Favorite Read-Alouds Linky Party

I'm linking up with Run! Miss Nelson's Got the Camera. She is having us all share are favorite read-alouds. Right up front I shall be honest "my favorites" are subject to change upon new discoveries, different seasons, and different curriculum. That said one of my favorite authors is Chris Van Dusen and I love his books. Some of my favorite are. . .

Randy Riley's Really Big Hit

The Circus Ship

If I Built Car

Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee

I also love 

Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type

Duck for President

And of course Stuart J. Murphy's math books

I purchased this set of books to add to my math literature collection. I purchased it from amazon! 

As a child and now as an adult I simply LOVE to read. It is one of my favorite things to do. Amazon makes my book addiction quite easy. Hopefully if you haven't heard of some of these titles you'll go check them out. They are awesome. 

Thematic and Classroom Supplies Organization

This picture simply makes me happy ~ candy themed classroom with m&M whole group rug area! Can I just say the beige chair aka "THE Laffy Taffy" chair is a HUGE hit in my classroom. It cracks me up every time :) Side note - stuffed animals appear to be seriously favored by second graders. I need to use them more next year.  

This is where I store my "thematic" units/materials. supplies. I was inspired by the Clutter-Free Classrooms link. Check it out here. I took ideas and used them to create my own idea. I love these plastic tubs from Office Depot. They fit perfectly on top of my IKEA bookshelves. Everything needed for the theme/unit is in the box.  My next organizational project will be my classroom library ~ I'm in the process of making candy-themed labels :) 

Can I simply say I can not express enough how easy these two drawer units have made my life. I'm a big believer in communal supplies. No whining, arguing, and/or complaining that "it's mine" (expressed in student's most whiney spoiled voice). Each drawer holds exactly what the label says. The only stipulation is if it is in a closed container labeled teacher they may NOT touch it. Just about everything is for the kids and I.  Plus side I got the 10 drawer from Office Depot for 10% off because there was a minor defect. By the way, if anyone wants to go and grab one of these they are online only. The one I purchased was an in-store return. 

On top of the 10-drawer unit I keep my box of sharpened pencils and dull pencils.  To the  right of the pencils in the red bookshelf is my pencil sharpener. If you look at the previous picture you can see it. On the three drawer unit, or to the left of the pencils, I keep loose lined paper, plain white paper, and colored construction paper.

I just found this on my desktop. I thought this unit by The Teacher Wife was AWESOME. You can get it HERE. My sweets were so into it. 

I also just found this picture. This is my class' version of "Me On the Map." I purchased the unit from the Clutter-Free Classroom's TPT store. My students were also totally into this. I love that it gives the student a concrete visual of small (me) to large (the world).

That's all folks! Any questions or comments always make me smile. **hint, hint, hint**

Current Classroom Pictures . . . Part 2.a

     Now right off the bat this will be a two-part post. I LOVE outlines and list, henceforth, my title: Part 2.a. My classroom has a "loose" candy theme in mostly primary colors. I say "loose" because I see some amazing classrooms in blog word that have these themes that are so so so creative and everything connects. The perk to using primary colors: they are EVERYWHERE all the time. I love being able to keep the colors fairly cohesive.
      On Thursday one of my favorite college professors is coming to my class to observe a students teacher. On Friday my school is having Grandparents' Day. That was all the motivation I needed to do some deep cleaning in my classroom. It's been pretty consistently clean but it needed a bit more TLC than the usual. I mean it is more than half-way through the year and it's the first time I spent almost the entire Saturday in my classroom. I made a long mental list of all the cute things I need to create to make my classroom more functional.
     Now onto the pictures!

This is a snapshot of the "makeover" process and the beginning of the year!

My classroom library :) I created my labels over the summer and still need to create some new ones for some new categories!

My library check-out system is SUPER DUPER easy -  every student has a check-out slip and writes the title of the book the date they check it out and the date they check it back in.

Are communal class supplies

M&M Math Mania Corner - All my math workstations are housed in the middle. 

Pencil sharpener, paper, and Literacy Work Stations
(Literacy Work Stations need some cutesy labels!)

My Cookie Conduct clip chart behavior system - it's all in its own little corner of the classroom.

Every time a students' clip goes down they must fill out a blue sheet. The blue sheets allow the student to identify what they, why they did it, and what they are going to do next time. I also require a parent signature. The blue sheets keep parents aware of their child's behavior and leaves me a permanent record to reference if I need to. 

My desk! It's tiny but I love it. I originally had a huge one but I decided it took up to much space. 

I try to keep everything in the drawers so I ave a clean desktop. 

This is my round the school year bulletin board. This is where I display students' work. The candy wrappers have each students name on them. The big blue rectangle in the middle is suppose to identify whatever is on display. 

Disclaimer: If I knew how to create borders around pictures and put pictures in collages I would happily do it, but I haven't figured it out. Also, complete side note, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to watermark things I create in Pages on my Mac. Till I figure that out I can't post anything else onto TPT. Since I'm exposing my helplessness I have one more frustration. For the life of me I don't know how people create the adorable previews of their units for sale and put them in their blog posts. If anyone knows how to do any of this and remembers how it felt to be the new helpless little guy please let me know! I would be so grateful!