Classroom Decor

The Top 3 Reasons I Don’t Need a Lightbox

July 6, 2016 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 15 Comments

If you have an Instagram account, Twitter account, or Facebook, you’ve seen it. THE lightbox. The “must-have” teacher accessory of the back-to-school season. If you’re anything like me, you might have been intrigued the first 36 times you saw it. You might have even scoped it out on an unrelated run to Michael’s or Jo-Ann’s. If you are me, you likely messaged with your teacher BFFs hoping they too would have the little voice in the back of their head saying – what in the world?!

Which leads me to…

#1. It is just one. more. thing. to manage.

I don’t know about you, but on more than one occasion my classroom calendar has been two months behind. Once it said December after Spring Break. If I’m being completely honest, there are times when my pile of papers to grade is taller than my three year-old. I would be the teacher that has “Welcome Back!” on my lightbox in February. Or I’d have the vocabulary words from three units ago displayed in lights during my formal observation. I know myself. This would be one more thing on an ever-growing list of things that I’d have to keep track of and well, I wouldn’t.

#2. It is just one. more. potential distraction.

Full-disclosure: my rising second-grader has autism. He is highly distractable. He is the kid that will ask you about the Cold War (no, really) in the middle of your read-aloud about Thanksgiving. He is the kid that will stare – incessantly – at your lightbox while you’re trying to direct his attention to everywhere (anywhere, please for the love of Ticonderoga, anywhere) else. Lightbox-related job? He’s all over it. In fact, he’ll probably obsess over it. My point is this: there are likely to be some kids – maybe even many – for whom the lightbox will be a complete distraction. Negative-value added. My kiddo is one of them. And I can think of several past kiddos in my own classroom for whom it would also be true. Which leads me to my third and final point…

#3. What does it have to do with student achievement, really?

Now I know you might be thinking – geez, Sarah, could you be anymore of a killjoy? Yeah, I probably could be. And I totally acknowledge that the above question sounds like I could write the “active monitoring” manual for any number of state tests. More and more, though, this is a question I’ve been asking myself when I’ve been making decisions about my classroom. Student achievement is absolutely not the only thing I care about – I care an awful lot about my kiddos as tiny people, too (I mean, I spend my free time making things to that effect). But the most important job I have is to make sure each of my kiddos can experience success. I’m just not sure how a lightbox does that, especially when I consider points #1 and #2 above. There are other ways for me to display quotes, vocabulary, or emojis. For me, the time I spend making accessories for or updating the lightbox could be better spent elsewhere… and the risk of distracting my most vulnerable students is too high of a cost to bear in my classroom.

My bottom line is…

None of this is to say YOU shouldn’t buy one. I’m all about the #doYOU spirit. But for my fellow fence-sitters out there – my friends that scroll past trends like this on Instagram and have not-a-cool teacher guilt (it’s a thing, people!) – you’re not alone. Whatever your reason for not buying a lightbox (or single-handedly clearing out the Dollar Spot), it’s okay. I’m with you.

Monday Made It, Teacher Tourism, and a Giveaway!

July 28, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 10 Comments

I’m linking up for the second week in a row (woohoo!) with Tara for Monday Made It! The past few days I’ve spent rather unplugged while my amazing and sweet cousin from California visits with me and my babies. It’s been SO nice to have this time with her and my boys, especially now that summer school is done. DONE. DONE! (Can you tell how excited I am?)

So — while I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on school-related things these past few days (and last week while I was tying up loose ends with summer school), I did manage to give my classroom alphabet a facelift and FINALLY bundle it as requested. It’s been a HUGE undertaking, but I’m really happy with the results.

I also made two things for my upcoming kiddos that I think are really important: a personal word dictionary and word wall. Why both? You might be asking that — and I have an answer! I use both with my kiddos because they need both. The word wall is for those high frequency words that we learn in whole and small group, words that they frequently need to spell correctly. We use our word dictionaries for those words that we do not use as frequently, but students still wish to spell correctly (and I’m so glad they want to!).

I’m planning on shrinking down several sets of my alphabet posters. {This is SUPER easy to do just from the print menu.} I plan on using them for a variety of tasks.

Some of my students will use the smaller (four to a sheet) cards for letter-recognition practice. They can play a “war” rapid-fire style game to help their letter-recognition become automatic.
Some of my students will use the smaller cards not for letter-recognition, but for word sprees! Their partner will show them a card and they will list all the words that they know the begin with that letter while their partner tallies the number of words they know. They’ll take turns and see who can list the most!
I’ll be printing the cards half-size to use as word wall headers on my cabinet, and yet another set of half-size posters to use at my small group table.
The blackline versions will be used as morning work the first week — students will decorate their own poster and it will be used in a “letter of the week” display where we’ll do whole-class word sprees, a vocabulary focus, etc.

