Classroom decorations to brighten your room...

I thought I would share a few fun ideas that have helped me brighten up my classroom.

These cute little creations make my boring black computers come to life! They were super easy to create,  I used scrap pieces of bulletin board boarders and construction paper to make the eyes and mouths.  My students love them and have even come up with names for them each year!

Here is my chalkboard, where I write my objectives our learning.  I don't like chalk so when a friend showed me liquid chalk, I was sold!  It is colorful and BRIGHT and stays bright until you clean it off.  You can clean it off with a magic square, baby wipes or a wet papertowel.

After I got permission from my principal, I decided to paint a few walls in my classroom last summer!  Here is a picture of how it looked before I painted.  Boring!!! 

I found the paint on sale at Walmart! It took me one day and two coats of bright blue paint and it was totally worth it!!

Here is the finished product!  I added some clouds using white fleece fabric stapled to the wall.  My friend gave me a cool idea to put some stuffing under the fleece so the clouds are actully puffing out from the walls.  It looks really cool in person!   The palm tree was created using an old carpet tube (donated from Home Depot), brown paperbags, an umbrella frame and some green fleece. Pinterest and SkitGuys have some good instructions on how to make your own palm tree!

This is awesome window is in my friend's classroom.  She decided to paint a window on her wall to brighten her classroom! What a great idea!!

 Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed peeking into my classroom! 

Giveaway Link Up!

Hi, I am very excited to be linking  up with Marcy from Saddle Up for Second Grade.  She is offering her first GIVEAWAY to celebrate having 100 followers!  She has put together 4 different giveaway opportunities for grades K-5 with 45 products by different TPT sellers!  Head on over for a chance to win!  

My Kindness Unit is being given away in group 3!  This Kindness Unit great for teaching and promoting kindness in your classroom!  I know in my classroom, this time of year I start to see some not so nice behavior.  This is a wonderful way to remind students how to treat each other with kindness!  The unit includes 10 Keys to a Kind Classroom posters, 2 different author’s message student response sheets, Kindness follow up worksheet, List of books that promote kindness, and an Acts of Kindness class book.

Have fun and good luck!

Math Workshops - The Center Based Classroom

How do you teach your math block?
As you probably know by now, I am all about small group math instruction.  :)  I can not say enough good things about teaching small group math!  In fact, I blogged about small group math and my Math Stations at the beginning of March but when I ran across a blog post on The Center Based Classroom, I just had to share!

My new bloggy friend, Michaela, over at The Center Based Classroom explains her math workshops in a clear and concise way! In her 80 minute math block, she starts with a 20 minute whole group lesson and then has small groups rotate through 4 math centers (computers, teacher led group, math games and practice work).  It is the perfect formula and she does a fantastic job of explaining how each of her centers works. 

If are on the fence about trying small group math, you need to hop over to her blog and read all about it, she even has a link to an excellent article from Scholastics which will give you more ideas and some excellent reasons to try teaching math this way!  I call this small group math, Math Stations and Michaela calls them Math Workshop but whatever you call it, IT WORKS!  Students are engaged and learning for the whole block and I feel less stressed as a teacher because I know I am reaching every student's math needs everyday!

Thanks for sharing, Michaela!!  Happy teaching everyone!

A Shout Out for DonorsChoose.org

Thanks to some of my TPT friends, I found this great teacher website called Donors Choose.  DonorsChoose.org is an organization that allows people to donate to teachers in public schools in the United States.  The website was created by a teacher in 2000 and has since had $121 million dollars donated to teachers and their students.  Teachers create projects that fit the needs of their students and anyone can donate directly to their project.  Often other organizations will match donations dollar for dollar so teachers' projects get funded by direct donations along with corporate matching. 

I have been reading about all of the wonderful projects teachers are able to get funded through this amazing website!  What a great idea!!  This week, I decided to create a project for my own classroom and give www.donorschoose.org a shot!  My project is requesting 4 Kindle Fire tablets for my classroom.  I have used my own tablet in guided reading and math lessons before with great sucess, but want to have a set so that everyone in the small group will be able to access the resource at the same time.  Feel free to check out my project http://www.donorschoose.org/Mrs.Ado !  Anyone who gives to my project by March 26  will have their donation doubled thanks to the DonorsChoose.org Board of Directors! Just enter the code INSPIRE on the payment page and you'll be matched dollar for dollar.

If you are not sure, and want more information please feel free to contact me and I can share all that I have learned about the process.  The DonorsChoose website is also a wonderful place to go to gather inspiration and information!

Kevin Henkes Craftivity & Spring Linky Party

Happy Spring everyone! 

This week in class we have been reading books by one of my favorite authors, Kevin Henkes!  I just love his stories and all the cute mouse characters!  In addition to helping my kiddos work on their story elements, these stories have opened up some wonderful classroom discussion on friendship! 

Please hop over and check out my new Kevin Henkes author study unit at my TPT store! 


If Kevin Henkes hasn't gotten you in the mood for all things Spring, hop over to Educasong and check out the Spring linky party!!



I hope you enjoy all the goodies!!  Thanks for stopping by! 

Time spent on pinterest SHOULD equal professional development hours

I found this great linky party that is all about some of our favorite pinterest finds!  I LOVE pinterest and just had to join in the fun!  I can really lose all sense of time when I am on pinterest, just ask my family!! 


Here are a few of my favorite finds from this week:

1. This simple idea from What the Teacher Wants is super cool!  I tried it in my class this week and kids were really excited about writing on a plate.  The best part of this was how it helped them visualize both addens before they added them together! 

2. Just today I found this cute idea of using plastic Easter eggs to teach compound words!  Right after spring break we are going to start compound words and you bet I will headed to Target after Easter to buy myself a discounted set of plastic eggs!!

3.  Finally, I thought I would share a cool classroom organization pin that I found last week!  I have all my bulletin board letters in big gallon zip lock bags by colors but everytime I want to use them I have to lay them all out on a table to find the right letters.  This clever teacher uses a binder with CD holders to organize the letters!  I'm totally doing this, maybe when I go to Target for the eggs I will get a few CD holder pages.  This is a perfect project for one of my awesome parent volunteers!

Here is the linky party with bunches of other blogs that will be highlighting some favorite pinterest finds!  Enjoy! :)

Feel free to come over and check out my pinterest to see the full extent of my pinterest adiction.  Thanks for stopping by!!

Birthday Giveaway!

Hi all,

I wanted to share an AWESOME giveaway that is happening now!  My bloggy friend over at First Grade Friendly Frogs has a huge giveaway to celebrate her birthday.  The giveaway is running until March 24th.  Hop over and check it out!