Pizza Box Drying Rack

Hello! Here is a Pinterest project that I recently did that will be helpful in my classroom! We do a lot of projects that require paint, glue, things that need to dry and we don't have many surfaces in my classroom, so I decided to make a drying rack! This project cost me less than $2.00 (for a 3 oz can of spray paint) and I made two of them. Granted, I already had white duck tape, clear packaging tape and pretty contact paper, but those things are pretty inexpensive.

I went to Donatos and they were very nice to me and graciously donated 16 pizza boxes to make two drying racks with 8 slots each. Thank you Donatos!

You have to cut the entire front off. I expected it to be just a flap and be super easy, but Donatos boxes are folded and tucked into flaps so it took a bit longer and I had to be careful. I saw on Pinterest they used Little Caesars? Maybe their boxes only have the flaps.

Then I tape the sides using duck tape. Once you take off the front flap, there is nothing holding those front sides together.

Here is how they looked once I completed that on all 8 boxes.

I tape them using clear packaging tape. I tried to make it as smooth as possible but it was hard. I started by taping them two at a time, then stacking them and taping the pairs, but my husband did the second one and I think he just taped them in one big loop.

I added duck tape and extra support from those cut off front flaps on the top and the bottom.

I covered it in pretty contact paper you saw in a previous post! And, I sprayed the inside with a thin layer of white spray paint to lighten it up, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't thick and sticky inside.

The lighting isn't the best, but it turned out well!

Spring has Sprung!

We have been working on the 4 seasons, weather and recently, spring and plants. Here are some of the things we have been working on! I apologize that some of the pictures are sideways :-/

We did a unit on the four seasons, identifying the months in those seasons and the weather conditions and range of temperatures we see at those times. I made this felt board tree that we manipulated with during our conversations and books about weather/seasons.

Summer Tree

Fall Tree

Winter Tree

Spring Tree

Here is just something I made for outside of my classroom so people knew where we were. I used velcro to attach the specials and its dry erase to change the times.

We did a Very Hungry Caterpillar Unit which is always fun. So much counting, identifying days of the week, identifying fruits, colors, butterfly life cycle, etc. On Friday we made a Very Hungry Caterpillar fruit salad, tried all the fruits the caterpillar did in the story, then mixed them all up to a fruit salad. We were almost late for the bus it was so delicious! A big thank you to my amazing speech pathologist who let me use a lot of these resources! We used those little fruit popsicle sticks as our "recipe" for fruit salad. I had them all in a basket and each student got to take turns pulling them out and reading me the recipe: how many and what fruit?

Currently, we are doing some plant experiments, learning about the plant life cycle and watching growth. Our current experiment is what do plants need to grow? We are tracking the growth of four different beans: one with sun and water, one with only sun, one with only water, and one with neither. Which one will grow? We are going to chart on our graph once they start sprouting.

Here is a cute printable that I laminated. I will use this during our counting stations on Thursday afternoons!

We are making grass heads and identifying parts of our bodies. Plants are living just like us! Once the grass grows, it will look like hair. A cute, but sometimes confusing analogy ;-)

Back to seasons, I made this sort with a common icon. First we colored all the icons the corresponding color, then added them onto our colored mat to see which months were in which season. It was a really cool way for the kids to understand the topic.

We made season wheels from plates. I loved these black plates for high contrast. We had a ton of leftovers from a City BBQ party. This also linked in with our felt board tree at the beginning of the post.

We did a bit about kites while talking about weather-wind. There is a 5 Little Kites felt board story that I made characters to. We did experiments: Will the wind blow it? and used a fan to blow different classroom objects and observed if the wind was able to blow it or not. Here was a fun math game that we played. As you can see, each one is differentiated. We used the dice that you can see in my previous post from January-March. Students had to roll their dice then find that number on their kite, color it in. The first person with all their kite colored won the game.

We read a story about a bunny and talked about the main character. Then we made him with paper plates, cotton balls (fine motor-we pulled them all apart and we threaded the pipe cleaners through the back of the plate), added eyes, nose and ears.

We focused on eggs, spring and bunnies and not Easter for obvious reasons. So we wrote a class poem called Wake Up, Spring and each line was Wake up, ________. They had to choose an egg and open it, identify what was inside and help me try to spell it using our knowledge of letter sounds. I had different objects in the eggs, ones that we have talked about in recent units and CVC words that we know (pig, dog), etc. Then we read our poem and made our own spring wreathes, see below:

I used paint chips from Home Depot to cut out pastel eggs and they got to choose some, glue them onto this spring paper plate that I cut the middle out of, and glued on pastel marshmallows on after counting them out.

January-March (but February got lost!)

Here are some of the things I have been doing the end of winter and beginning of Spring. I am not sure why I didn't document much in February. Must have been a busy, short month!!

January:
We worked on the snow theme and made some cute snow globes with marble paint (put the foam snowman cut out onto these cute snowglobes I made out of construction paper, put them in a box lid, and put marbles dunked in white paint in and shook to make it snow!)

