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!

We Speak for the Trees!

Amber here! I know it's been forever! This week we learned about "going green" in celebration of Earth Day...errr week?! We celebrated learned all week!

I had to share these stinkin' drawings because they are SO darn cute.

We watched The Lorax and talked about what he did to protect the planet. 

Then we did a directed drawing from You Tube. Seriously don't know how I stumbled upon this video, but it was great! The kids loved it! They wanted to watch it again and again!

And I love the way they turned out. They're great! Next time I think we'll add some Truffulla trees in the background.

And we did a LOT of this unit from The First Grade Parade! I LOVED it!

What are you teaching next week? We are learning about our home, OklaHOMEa! Unit coming soon!

An Apple for the Teacher

Ok, I apologize for our LONG absence!

I found out about this since our last post and so I’ve been a little distracted. As for my sister, I have no excuses for her, she’s just busy!

But we’re back and ready to post away! So here is a little idea I came up with for Meet the Teacher & Parent Night!

I always try to have out a wish list at parent events because they always want to know how they can help! (I am fortunate to be at a school where parents are overly generous and that’s a blessing). When I inherited got to my classroom there were bags and bags of these apples and I just wasn’t sure what to do with them besides hang them on a Christmas tree (since they are ornaments and all).

So it occurred to me that I should put my Christmas tree to use for a parent wish list! I just used small labels (60 to a sheet) and typed out things we could use for our classroom that are not on our supply list. I let parents take the apples from the tree and because I have a billion several dozen of them I didn’t care if they send them home, broke them, etc.

I just added a little note at the top to explain, plugged in the tree and the wish list was complete! It’s super easy and I just moved it to my closet after Parent Night and will bring it back out at conferences.

Does anyone else have a cute way they display their wish list?