Pirate Day 2017

Image from here.

Arrgh mateys!  It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day!  I've been celebrating Pirate Day since 2014.  I think I've perfected it!

2014 Pirate Day

2015 Pirate Day

(My apologies - I did not write a blog entry last year, but we did celebrate it!)

As always, I dressed up for the occasion!

As the kids came in my room, they all cracked up!  We had a BLAST!

Before school, I went up to the library and grabbed a ton of pirate books. 

I read one of them first thing this morning:

 

A Pirate's Guide to First Grade can be bought on Amazon!

I'll admit, this was one book I had never read before.  In the middle of the story, a light bulb went off in my head!  I had my students create their own pirate's guide to first grade!  They each wrote and illustrated a page.  They told me or my co-teacher what they wanted to write.  We wrote it out on a whiteboard if they needed it.

Here they are hard at work!

 

(That's my co-teacher at the table with them!)

To see the final product, click on this link!

When the students were done with their page, they worked on pirate missing numbers and other pirate things.  

 

*By the way, 3 of my kiddos wore pirate outfits today!*

 They were absolutely adorable!!!

I borrowed a co-worker's treasure chest full of *fake* gold coins.  (Thanks Barb!)  I told the students I would lock it in my room during lunch and recess so no one could take it. THEY were shocked when we came back from lunch and it was gone!  In it's place was a note - which led us on a wild goose chase around the building looking for our gold!

I can't believe I didn't take pictures of this, but we did a 5 senses writing involving pirate's booty!  It was so fun (and tasty!)

The rest of the afternoon involved lots of pirate books, labeling pirates, pirate ABC order, and watching Reading Rainbow: Sunken Treasure!

It was a such a great day!

Until next time!
~Captain Lynch~  :-)

Happy New Year! 2017-2018

Image / quote from here

It's time for another school year!  This will be my 13th group of kiddos! :-)  This is the third school year for my deskless classroom and I love it!   As always, I'm super excited to see what this school year has in store for us!

School starts on Tuesday and I've been busy getting my room ready.  I wasn't going to have a theme for decorating this year, but that quickly changed.  I have 2 themes,  My main theme is "Rockin the Red," (something we say at Washington Capitals games.)  My other theme is a little tiki hut (which is just in my sink area.)

Here is a video tour of my room.  :-)

Here are pictures of my room.

 Hockey player Clipart came from here.

My students will be expanding on this bulletin board.  Plans include them writing their goals for the year on hockey pucks, designing their own hockey jersey, etc...

I know it's hard to see, but I actually have red garland around my door frame and door. 
I bought the garland from someone on a Facebook online yard sale.

When you walk in, you come to my comfy book corner!

I have Growth Mindset posters in three spots around my room. 
I am going to incorporate that a lot this year.  I purchased these posters from here.

More Growth Mindset posters.

A view of my book corner.

Top of 1st bookshelf

Top of 2nd bookshelf

A former teammate gave me this Washington Capitals fabric last year. 
I decided to use it and give my old stools a facelift!

This is the back of my book corner. 
I have some bath mats for flexible seating, puzzles, and three desks.

More Growth Mindset posters.

I love not having desks in my classroom!  I decided to put a doubles ten frame on the floor! 
We use them a lot at the start of the school year and I thought a life sized one would be fun for the kids!

My reading table with my desk behind it. 
Above that is the TJ Oshie poster one of my students made me last year. :-)

My tiki hut!  If you look closely, you might see some blue or green lights.
I bought those from the Dollar Tree!

You do not want to go in my closet!  That desperately needs to be organized!!!
The Partner School banneris from when the Caps organization came out last year! 
You can read about that here.

Puzzle pieces and seat cushions for soft seating!

Front of my room complete with hokki stools, bins, and promethean board! 
The board has the same garland that is on my front door.

I bought the awesome red borders from Amazon!

You might be wondering why if I have a red theme, are two of my bulletin boards blue.  In this case, the backgrounds were already blue and I wanted to keep it that way - I also didn't want to take my word wall down.  I like the red border though - it makes everything POP nicely and keeps the theme with my whiteboards as well.

There ya have it folks!  I hope you enjoyed the tour of my room!
Here's to a fabulous school year!

~Stacey~