Mas Rusli

Happy Thursday! How is everybody?? It's Friday Eve and the fourth day of the Blog Hoppin' Teacher Week 2015!! Today's topic is Sanity Savers: What Makes Work Easier??  One Word: Astrobrights! This paper is the best thing since sliced bread. Like the best. I use Astrobrights to color code EVERYTHING!! I use it for file organization, classroom decor, labels, notes home, storage, etc.  Here is an example:  With my Math centers, I usually make about 5-6 copies of each center. Why? Because I have 26 students and when I have 6 students trying to do one center all at the same time it tends to get a little louder than is necessary. And then stuff gets lost and kids start getting a little rowdy while they wait for pieces from the center. BUT if I have a center for each student or pairs of students then this issue goes away.  When I make a new center or purchase a new center I make sure to have it available in B&W as well. INK SAVER ALERT!! Then I print them out in differ...

Time will not slow down at all it seems!! The summer weeks are FLYING by for me. Anybody else feel this way???? But it has been a fabulous week that has gone so quickly and that means its time for Five for Friday y'all!! Linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for this fabulous Friday Linky!! Here's what's been happening in my week:  OH MY GOODNESS first and foremost I have to tell you that I finally got to "Hangout" (see what I did there???) with my original #teachertribe and TpT buddies - The Primary Punchbowl!!! Picture credit to Elsa at The Whole Wheat Class and that is the fabulous Sarah from Mrs. B's First Grade!  Sarah and Laura from Luv My Kinders gave us (the ones who were home last week) some GREAT tips from Las Vegas and the TpT Conference. We were all on Google Hangout and got to see and hear each other! So much fun! We also all made plans to be there next year no matter what!!  If you haven't done a Google Hangout with your friends yet, I high...

March has so far been very wet for us here in Louisiana. But that has given me plenty of time to work on some amazing additions for my classroom! My firsties are working hard on becoming second graders and as this school year quickly passes us by they let me know how ready and eager they are to learn and be better. Love them!! My latest addition is to shake up my Building Words/Spelling Words/Word Work/Working with Words center. Task cards! Ok, so this isn't a new idea but it's new in my classroom this year! And I do it a little differently, with Astrobrights paper to help! Astrobrights by Neenah cut into 3x5 cards.  Avery 2x4 shipping labels.  Astrobrights cardstock is amazing because it a great thickness and doesn't fade. Avery labels are just the best thing ever. I print out the task cards on the 2x4 labels and stick one on each 3x5 Astrobrights card. I use an index card holder to store the cards. I have multiple copies of each task card so the kids can choose to work on...

Whew! The first weeks of school are SOOOOOOO BUSY!!! But would we have it any other way??? Of course not! I just wanted to show you a quick little part of my morning math routine. Morning Math is starting off with a bang! Now it does take the kiddos quite a little while to get it going reeeeaaaaal good, but for the most part they are doing great! I will be posting more on that real soon - the truth is I'm waiting for some stuff I ordered from Really Good Stuff to help us out. Then I'll go on a picture takin' frenzy with my littles and their soon-to-be super charged math brains!!! Our teacher mentor at University High (aka University Lab School) uses Morning Math to teach her entire math program and those kids are geniuses by the end of the year. We modeled our mornings directly after hers and here are some examples of my firsties work from last year. 139th Day of School 162nd Day of School We run out of room sometimes!! And look at that multiplication!!! Yes!!! From first g...