It's Monday again and I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics.

This Monday I would like to spotlight my bulletin boards that I made for my classroom. 

Behold the behavior board! I have a little space at the bottom that will hold my classroom jobs.

                               

Traits of good writing board and my class calendar. I love this dry erase calendar that I picked up at Target. I write upcoming school events, birthdays, assessments and school holidays all on this little board. My students like checking it out, and like knowing what is coming up.

Homework Board

                

  Super improver Wall- I still need to cut out about 50 white stars with student's names to display on the board.

Last, another shot of my classroom from the door. I hung three red Pom Pom balls today. Love the way it looks! 

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Mrs. Shepherd

Do your students need reminders? 

Of course they do, and even us teachers need reminders every day or like me sometimes every hour. 

That is why this pin caught my attention that was created by Kelly at Kelly's Knack.

To  match my classroom decor I created this 1 minute dismissal checklist that you can grab for free here.

So, if you like what you see you can download it for FREE.

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Mrs. Shepherd

Cara at The First Grade Parade is hosting a Favorite Pins Friday linky. Pinterest is definitely one of my everyday go to sites. I have tons of pins 2,176 pins to be exact. You can check them out and follow my many boards here. 

Here are a few of my favorites pins..............

#1

This pin was created by Think Share Teach and leads you to151 leading sites for Elementary Educators. 

#2

Christy Whitehair has created 4th grade CCSS ELA labels as a FREE download. I have already downloaded these labels and made file folders to hold all of my lessons, assessments and other resources that pertain to that standard that I will collect throughout the year. 

#3

Love this simple and easy to make teacher gift by Lisa Storms. She also has the tags available as a free download. I've made this gift for my teacher friends and for my boys' teachers.

#4

Love this Data board by Angie at Two Things in Common. We were asked to create a Data wall this year for our classrooms and I have found the look I want with this pin. I really like how Angie has a mission statement and ground rules posted on the wall. 

#5

This is the best and simplest recipe for pot roast. I make this at least every two weeks and my family loves it. I've even made it over the stove cooking it for about an hour and a half instead of in the crockpot, which takes many hours. The only thing I changed when cooking it over the stove was the type of meat I purchased, which was grilling meat instead of a round roast.  

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Mrs. Shepherd

Having a classroom website is an essential part of building a home-school connection. That is why I'm linking up with Kristin at iTeach 1:1  to share an idea for managing your classroom website.

My classroom website which you can view here is built for my students and parents. You can find various pages on my class website such as an all about the teacher page, homework, reading websites, and more. 

My favorite part of my class website is being able to embed a google calendar. I can add events and homework to the calendar on any device such as my school laptop or even my iPhone and the calendar is updated instantly. 

Here's a video on how to embed a google calendar here. 

Hope you found this information useful and will hop over to the linky to check out how other teachers are utilizing their classroom websites. 

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Mrs. Shepherd

It was my third day back working in my classroom. I can definitely say I'm making some progress, but still have lots to do. 

This is the wall on the left of my room. You can see my super improver wall for both of my 4th grade classes. Next is the homework board, which I purchased because there wasn't a dry erase board in the classroom. I think I'm going to make the bare board in the middle the writing board for the stages of writing. The last board is my class rules and will hold behavior cards.

Here's the front of the room with my library of genres bulletin board, a reading center with rug in the corner and a bookshelf holding a plethora of mentor texts. The easel is on the reading carpet for now. To the left of the board are reading strategy posters and the WBT scoreboard. To the right of the board is a pocket chart to hold the learning goals and to the right of that is my data wall.

Here's the side of my room that still needs lots of work. On the far left are leap readers which were left in the room. Anyone use these? To the right of the cabinet are the leveled readers that go with our basal treasure series. I plan to have students use these as take home readers to practice class skill. I purchased red chevron fabric yesterday and brought it to my mom who is making me curtains to cover the cubbies at the bottom and two valences for the windows. Can't wait to hang those up. The two file cabinets you see by the bottom right will go by front door. 

Here's the back of the room another uncompleted area. I'm getting another kidney table to put in the back left corner in front of my mobile lab. The rest of the wall contains my classroom library.

This is a view from my door looking in.

I'm making progress! 

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Mrs. Shepherd

I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics again for her Monday Made it. 

I was inspired by a few pins on Pinterest and Julie's library checkout system at Lighting a Fire. You can see from my past post here that I orignally made my stars with a gray chevron. However, due to the colors of the walls in my new classroom I changed my class colors this year to red and black. So, I remade the stars, had them printed and went to our local teacher store The Educator to get them laminated. Finally, I put them together.

How does this work? I teach two 4th grade classes ELA and Social Studies. One class will have the red stars and the other the black. Each student will be assigned a class number which will correspond to their star stick. When it is their turn to check out a book they will simply grab their number star and place the stick into the book basket from which they picked their book. That way they will know where to return their book when they are done and I will know who has a book checked out. I used this system last year and it worked great in my classroom. Although, last year I used clothespins with the student's names and the clothespins broke. I am hoping the sticks stay together longer.

