The Wizard of Oz

Another Monday Made It?!

August 11, 2014 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 4 Comments

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m on a roll! I am so excited about today’s Monday Made It because I’ve got THREE!

Last week I shared with you my new take on the clip-chart — Clippin’ for Character.

I made a basket this week to store student clips for the chart, reward bracelets {that are new and freshly added to this pack!}, and hold my beloved Toto. I did my best to make my own take on Dorothy’s basket from Oz!

Students will keep their clips on the basket until they are recognized for exhibiting one of our six character traits. They will then remove their clip, place it on the chart, and take a bracelet of the trait they exhibited. This is a SUPER quick, specific way to praise kids without any cost involved! While I made the bracelets in color and blackline, I’m going to use the blackline and let my kiddos color their bracelets before wearing them.

Aren’t these clips the cutest? They’re sturdier than normal clips, and best of all, I didn’t have to decorate them myself! I bought them at Michaels for $3.99, less a 25% coupon!

All of the bracelets use the same wording and graphics as the clip-chart, which keeps everything cohesive and memorable for students.

A few examples of the bracelets outside of the basket.

My second Monday Made It is new storage for my brag tags! Most of these are from my Oz pack, though the bottom row is from the Clippin’ for Character pack. {Again, using the same graphics to keep it consistent!}

My last Monday Made It was on a total whim; I saw this faux-leather “P” and had to have it for my desk! Then I was hot-gluing ribbon to the basket above and thought, you know, this would look cool on that letter! Then I attempted to mimic my favorite KG font — can you guess which one?

Currently … only a week late!

August 6, 2013 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 2 Comments

Better late than never, right? I’m linking up with Farley for Currently, one of my favorite linky parties! I love the insight it gives you into the goings-on in our (not so) little blogging community.

LISTENING: I’m up late as we’re preparing to drive back home to VA from Long Island early tomorrow, er, this morning — I can’t ever sleep right before a road trip! I’m the only one awake right now and I’m loving hearing nothing but those little sounds that let you know the house is alive.

LOVING: Catfish is totally my guiltiest pleasure. I will watch re-runs even though they’re spoiled; there’s something about this show that just hooks me in (see what I did there?) every time! Anyone watching the new season?

THINKING: I feel like my to-do list just keeps growing and growing and I’m starting to feel overwhelmed! I’m one of those “I have to do it all!” people, but I’m trying to reign it in this year. Not being pregnant will help… though there is that pesky newborn nursing every two hours…

WANTING: I totally only got my Note II earlier this year, but I already want the Note III! This is by far the best phone I’ve ever had! I love using my Bloglovin’ app and sketching ideas for lessons and what-not with my stylus.

NEEDING: One thing I’m definitely in need of is more portable-storage for my classroom so I can create more well-defined areas for my students to work. I’m planning on hitting up Big Lots, Walmart, Target, and Goodwill (you never know!) when we get back home.

B2S MUST HAVES:

I really regret not taking more pictures of my first class ever last year, so I’m planning on using That’s So Second Grade’s “Snapshots of Our Year” Classroom Timeline to create a designated spot for me to fill with classroom memories. I’m going to encourage my students to use our classroom iPad cameras, too!
I always love planner-shopping. You’d think I’d have an Erin Condren planner by now with my level of planner-obsession, but I actually like a planner without many bells & whistles. I found one I loved at Walmart that actually has Wizard of Oz-like poppies on it!
I use both the school laminator and my own personal laminators. Yes, I have two. One for my classroom at school (you know, for when I have to laminate something that very second) and one for home. I found generic laminating sheets that I love and work really well on Amazon (these, if you’re interested) and can buy a box of 100 for under $10 (monitor the price!).

Later this week I’m meeting for lunch with my new teammates (I’m the only one left from last year!) and may even head into my classroom for a “before” picture. I’ve got lots on my to-do list that I’ll be checking off, and I hope to share some of my plans for this year for beefing up my calendar time/math meeting.

