Apples & Farm Freebie

Fall is here and that means some of our favorite units!! We had apple week last week! SO fun!

Here are a few pictures of some things we did! 

We labeled and cut open an apple to learn it's parts! 

Everyone brought an apple and we made a pie graph to show what colors we brought!

We used this with Julie Lee's Apple Investigation which you can get for here on her TPT!!

This week we are doing lots of farm fun! I'm working on a unit and will get it posted ASAP! But in the mean time enjoy the freebie color word practice!  I'm writing these on sentence strips for a pocket chart center this week. And would you please follow our blog and leave a comment if you download the freebie. We'd love to meet more teacher friends! Enjoy!

Magic Triad

Our school has implemented Great Expectations school wide. If you don't know about Great Expectations read about it here :) The Magic Triad is one of the big components or practices.

The Magic Triad represents a caring environment. It builds a climate of mutual respect. {These are their words not ours, but we totally agree!} The parts of the triad are a smile, kind words and soft touches. We spent a day on each part of the triad and did a little activity with each. When we were finished I put all of it together to make our classroom triad and each student is represented. 

We also made a chart to help us remember what kind words sounded like and what soft touches looked like. 

The kids made Popsicle stick triads to take home and share with their families. If you teach older ones you could have them write words on them. 

We made a few activity sheets to help your kids think more about the triad. There are several to choose from-some with writing components and some without. You can choose what works best for the needs of your kiddos. Just click the picture to download :)

And a little thank you to Great Expectations. It's wonderful being in a school with building wide implementation. If you don't know about Great Expectations or want to do some more reading on it, visit their website! It's a wealth of information!

Classroom Tours

This is just a few shots of Amber's classroom!

The door, WELCOME!

The back cabinets, the only storage I have!

Cubbies, books, and a little banner :)

I don't really love the way my books are displayed {they're in tubs labeled by theme} but I think they look messy up there.

I haven't really found another solution for them yet though. Ideas?! Anyway, here is the other half of the banner.

This is my character board and the 8 Expectations. We use Great Expectations and our school is a Model School. It's kind of a big deal. If you want more info visit their website!

I have 9 jobs but one of them requires two people so I have 10 helpers. If you want to purchase our helpers with cute chevron backgrounds visit our TPT store!

This is my word wall. It is not complete. Ribbon will hang from each letter and the words will attach to the ribbon!

Stinkin cords! Why are they always in the most inconvenient places?!

Shapes and colors!

SMARTboard, Calendar and my main teaching area!

Alphabet and Numbers above the SMARTboard, these are also available on TPT.

Our grade level does a hallway theme that keeps things looking consistent and like a team! This year we chose superheros. I tied in the chevron from the classroom with their display boards and stars for their names. Erin's looks about the same as mine. We'll keep this up all year and change out the work displayed, it makes hallways displays SO much easier and less time consuming!

Any my mom made me some cute capes to hang in the hallway to stick with the theme!

Here are a few pictures of Erin's room. She's on maternity leave so she just left everything from last year to make it easy peasy!

Shapes & Colors

Her calendar wall! 

Character board :)

Alright that's all for now! It's the weekend, time for a little relaxation with my boys!

Meet the Teacher Monday

Okay well it's Tuesday! Sorry we just can't keep up! We had Meet the Teacher at our school tonight so I thought I'd share a little about us!

1. We teach across the hall from each other. This is our first year to teach together! But I (Amber) am super excited about it!

2. Erin is the older sister and Amber is younger. We're 12 months and 13 days apart :)

{our siblings included because apparently we need to take more pictures together}

3. Erin is starting her 7th year of teaching and Amber her 6th!

4. We teach in the same town we graduated high school from.

5. We love crafts! Erin is super good at the crafty stuff! She mad this cute kitchen for a friend!

6. Between us we have 3 kids three and under-Hudson, Hayden & Harper. 

{And no the H thing wasn't planned}

7. We're addicted to sweet tea and Chick fil A!

8. We have lots of favorite TV shows but some are anything HGTV, Big Brother, and Duck Dynasty!

9. We love photography and taking pictures!

10. We do have a lot of differences too, but just chose to stick with the similarities!

Maybe tomorrow we will get the classroom tours posted on Blog Hoppin'! Sorry we're living a day behind, but isn't that typical August?! At least Erin has an excuse {a two week old}. Amber, well she's just behind!

Student Info & Safety

Let's talk about safety! It's super important to have contact info for families if you were on a field trip or outside of the classroom for an emergency. Do you have a way to contact their parents if you were outside the school and needed to? It's especially important for our little K kiddos who don't always know their phone number or address!

{photo courtesy of Google shopping}

At our school we have a cinch backpack like this with our school logo on it that hangs by our door. We take these on fire drills, field trips, or use in any emergency situation (which we pray we never have to use it for that reason). Inside we keep a first aide kit and several other necessities. But most importantly we have student info so it's with us at all times. This year we updated that document a little bit so we thought we'd pass it on! We copied it onto bright yellow paper and handed it out to our K littles on Friday! They will bring it back filled out and we will have them in our pack and ready to go. 

Of course you could always put it on a ring and keep it for access to parent contact information near your desk too! 

Feel free to download and share {just click the picture}! We'd love if you'd follow the blog after you download!

How do you organize student information? Especially to have it prepared for an emergency or field trip, etc. 

*Notebook Freebie*

Can you believe August is here and before we know it there will be little ones in that messy classroom? I mean yours might not be messy, but MINE is!

For those of you who haven't heard the Kinder Sisters will be teaching across the hall from each other!! How fun is that?! We're so excited and we've been creating like crazy to get the year started right. But there is still lots of work to be done in the new room!

SO how do you like to stay organized? Notebooks, buckets, file folders? What helps you the most?

I love to have notebooks so I can easily keep files nice and neat and know exactly where to find documents all most of the time. So we created this little freebie to help us and YOU stay organized!

And in return for the little freebie we'd love if you would follow our blog! We're just getting started, but there is lots more fun to come! Promise ;)

Just click the picture of your choice to get to the freebie! Enjoy!

And best wishes on a new year!

Chevron Classroom

Chevron is all the rage these days! And I cannot get enough!

I also love that it's not totally a "theme" and so I can add what "theme" to it.

Can't wait to show you what we've chosen to go alongside this chevron for our classrooms.

Have I mentioned that we're teaching across the hall from each other?! How cool is that? Be expecting to hear a lot more from us!

This set is so bright and colorful and fun! I've got most of it printed and can't wait to get it hung!

Off to create more for our TPT site!

Click the first picture to get there!