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Mrs. Shepherd

I am so honored to receive a nomination for the Liebster Award, which is an nomination given to acknowledge bloggers with fewer than 200 followers, by Susan at Middle School OCD.  She had some very kind words to say about me that you can check out on her blog. You will also find out when you head over to her blog what a great educator she is sharing lots of lessons and activities in the middle school classroom.

I am so happy to have connected with Susan and with so many other educators over the past three years through blogging.  I have been inspired, encouraged, challenged and my passion for teaching and learning has gone to a new level.

There are a few requirements with accepting this nomination such as:

1. Link back to the blog that nominated me
2. Nominate 5-11 blogs with fewer than 200 followers (Sorry, I only nominated 3!)
3. Answer the questions posted for me by my nominator 
4. Share 11 random facts about myself (only 7, this was difficult)
5. Create 11 questions for my nominees
6. Contact my nominees and let them know I nominated them!

So, here it goes............

1. What is your favorite movie? Sweet Home Alabama

2. What is your favorite book? Anything by the author Emily Giffin. I have read all her books.

3. Do you have any pets? I have a black cat named Luna. We are currently looking to adopt a dog. Our dog Bella of 10 years passed away two weeks ago.

4. If you have a day all to your self, what is your favorite way to spend it? My favorite way to spend a day would be getting a pedicure and manicure and then heading to the mall to do some shopping.

5. In what store could you spend hours and hours? I could spend hours in Ann Taylor Loft, the Limited, Gap, and Banana Republic.

6. If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go? I would visit France where I am hoping to visit next summer for my 10th wedding anniversary.

7. If you could take your class on a field trip anywhere in the world, where would you go? Of course we would go to Disneyworld.

8. What is your favorite part about teaching?  My favorite part about teaching is when I see my students succeed.

9. If you weren't a teacher what would you be? I would be a stay at home mom.

10. Who is your hero? My hero is my husband.

11. Blogging makes me feel........inspired, connected, and current.

Random Facts....

1. I was a cheerleader in middle school, high school, college, and even competed on a competitive squad.

2. I worked at a skating rink.

3. I waited tables.

4. I taught summer cheerleading camps all over Louisiana.

5. I'm allergic to bananas and avocados.

6. I'm 4'll.

7. I had twin boys who both weighed 7lbs at birth.

Here are a few bloggers I am nominating and you should check out.

1. Allison  at Eberopolis: Teaching Reading and Writing with Technology: I found Allison's blog just recently and she has some amazing ideas!  She shares practical ways to teach 4th graders reading and writing while incorporating technology. I always look forward to reading her blog posts to check out the ways she uses technology with her students.

2. Ms. W at UpperGrades are Awesome- Here is a 5th grade blog with tons of great ideas for use in the upper grades classroom. Ms. W not only shares resources to use in the upper grades, but also has a TPT store where you can purchase her products.

3. Julie at Southern Teacher WBT- Julie is a WBT (Whole Brain Teacher). She shares with others how she is using WBT in her classroom and how she is using WBT techniques. I am inspired by Julie's posts on her blog and her posts on the Whole Brain Teaching bookclub.

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Mrs. Shepherd

Before I share two amazing resources that I've found in the past two days, I'd like to share with you what I decided on my teacher desk.

I decided to get rid of it and turn it into a tech/ small group station. Thanks to all those who left me comments with suggestions. I truly have been happy without having a teacher's desk the last two years and really just don't see the need for it. I'm always on my feet and moving around to monitor the students' work and their conversations. Can't wait to post pictures soon of the end result of my classroom! I still have so much to do!

So, these past few days we've had a lot of rain here in New Orleans and with that I've been on the computer a lot searching for ideas, activities and lessons for next year. I found two amazing resources that I plan to use this coming year and I want to share them with all my blog followers.

The first is Brenda Kovich's blog Teaching Seriously, which you can see below in the pic. Her blog is amazing in that she has broken down every CCSS discussing in detail what is expected and gives examples of lessons to use in teaching the standard. This is just what I've been looking for!

The next amazing resource is a teacher created product by Nicole Shelby. She has created Reading and Language Interactive notebooks that are CC aligned. You must download the preview to get a glimpse of how amazing her product is. I'm really looking forward to using these interactive notebooks with my 4th graders this year. These interactive notebooks will greatly benefit all of my students.

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Mrs. Shepherd

A Desk or not a desk? That is the question!

The last two years I've been without a desk in my 4th grade classroom. I never really felt a need for a desk since I am always on my feet. The desk also always ended up with stacks of papers piled high. I have been much better organized without it. However, this year due to having to move buildings to a new classroom, I've gained a teacher's desk. So, I'm thinking of keeping the desk and maybe making it a special place for students to sit, or maybe I'll just use it again to stack papers. Ahh! I could even change it into a tech station for my technology which is housed in the lab you see by the wall. What are your thoughts?

Here it is, excuse the mess!

As you can see from the pic above I have lots of decorating to do with those tan walls. I'm hoping my red chevron border will help brighten up the place a bit.

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Mrs. Shepherd