you haven't caught my video tutorial, here's the video!

You can also watch my past tutorials by clicking the page link at the top under the header.

I put it there just for you!

Take care!

Here, There, and Everywhere

This blog post may be a little bit random, but I thought I'd join up with April at Wolfelicious and post a couple of my favorite e-card memes. I know, I know, I do linky parties so often that you're probably sick of them.

I'm putting a poll in the sidebar for the next internet tool that I will feature, so VOTE ON THAT while you're here so that you learn some new tips for integrating technology into your classroom!

Here goes:

SO true. I love those two. Especially as a teacher, I feel like those fit the best.

I want to give away some freebies soon, but I'm not sure what people need or want! Especially since I'm not even sure what I personally need for my classroom.

What types of freebies do you find that you download the most?

In case you missed it, I made a fun Web 2.0 tool tutorial for Beeclip (which is absolutely F-R-E-E to use!) Please watch my video and let me know what you think! I'm going to start doing free web tool review every week if possible, so I'd love suggestions for that endeavor.

I want to mention is that I am only TWO Facebook page likes from THIRTY! Oh my goodness! It's blowing my mind that I'll have 30 Facebook fans and 20 followers on here.

 Thank you SO SO much for taking the time to read my posts! You are amazing, and your constant comments and likes give me warm fuzzies inside. I hope that soon I'll be able to put something together to give back to you in return.

My Question of the Day (QOTD):: Should I pursue a Master's degree? I'm thinking of going for Curriculum & Instruction with a focus in Technology. Thoughts?

Changes!

Excitement is in the air! Along with some bitter sweetness as well. I will be finishing student teaching in the first week of May, and then graduating in the same week. I will miss my sweet fourth graders, and I will miss all my dear friends I have made. It has been such an amazing experience and I wouldn't change it if I could.

Here comes the scary part. I will be a teacher in AUGUST.

With my own kindergarten classroom.

With 15-20 little ones running around calling ME their teacher.

I will possibly be their first teacher ever in "big kid school."

That scares me a bit, but I am THRILLED to death that I got the job and have this fantastic opportunity.

I can't wait to tell them all about letters and numbers and animals and reading and everything. I'm especially excited that I will be at a Christian school where I can teach these sweet littles about Jesus and the Bible. Seriously cool.

It's all coming to a close here at college, and I am going to have to tell my 4th graders that my last day is a week from today. I don't think they realize how soon I'm leaving. Poor babies. 

I hope you enjoy this adventure with me. I will be posting free worksheets sometimes, pictures of my new classroom setup, and just my summer adventures being a nanny. I would LOVE if you would send some words of encouragement and advice for my first year teaching! 

I will be a KINDERGARTEN TEACHER! Oh my! :)