Checking In and Freebies :)

Well, in exactly one week from today, I have to "officially" start back to work. :( Unfortunately, I had to "unofficially" start back this week because my room literally looked like my cabinets had thrown up their entire contents! (Sorry I left my camera at school....will post some pics tomorrow). I have been a busy bee working these past two days and feel like I have made a little progress. Anyone that looked in my room wouldn't be able to tell, but I know. :) Today I finished organizing my library and started organizing my stations. I created some labels for each using clip art from JW Illustrations. She is just awesome! If you haven't already, you need to check out her site. Anyways, I thought that I would share my labels that I made. You can access them by clicking the links below. If  you have any trouble or would like some labels personalized for you (same layout/content with different and/or more wording), you can e-mail me at jadawtolbert@gmail.com and I would be happy to fix some up for you! All I did with mine was print them off on cardstock, laminate, and cut out! I will post pictures tomorrow of mine in my classroom. :) Hope you enjoy!

 Library Labels

 Literacy Station Labels

Masterpiece of the Day (rehab of an old rug!)

Two weeks from tomorrow I have to "officially" go back to work! OMG where has the summer gone??? I'll tell you where mine has gone...to wedding pics, moving, painting, and my daughter. So busy have I been and now I have to focus on my classroom. With that in mind, I went to school today to work and this is the major thing that I accomplished......I redid an old rug that a fellow teacher was throwing away! I knew that with teaching kiinders, I would need to larger rug to use and the last day of school I found a "beauty" in the hallway, destined for the trash. I couldn't bear the thought of that old rug being thrown away (really I am just too cheap to buy a new one!), so I adopted it. I cleaned it up a bit and today I painted blue and green polka dots on it! 24 to be exact :)

Here is the rug before: sorry for the poor quality, I had to use the camera on my phone :/

The white circles are paper plates that I laid out and traced around so that my dots would be in the correct spot.

Here is the rug after:

I am SUPER excited about my rug. I did the polka dots for two reasons:

1) I love polka dots!

2) I am going to use the two colors as management for rug time. Girls will sit on one color and boys will sit on another. Hopefully this way I won't have clusters of boys and girls sitting around the rug. Everyone will have a spot (pun intended) to sit on.

Anyways, so that is my masterpience of the day. Hope you enjoyed! LOL

P.S. I hope that everyone saw my post on TBA from Sunday. I was the Teacher Feature! If you missed it, click on the link to check it

out!

Northeast Alabama Early Childhood Conference, Shout-Out, and COUPON CODE

I had the BEST time at the NEAEC Conference today with Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies. I helped her present at the conference and I learned SO MUCH from just being there. Here are some pics that I took that I just had to share!

These are pictures that I took in some of the different classrooms throughout the school (Big Spring Lake Kindergarten School). They did an awesome job hosting the conference. The school had such a bright and inviting environment. I would love to teach in a school like that. :)

Kim Adsit from KinderGals was one of the presenters and she was AMAZING! Here are some of the graphic organizers that she brought for examples. I have to say that I am pretty inspired after hearing her speak.

For the shout-out......

Jennifer, thank you so much! You are such an inspiration and you have given me so many ideas for what I can do in my literacy stations and classroom. Thank you for all your help!

If you haven't already, you need to go check out Jennifer's blog First Grade Blue Skies. She is WONDERFUL.

Click on this link for a coupon code to Kohl's....just for reading my blog!

Skippy Time! Shop at Kohl's :)

Everyone have a Wonderful day!

P.S. I will be posting on TBA as the Featured Teacher this Sunday! Be sure to check it out!

Camera Dump, a few new things,a wonder, and a FREEBIE

Well, I finally remembered to grab my camera from school today. I realized once I got home that I still have some pictures on it from this past school year. Here they are:

Here we are flying our paper airplanes. They really got into making paper airplanes the last few days of school, so we had a competition to see whose plane flew the best.

Here are a few pics from our last Guided Art activity. I plan on trying to continue doing Guided Art with kindergarten, just a lot more basic.

 Don't you just love it when you get to put your stamp in a new book? Check out all the "new" books that I got the other day:

Love being thrifty!

And yes, I jumped on the Skippy John Jones band wagon at Kohls!

And, of course, since I have moved to kindergarten I had to get Pete the Cat!

One last picture....

my "Word Garden". I plan to put high frequency words and sight words on this board. You can find a copy of the high frequency word cards that I plan to use for FREE on my TPT store. Be aware that these high frequency cards go with Harcourt Storytown Kindergarten. :)

While I was working in my room today, I had a "wonder" that I was hoping to hear some feedback on from you guys.

How do you organize your bulletin board letters?

I have mine in a big accordion folder and it just doesn't seem to be working very well. I need a new way and I would love to hear what works for you!

 I hope to have more pictures of my classroom by the middle of next week. :)

Everyone have a great weekend!

**UPDATE**

Click HERE if you would like to purchase your own copies of Skippy! You can use this coupon code BLOGIT10 to receive 10% off your next purchase at Kohl's through August 23rd just for reading my blog. You can use it in addition to one other department specific code. :) Enjoy and happy shopping!

Input Needed.....BIG decision to make! :)

Okay Ladies (and gentlemen, I guess)! I have a BIG decison to make and I would like to hear y'all's input. :) I am getting ready to go back to school for my Master's Degree....the only problem is I am not exactly sure what I should get it in. I have my Bachelor's in Elementary Education. Should I get my Master's in the same thing or would it be more beneficial to me (now that I am teaching kindergarten and plan to stay with the lower grades) to get my Master's in Early Childhood? I am leaning more towards Early Childhood, but I'm not sure which would help me more. What are your thoughts? I would love to hear 'em! Thanks in advance for your help. :)

New Grade, New Look, Ready for a New Year! Kindergarten, here I come!

It is official! I am now a kindergarten teacher. :) I am so excited and a little nervous. I started working in my new classroom this week. Here is a "before" picture of my classroom:

Pretty much a blank slate, which is what I like! I will share an "after" picture once I get everything settled. Notice though that I have a........da ta da da...SMARTBoard! Yay! Now I just have to learn how to use it. LOL

In case you didn't notice, I also pimped my blog a little. I LOVE my new design and I hope you do too. Design Muse did an excellent job. Go check out her etsy shop when you have a chance. You can access it from here.

I hope to be posting pictures of some the things that I am doing in my classroom and some of the station activities. :) Be looking for some FREEBIES in the coming weeks. :)

Lastly,

ATTENTION KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS!

Since I am new to the kindergarten world (moving from 4th grade), I am a little overwhelmed. If any of you have any words of wisdom or tricks of the trade that you would be willing to share, I would GREATLY appreciate it! Thanks in advance. :)

Everyone have a wonderful "hump day" tomorrow!

Shout Out! and New Blogger Alert :)

I just wanted to give a quick shout out and thank you to my teacher/blogger friend Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies. She is AWESOME! This afternoon when I checked my email, I had one from her saying "stuff". She was cleaning out her classroom for end of the year cleaning (by the way I work with her!) and she was giving away a bunch of stuff and wanted to be sure that I had first pick! I am moving from 4th grade to kindergaten next year (ALMOST positive that it will happen) and am trying to stock pile some materials to use. She knew that and really helped me out. So...

Thanks Jennifer! You are the BEST! :)

I also wanted to give a shout out to another fellow teacher friend who is starting up her blog. She teaching 6th grade at my school and is another AWESOME teacher! Check her out when you get a chance:

Mrs. Franks at Enchanted Tales of Elementary School

Five more days with kids, Six school days until summer.....Can I get an amen?