Learning Lessons With Amy Labrasciano: August 2014

Classrooms

It's time to link up with my friend Julie from A First For Everything for the highs and lows of my week. My high for the week is that I got to spend some time with my fabulous new team. I made it through about half of their rooms to take pictures. Look at how cute they are!

Hollywood Themed Classroom

Peacock Classroom

Student Work

Camping Themed Classroom

Sports Themed Classroom

The Best Year Ever

Teacher Shirt

It was a definite high of the week when one of my former students brought me this awesome shirt. The low was that my Gators didn't get a chance to play because of a weather cancellation!

Back to School

Who's exhausted? I know I am. I love the saying, "There is no tired like teacher tired." The first couple of weeks are so busy for us. Please forgive me for not writing in length. There are lots of photographs though.

First day photo of Mrs. Labrasciano

My girls and I went back to school. I'm lucky enough to teach at the same school that two of my daughters attend. I'm also super blessed to have great girls!

Students

Our principal took on the ALS ice bucket challenge. I'm sure that you have seen a million people do it so I decided to show you the kiddos and teachers waiting to see her do it. That's over 900 students! We have a big school.

We all wore our super cool red shirts that our principal gave us to celebrate our "A" status. It really made us feel good to see that she feels this way about us! Since you can't see our shirts, I included a snapshot from the website that sells them.

Shirts by Baudville

Shades of Meaning

In between the back to school festivities and hoop la, there was rigorous work going on. Our first lesson was on shades of meaning. I used the book First Day Jitters to get us going. The kids did quite well with the lesson.

Reading Response Notebooks

We put together our reading notebooks and made some connections with the book "Cookies". I love reading this book to the students. Not only is it a great book about character traits, but it also has rich vocabulary in it.

Reading Connections

Do you like checking tasks off of your list as much as I do? I wanted the students to have mini anchor charts that they could reference. So we put together these writing offices. Not only do they give the students something to reference, but they also store work and provide storage.

Writing Office

Tips and Tools for Back To School Week 11

Tips and Tools For Back To School With The Primary Peeps

Well school is under way for most of us by now. After three fabulous months, it's time for our last Tips and Tools by the Primary Peeps. If you have missed any in our 11 week series, look below for the links. Today's Tips and Tools are by the lovely Laura from the blog A Grace Filled Classroom. Laura's post gives us the tools that we need to not only communicate effectively with our parents, but also how to build a productive community between home and school.

Look at how cute these notes (that she's giving away for free) are! Be sure to stop on by her blog to read what she has to say.

Positive Notes for Home

Math Planning with Grasty's 2nd Grade Goodies

Classroom Volunteers with The Dirtroad Teacher

Interactive Notebooks with Pawsitively Teaching

Back To School Goodies with The Inspired Owl's Corner

Center Rotations with Coast To Coast Tender

Task Cards with A First For Everything

Back To School Writing Craftivity with The Busy Busy Hive

To be continued...

Back to School High/Low Linky with A First For Everything and MyCarolina Classroom

I think that I just had the best "back to school" week ever! So it's no surprise that my high for the week is that school started and everyone made it home in one piece!!!

Are you ready for my classroom reveal? This year I changed from 1st grade to 2nd grade. That meant a classroom change too. Along with the room came a new teaching partner. I'm really trying to find a balance in life so I promised myself that I would organize the room and just get everything set up so that the kids can learn. It was hard parting with my over the top classroom decorations. However, I love that I was able to get everything done and I'm not stressed out. Here are some pictures of our room.

Shared Reading Area and Classroom Library

Shared Reading Area

Word Wall

I wish that I could remember who I saw do a word wall on the whiteboard first so that I could give them credit. I found it on Pinterest. I love that I can write and change the words as needed. It really comes in handy during testing time.

Library labels from OwlinaVoweltree

We are half way through sorting genres. You can't see but there are about ten fiction buckets. The kids are going to learn some different genres over the next few weeks and sort them a little more.

Writing centers from Mel D at Seusstatistic

The writing center is also interchangeable! It will be fantastic when I can just clip another one up without ruining the paper.

RP/AR Chart from A Classroom Full Of Smiles

My favorite part of our wall has to be that it is so interactive. We set it up so that we can change out the subject vocabulary and anchor charts. I came up with the idea to attach clips to the board so that we can just switch out the charts. It is very user friendly and will keep the paper looking nice for some time. The AR/RP clipchart is nice because the students can track their own points. We can use this on our teacher evaluations at the end of the year to show student's tracking their own data.

Calendar Math put together by my fantastic partner

Classroom Door

I'm in love with Inspirted Owl's Decorate Your Classroom and Greatest School Year Ever ! It really sets a tone for the year.

Student Work

I'm going to break tradition and leave off the low. There were too many highs to really care! Here's to hoping that we have the best year ever!

Open House with The Primary Peeps

This week's Tips and Tools for back to school comes from the lovely Amna with Teach Two Reach. Her tools for open house were a lifesaver for me! All I had to do was print her pack, laminate one poster and set up a table. Take a look...

Open House with The Primary Peeps

Now my parents can sign in, give me their personal information and tell me what job they want to volunteer for. It's so nice to not have to stress about this!

Open House Forms

The Peeps have come together to offer you a chance to win some money to get your last minute back to school packs from TPT. Enter below...

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High/Low Linky

I'm teaming up with my good friend Julie from A First For Everything to bring you my highs and lows for the week. I'm going to start with my low of the week so that I can share some exciting news at the bottom.

My low for the week will probably be my low for some time to come. I have an autoimmune thyroid disease. Autoimmune diseases are no fun. Here's a definition for you from mednet.com "An illness that occurs when the body tissues are attacked by its own immune system. The immune system is a complex organization within the body that is designed normally to "seek and destroy" invaders of the body, including infectious agents. Patients with autoimmune diseases frequently have unusual antibodies circulating in their blood that target their own body tissues." So my immune system decided to affect my heart this week landing me in the ER for a very short time. However, I have lots of doctor's appointments lined up so that I can get back on track and stay healthy!

Mrs. Labrasciano

My high for the week is that my classroom is almost put together!!!! Yippee!!!! I have one more day to get everything in order before the kiddos arrive. Here's my sneak peak...

Mrs. Labrasciano's classroom under construction

Hopefully your high for the week is that you can win our Primary Peeps giveaway! Am I the only one who had to visit TPT multiple times? I'm still not done. Here's your second chance to do some back to school shopping.

Primary Peeps Giveaway

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