In second grade we begin the year honing our print handwriting, and by the beginning of the 4th quarter we start the transition to cursive. I change our alphabet at the front of the room from print to print and cursive during the 3rd quarter so students are exposed to cursive before we begin to use it. I love having both displayed, as it really helps the students naturally incorporate more cursive into their daily writing.

This year I’ll be also using the cursive blacklines to help students practice their cursive — they’ll trace the laminated copies with whiteboard markers at our handwriting center.

I’ve posted all nine versions of the alphabet {primary print, cursive, and both in rainbow brights, rainbow chalkboard, or blackline} as well as three bundles — primary print, cursive, and print/cursive — on TpT. As always, they are discounted 50% for the first 24 hours, a total STEAL as each file includes a personal dictionary AND word wall for your students!

I’m also giving up copies on Facebook and Instagram, so head on over to enter to win your choice of bundle!

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite photos from the past few days. We traveled the short distance north to Washington, D.C. to spend the day there and take my cousin to all the places we went as kids. It was a BLAST and truly makes me feel blessed to have D.C. as my backyard.

Happy Monday! And good luck to those of you that are already back-to-school!

I’m allergic to dust.

July 15, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 3 Comments

It’s a good thing blogs can’t collect dust, because I’m allergic and this one would be covered. I think by now we’ve established that my time management skills outside of my classroom leave a little to be desired!

I was so busy this year fulfilling my many roles that every time I sat down to blog {or finish one of the nine million projects I have for TpT} I fell asleep. No joke — life with a newborn while commuting, teaching, being a team leader, and creating meant several times a week I’d fall asleep in my office!

Luckily it’s summer, and while I’m still teaching {first time doing summer school and I *puffy heart* love it!}, I’m getting back into the groove of being a better blogger!

If you follow me over on Instagram {if you don’t, you SHOULD! I do things like smell new scents of Mr. Sketch markers so you don’t have to!} you’ve probably seen a few of these, but if you haven’t, this was the 2013-2014 school year in a nutshell!

I started the year off with a new alphabet {soon to be in my store — see, yet another project I never posted!} and a still-color-filled room. I even managed to paint my focus wall Oz-green. I somehow did not take a picture. D’oh.

My little guys kept growing and I started missing them like crazy. TMI-alert: I also spent WAY too much time in my classroom bathroom pumping. I think I calculated I spent 90+ hours this school year doing that (not during my contract time).

I won the Red Ribbon Week door decorating contest and got my class a pizza party. And yes, I agree that drugs are despicable, unless they are in fact for a TERRIBLE kidney infection and kidney stones. Then they, and nearly a week off, are SO. TOTALLY. NECESSARY, y’all.

LOTS of math anchor charts were made, and my students came to learn the only way I can remember inequalities (pictured above, right). I don’t know why the alligator thing never worked for me, but it didn’t. Even as an adult if I don’t do the 2 point/1 point method I can’t figure out the inequality. #teacherfail? Maybe.

Christmas Break came and I had never been so thankful in my life. OMG, y’all. The weeks before Christmas were trying enough, but my room flooded with, um, septic materials *gag* and I lost my classroom rugs. *HUGE SADFACE HERE* Those two Christmas cuties and TONS of NY pastries (love our yearly trip to visit family in LI) was TOTALLLLLLY worth the wait and made up for that stinkin’ (literally) flood.

So another reason I never got my resources uploaded, like that “All About Me” book pictured, was because of that little dude. I mean, REALLY. Seriously people, look. at. that. face. Every moment I didn’t *have* to be doing something for school I was doing something with that guy and his older brother. Because really. Look at him!

Oh, did I not mention the Polar Vortex and the million snow days? Including the one on Valentine’s Day (when I received that BEAUTIFUL and totally appropriate mug)? Yeah. Our pacing guide this year was trashed a thousand times over because between the VORTEX. OF. DOOM. and snow. and ice. And more snow. And more ice. We were out of school a total of TWELVE days. TWELVE. Plus TONS of delays. This meant we reduced recess (UGH), added 10 minutes to the school day (DOUBLE UGH), and extended the school year (TRIPLE UGH). The days were nice while they were happening, but… never again. #seriouslynoway

Speaking of days off… Spring Break was spent at the beach, the first time in almost a decade. I live so close, but it’s cost prohibitive to go for a vacation. Because it was the off-season we got a GREAT deal. Love Ocean City. Love it so much. #alsogainedliketwentypounds

We learned about Famous Americans, I got to teach about my favorite person ever (well, one of them — Ms. Susan B.!), and yet again I failed to upload this to TpT. Do you sense a recurring theme? Soon. It’ll be there soon.

