A Couple of Spanglish Anchors

Hi guys!

It has been a month since the Little Ones began the school year and it feels like time is going by rather slow.... Perhaps thats just me. I have a sweet group of kids... but my, oh, my.... some are going to be the death of me. Lol.

We have been working very hard (albeit, a bit slow) at establishing routines and expectations. Then just this past week, I had a sub for two days so that I could IDEL and TRC my Littles and upon receiving my classroom back again, I realized all that hard work we put in these past couple of weeks was sucked right out of them by the sub. Nice guy; bad classroom management. Lol. (Please forgive my run-on sentences; I-AM-BEAT!)

Back to my reason for this post: anchor charts.
Why are anchors in Spanish sooooooo hard to find?!
I have my own board on Pinterest from all the great finds, but man o man, it has been tough! At this point, if I find something great in English, I try to make it in Spanish. These are just a few that are hanging on my walls now.... I'll be taking pics and adding more to this post as time goes on, but for now these are the only ones worth posting about.

This is translated from a chart I found on Pinterest. Forgive me if the link to the original pin is not posted , but I'm composing this post from the Blogger App and I'm still not familiar with it.  The chart is more of an anchored Rubric for creating detailed drawings or drawings that make you say "wow!" It has made a HUGE difference!
UPDATE: Click HERE for the original English Anchor

This one is not translated, I made this for my Littles as a reminder of the steps we should take during writing. Usually they have 5 steps, but I created 4 for two reasons: 1)I want them to have steps 1-4 down before we work on adding details to our words. 2)It's not a very large sheet so #5 didn't really fit. Lol.

Last, but not least, I created the infamous "3 ways to read a book" anchor. I originally found and created one similar to that of Krista's @ The Second Grade Super Kids and although her charts are AMAZING, her third step was "resumir el cuento" which is great and makes loads of sense, but to me "resumir" sounds closer "summarize" rather than "retell" so I changed it on mine. =)
Oh and also, I just noticed that you can see the one of the charts underneath this one. Oops. Lol.

Note: before theses charts were transferred to the chart paper, I wrote them (as I taught them) on our dry erase board as a draft first. When the mini lessons were done, I converted them to the charts above. There is no point in just throwing a chart on the wall if the kids don't really know what it is or why it's there.

Hope you guys have a restful weekend! =)

A Tiny Glimpse into My Home Away From Home

Hi, Guys! This is my 3rd week back at work (but only my second one with the Little Ones) and although I no longer have a split room, I feel more stressed now then I did at the beginning of the year last year (though, according to my husband, I say that every year. Lol.). It just feels like it's going to be a Chocolate and Coffee kind of year for me.... let's see how it goes.

After starting my 6th year of teaching, I discovered that I'm TERRIBLE at the whole "First Day of School" thing (I know, 6 years is a long time to barely notice that the First Day is not my forte, but at least I figured it out on my own). I just assume that the majority of the kiddos know each other because they come from the same Kindergarten. I dread the "getting to know you activities" and I know that they are a must, but I kind of feel that some students may dread it as much as I do. I'm a weirdo. I really need to get it together and sooner than later would be great. Lol. Any ideas on how to make this better for next year would be amazing.

Moving on.... as I was stalking exploring all the amazing blogs out there, I found myself oohing and ahhhing as I saw the many beautiful and creative ways you all decorated your rooms. Your students must never want to leave! My students on the other hand basically trample me on the way out. Lol. (That was a teeny joke). Squirrel! Sorry, back to business... as I was saying, I'm in awe of how creative and inspiring you all are. I don't have any ooh's and ahh's of my own, but I still felt like sharing what my home away from home looks like around this time of year with all of you. =)


This is what my classroom looked like when I walked through the door. I have a fairly large classroom. I'm a lucky gal.

This is how it looked after I organized the furniture. It was taken from a different angle. As you can see, my desk is in the far corner... I don't sit at it when kids are around, so I keep it out of the way.

This is what my science board looked like last year. I wanted it to look sciencey yet pretty, so I opted for flowered wrapping paper from the Target Dollar Spot instead of the typical butcher paper. I thought it was super cute! This year, it looks a little different because I wanted it to be cohesive with the rest of my classroom theme (Zebra and Neon).

This is my Morning Meeting/Math Board. The little black dots on my coin chart are magnetic dots that I bought at Lakeshore so that I can add and exchange coins easily.

This is a picture of my word wall. I used paper plates as the background for the letters. I only use this wall for English sight words. I have another word wall for my spanish words in the front of my room.

Here is a table that I dazzled up with contact paper. As you can see the table was an ugly one before the makeover. I dislike wood paneling; it reminds me of a basement. Thank goodness it no longer looks that way!

This is jewelry coin organizer that I use for behavior. Each pocket corresponds with a student. If students have 5 coins by Friday, they can buy a treasure from my treasure box. =)

This is all I have to show for now. I hope you enjoyed your tiny glimpse inside my classroom. I will try to update with pictures of my current boards so you can see the theme throughout.