Before I leave, congrats to Lauren from The Sweetest Thing, Karen from Flamingo Fabulous in Second Grade, and Nikki from Teaching in Progress — you guys won my Oz-Inspired Brag Tags (though thank-you to everyone that responded with a tip — I loved reading them)! And congrats to both Crystal from Ms. Jones’ Junction and Angela from Hippo Hooray for Second Grade — you guys won the pre-order of my Marvelous Math Meeting! I’ll e-mail everyone there winnings as soon as I settle back in at home tomorrow.

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!

I did make it on Monday…

August 15, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 5 Comments

I’m almost two days late. But that’s okay. We’ll pretend that I indeed posted this Monday morning.

I fully intended to post a few more items on my TPT store during the Back to School sale, but that never happened. My to-do list ran away from me, my nearly three year old decided that he didn’t need to listen to Mommy anymore, and I got a little carried away. With this.

I started out with the plan to make my “pick me” bucket. I thought that since my kiddos are my “lollipop guild” and lollipops are featured on my student data binder I should do lollipops. So I made the labels, and started to affix them to my trusty popsicle sticks.

I had this nagging feeling. Come on. You know you want to go all out.

My car drove itself to AC Moore. My debit card purchased cellophane, cookie sticks, and ribbon. And then my hands, independent of my brain, made these:

Your eyes aren’t seeing things. Those are lollipop numbers wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon. Yes. I went there.

The metal pot is an antique, and unbreakable. It reminds me of something you might see in Dorothy’s house, which is why I chose it over a plastic pot from Walmart (which I might’ve hot-glued ribbon and a label to before I changed my mind). I’m on the fence about a label. What do you think?

As a mea-culpa for not posting anything new so you could enjoy 28% savings, I’ve uploaded the numbers in three sizes (4″, 3″, and 1.5″ diameter) to my TPT store. You can grab them by clicking on the image below — I hope you find them useful!

I’ll be back tomorrow night to share the first progress pictures of my classroom — I’m spending the whole day there tomorrow cleaning it out and arranging it (once or twice or five times) before I start decorating. Wish me luck… and not clumsiness!

Check!

July 26, 2012 by Sarah Plum(itallo) 17 Comments

Another project off my “to-do” list! I’m steadily making some progress, which is good, because I have less than a month to go!

I had pinned this a million years ago from Mel D. at Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations and kept coming back to it. As I would go on my “errands” and see things that would be perfect for a traditional treasure box in the Dollar Spot or bargain aisle, I kept trying to decide what I wanted to do in terms of rewards in my classroom.

During my student teaching, I tried both approaches. I used a treasure box in one placement, and rewards like these in the other. The kids responded the most positively to the rewards that, I felt, meant something. That’s not to say treasure boxes aren’t valuable or important if that’s what works for your classroom — I think it’s important to do what works for you and your students! These kiddos, however, really liked the additional classroom privileges and duties that they could earn.

I’ve been brainstorming for a few weeks now — off and on — what rewards I could possibly implement. I came up with 12 to start with, knowing that I’ll likely tweak them once I get to know my kiddos and what they value the most:

The reward I’m most excited about my students earning and redeeming is definitely the “be an expert” reward. I look forward to collaborating with students on a mini-lesson that they’ll teach to their peers… I definitely think that will be a big hit and something valued by all my kiddos!

This system is within my “Be Oz-Some” behavior plan, so of course I had to make a label to that effect! I’m planning on creating a quick log for me to check off what reward a student chooses, and then write when they redeem it — that way I have some data about what’s working and what isn’t.

I would love for you to head on over and pick these up for FREE in my TPT store if you think they would be useful in your classroom! Not every reward will fit your style or classroom system, but I hope that a few will — and of course, there’s two labels to choose from too. (When I create my reward log, I’ll post that as a Google Doc freebie as well.)