After Spring Break we buckled down, did LOTS of opinion writing and started one of my favorite (okay, who am I kidding, they’re all my favorite) social studies units — Native Americans! Pictured are even more things I never uploaded or shared. Go figure, y’all!

Oh, and there was that time when we went to a giant Easter party on the White House lawn. Because clearly, that’s just what you do when you are a teacher! (Our school system was granted some tickets thanks to the generous staff at the White House, and it was the BEST EXPERIENCE EVER. Yes, we waited in line for eons, but everything was well organized, we got healthy snacks, met a ton of William’s favorite characters, and I got to see Mrs. Obama’s garden and bee-hive, which was totally my student’s favorite when I reported back the next morning!)

Behold, the best part of the year. LIFE CYCLE time, y’all! Again, an even larger plethora of things I didn’t upload! But seriously — nothing brings me joy like the discovery and investigation in this unit. This year we saved some of our science/grade level money to purchase monarchs and I might’ve totally jumped up and down when they were delivered (flown overnight from Florida). My kids were OBSESSED, and um, so was I. I look forward to this next year already — I’m thinking more monarchs this time and maybe some black swallowtails, too!

We closed out the year with LOTS of place value practice in math and Ancient Civilizations (oh look, look at that… more un-uploaded units!). The kids were GLUED to learning everything they could about Egypt and China, especially mummies. We totally geeked out and might’ve co-opted our entire language arts blocks to anything related to the two civilizations. Um, that’s cross-curricular learning, right? 😉

Since school let out I’ve been spending some quality time with these dudes, teaching summer school (I know, I know — I just don’t know how to quit working!), and updating my yearly teacher planner. That should be done by the end of the week, and then it’s on to uploading the other nine million things I created this year but never had time to package!

That, ladies and gents, is how to fit an entire year into one blog post.

I’ve got mad skills!

Overwhelmed — but only a little!

August 23, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 5 Comments

I admit it. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

Not necessarily in a bad way… just in an overwhelmed kind of overwhelmed way. (I’m also really excited, fulfilled, and happy, so it is balanced out!)

After spending the first two days of the week in my room (and making some decent progress), I’ve spent the last two days in training and my brain is a bit fried. It is a lot of information to take in all at once, especially as my brain is already preoccupied with the “I’m never going to finish my room!” and “I really have a class?!” jitters.

So I do have a small request: the biggest piece to me feeling overwhelmed right now is the practical parts of the first few days of school — establishing procedures and routines. If you could be so kind as to leave one piece of advice to that end, I would very much appreciate it, and will share it with my friends that are also embarking on their first first day of school!

I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of my word wall, which my husband graciously helped me put up. I’m so excited to get some “starter” words up there, and to put my mobile word wall on the shelving below it!

Excuse the bad photo — the alarm was about to be put on and we were rushing out!

I will be back this weekend with several freebies and a new TPT product (hopefully… if I can keep my eyes open) that I’ve been meaning to upload for two weeks!

Why didn’t anyone warn me?!

August 18, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 2 Comments

Seriously — why did none of you warn me that I was going to need to stock up on ibuprofen and a heating pad for the nights after setting up my room?! Shame on you! 😛 My whole body hurts!

Mr. Plum and I have spent the last three days in our rooms — for a few hours each day — staring at the walls. Er, decorating them. It’s been slow going because, I swear, there’s some sort of space-time continuum in our rooms that makes time go on warp speed and our productivity plummet.

So far I’ve managed to:

arrange the room + desks
put up the fabric + borders for my three bulletin boards
begin the process of going through materials + arrange them

I also got my roster and — drumroll please! — I’ll be the teacher of 8 oz-some girls and 13 oz-some boys this school year! It was a surreal moment to read their names and realize that, yes, this is my class.

In other (super amazing exciting) news, I totally won a ticket to the Back to School Virtual Teaching Expo! I am *so* excited about this, because goodness knows I can use all of the information and help I can get starting off my first year. I won a giveaway from the amazing Melanie of Schoolgirl Style, but you can get your own ticket for $10 (and in the process, donate two tickets, too!).

I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of how Dorothy has influenced my front bulletin board… I haven’t decided yet whether this is going to be my Daily 5 board, or my “What do GREAT readers do?” bulletin board. I’m leaning toward the latter, since this is right next to my classroom library (which I have to tackle on Monday, eek!).

It looks much better in person.
And I’m sure it’d look better if I weren’t using a camera phone two seconds before they set the alarm!

A close-up of the (ugh, crooked) fabric and trim!