You just got a brand new Cricut!  Time to start crafting and make all the things for your classroom... but where to start?? I've made a list of the top 5 Cricut vinyl projects you can get started on for your classroom. I've provided affiliate links throughout this post for your shopping convenience. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my links.  This does not affect the cost in any way. 1. Number your book bins I used Cricut Permanent Vinyl on these book bins and numbered them for each of my students.  Labeling the book bins with numbers instead of names allows me to easily re-use them each year! I prefer to use  Craftopia transfer tape . 2. Label your supply caddies I got this supply caddy from Michaels and labeled it "Reading toolbox" because I let my students pick out items they need during guided reading groups. You can organize your reading, math, or table group supplies by labeling your caddies!......

There is an incredible yet overwhelming amount of information and new websites for teachers to use for building an online classroom right now.  Teachers around the world are now expected to go digital and teach remotely while picking up new curriculums and skills across multiple platforms.  Personally, I've had to learn how to use Canvas for my district, but that does not seem to be the most popular site.  (Canvas is used more for college level students and while it has many features, there is a huge learning curve.) Before picking up Canvas, I was using Google Classroom.  It's much simpler and very easy to use !  If your school is a Google school, then your students are probably familiar with logging in with their Google accounts.  In this post, I will show you how to use a Google Slides resource from Teachers Pay Teachers in Google Classroom so that assigning work for your students becomes more manageable and efficient. Step 1.  Make a Cop......

Happy first day of August!  This month sadly signifies the slow down of summer as we begin thinking about the start of the school year. To start preparing, I thought I'd share some of my favorite products I've purchased from Amazon over the years that help my school year run smoothly. I've provided affiliate links throughout this post for your shopping convenience. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my links.  This does not affect the cost in any way.   1. The best pencil sharpener of all time  Five years ago, my teammate gifted me this pencil sharpener and I've had this same one ever since!  It may jam every so often (like 2 times a year MAX) but it has never once broken.  It has multiple settings for different pencil widths, and I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but I even let my students use it!  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 stars, 10/10.  Highly recommend. 2. Make less copies, use more dry-......

Ohhhh yes, an entire post devoted to the best state ever! I mean really, just Google search " Greatest city in America ." What do you get? Baltimore, MARYLAND. And which state is called, " America in miniature ?" None other than MARYLAND... and for good reason! We've got the ocean, rivers, mountains, the city, country, and the beach. What more could you possibly ask for from a teeny tiny little state? (The 9th smallest state to be exact!) As soon as I saw that the Techie Turtle Teacher started a Maryland Blog Hop via TPT, I was ecstatic to get on this and collaborate with some fellow MD teacher bloggers!   First things first, be sure to click the picture above to download my new measurement FREEBIE !  Please note that this will only be free during the blog hop, and will be available for sale starting February 21st, 2016. My first grade friends are exploring measurement by different non-standard units.  Using a variety of measurement tools helps them u......

^ The snowpocalypse   weekend to be exact. Maryland hasn't seen this much snow in quite a while, and this blizzard sure did some damage.  Living in the city, I had the luxury of being able to leave the house every day whether it was to go for a short walk to the bars (which all were in fact open) or head up the street to the park and go sledding.  Of course parking has been and will continue to be a nightmare until the mounds of snow finally melt away.  Believe it or not, there are still many streets here that have yet to be touched by a plow.  People here have been territorial of the parking spots they broke their backs to shovel out, but come on guys, we're all in this together .  I think the cabin fever has got to us all.  Hopefully, if you were affected by the snow this weekend, you were able to get out and enjoy the beauty of it all in some way. Before all the snow fell, we read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  Then we made magic sno......

This year our new principal created and introduced a school-wide fact fluency program that focuses on   fluency and flexibility in thinking about numbers and the equal sign in all four operations.  Going through the program, students are required to solve for missing addends and parts (or the whole) of an equation in all positions by understanding part-part-whole relationships . The first few stages involve addition and subtraction beginning with fluency of facts within 10.   Here's a fact fluency freebie for your firsties (woahhhhhh alliteration overload!) that can help support understanding of the equal sign and finding the missing number in subtraction equations with zero.  Cut out the pieces and have your friends match the missing number with the equation it belongs to.  Enjoy! Click on the picture to download from Google Drive. I also came across this post from Teaching in Progress about word problems.  She posted a great visual and fr......

UPDATE:   I love first-grade!   I think I should actually change that to "I love first- graders " because they're so stinkin' adorable.  I'm especially in love with the sweet smiles and " Good morning Ms. Chin! "s I'm greeted with every morning. I taught 4th grade for the past two years, so this is my first time actually teaching 1st.   I'm learning so much about phonics, reading, and basic math from this experience which honestly has made some  most days a SERIOUS struggle.  I've had about a million and a half realizations and " Oh righttttt, they're only six years old. " moments, but overall I know this year is off to a great start and it's going to be a blast! We had our first field trip to the National Zoo this week and the kids had so much fun!  We researched gorillas for our non-fiction writing this quarter and we were so excited to see the gorillas at the stinky ape house.  (Although some of them were over dra......

Hello!  I'm currently at the beach in Duck, NC enjoying my last work-free weekend with this absolutely breath-taking view: Can you believe this place?  It's beautiful !  My friend's parent's dream was to own their own beach house one day and they made it a reality a few years ago.  Their home is like a jungle, and her mom likes to call it, Where The Wild Things Are .  (Yes, she is a teacher!) On a separate note, I just learned about the awesome Donors Choose Community, Caring Classrooms .  It's such a great idea and way to get the word spread about new classroom projects in need of funding.  I just donated to a project for a classroom to get a puppet show about accepting others' differences.  How cool!  I didn't know that you could create projects that weren't just for school supplies, books, etc.  Anyway, that project has ALREADY been funded because of how generous everyone in this online community is.   I'm going to......

Is it August already?!  Where did the time go?  If your school is like mine and they make you move classrooms each year, then I'm sure you'd agree that the packing, moving, and unpacking process is a huge PAIN.  That being said, I'm trying to keep everything as simple as possible and I'm keeping the superhero theme.  Hooray! Here are a couple things I already have for the decor: Name tag labels for either the door or bulletin board. - TPT link here - Back to school picture frame!  This is my first time doing this and it was super fun and easy to make! - TPT link here - Picked these borders up on my most recent trip to Lakeshore.   I wish I had seen these last year, but I can't wait to use them in my classroom! - link here - I can't wait to get into my room and start setting up!  Unfortunately that won't be for a couple more weeks, so in between babysitting and laying by the pool I'm going to try to prepare myself by rea......