We also read a story that was hand made by a speech pathologist I met and it was a sequence of making a snowman and adding the things he had on him. Students sequenced the story using different cut outs, we also did shaving cream and glue snowmen as a sensory activity:

Dr. Seuss:

I did a lot of the common themes, Cat in the Hat, Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Green Eggs and Ham, Fox in Socks, The Foot Book, etc

For the Cat in the Hat, they made their own hats following the AB pattern, white/red, etc. We identified characters and events, etc. For The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, I made an alphabetical order activity that is just like the book:

We also did the Foot Book, measured our feet by tracing them and counting out Unifix Cubes:

We did Green Eggs and Ham-we are working on shaking head up and down for yes and side to side for no, we also made green eggs and ham using vanilla pudding, green food coloring and a vanilla wafer in the middle as the "yolk". Here is a switch we used while reading the story:

We also did One Fish, Two Fish, and sorted out colored gold fish. We made some counting flip books using Dr. Seuss stickers.

St. Patrick's Day/March:

Sorry these are sideways and/or upside down:

Here is a game called the Shamrock game that focuses on simple counting 1-10. We put the large dice in a big bin and shake it, then stop, because students had a hard time rolling the dice. They have a marker of some type (we use little counting bears as their markers) and they move the amount they rolled, so they are counting 1:1 and then counting up to a number and stopping. If they land on a Shamrock, they get a Shamrock card. As soon as all the cards are gone, the game is over (makes it easy for you to control the end of the game). Whoever has the most Shamrock cards wins.

I printed this cute scavenger hunt off online and the kids love it. They are looking around their environment, looking for color identification, remembering a sequence (rainbow order), and at the end the leprechaun left us a surprise (it was pistachio pudding, add water and this magical white powder turns green before your eyes! How magical..we did not eat it we just watched it change and then I tossed it).

Pots of Rainbows! I used those same foam popsicle sticks and students had to count out 6 sticks, one of each color, then remember the order and what ROY G. BIV stands for. They had a lot of fun!

IEP Work Time and Work Bags

It has been a long time! I am going to do a few posts because I have been taking pictures since January but have not posted them. I am going to start off with some updates on how I do my IEP work time this year.

Each morning, I set aside individual time to work on IEP objectives. Usually in the morning we have various therapy pull-outs, so it works out nicely that some students are in therapy while a couple are in the classroom as well. Since writing my IEP's, I made sure that I could write a really good data sheet for the objective before I wrote the objective. This did simplify the writing of objectives! I made sure I based them off the extended common core standards, the ones that I thought were most essential for each individual.

Once I had all my students IEP's written and data sheets made, I tried to set up a schedule to make sure that each week, I am taking data on every academic and behavioral objective on every student's IEP. This was not such a small task. A bit easier because I have 4 students, but still difficult because of pull-outs and also I have a student who does inclusion for 1/2 day. So, on Mondays I focus on reading objectives, on Tuesdays I focus on Math, on Wednesdays I do a "make-up" day for anything missed and/or DIBELS, on Thursdays I do behavioral goals and try to get my one student that does inclusion on all his goals, and Friday I do DIBELS and anything I didn't get to throughout the week and we also do our handwriting goals on Friday first thing in the morning.

I am working with the student on different tasks that I can take data on the IEP objective on so the big question...what are the other students doing??? This is always a challenging task as every special educator knows you have to be flexible. Students are going to be absent. Therapy pull-outs won't always be regular (they have so much to do and I truly think my therapists are amazing).

So, first, with the students I try (and I am still not there yet) to set up boundaries at the beginning of the year and keep them consistent throughout the year. If you are working or earning on the carpet or at the table, you stay with that activity until you are told to transition or unless you clean up, raise your hand, and ask for something different. So, some students are able to participate in an individual task in one of these areas while I take data on another student. My instructional assistant is awesome and we have one student on a routine with her because he responds well to that, where she works on the same thing every morning with him while I take data on another student, then we switch.

The SMARTboard has been a great resource in my room because students can work on that independently (simple cause and effect reward games, starfall, etc). And finally, work bags.

I have created these bags and they do wonders when trying to occupy a student (my instructional assistant can do them easily), they work when you have a substitute teacher in the room, they work with simple tasks if you have a student observer/teacher that wants to try a task with a student. They focus on academic as well as fine motor skills. It helps the students make choices of what they want to work on. They are simple, easily contained and hands-on. These work wonders while I am taking data on a student and need the other students to be engaged.

Here are some pictures!

This is pretty self explanatory but...cookie sheets are $1.00 at the Dollar Tree, and perfect size for these double gallon (I think) Hefty bags (purchased at Target).

Here are a couple of them sitting out, as you can see, cookie sheet fits in great.

This was the most time consuming one. I printed these off a website in color, laminated every letter, attached a magnet to every pom-pom in every color, and in this work bin there is also a cookie sheet so the poms stick when the child is working.

This one is a hit...little bath mats with mini suction cups hold the marbles perfectly. I colored in the dots black so they can see it better. We also work on counting the marbles as we put them on or take them off. Sometimes you get marbles all over the floor so be careful walking into Room 5 ;-)

This was a fun one, shapes, using foam colored popsicle sticks and velcro with foam cut outs in the middle.

These are just some examples, I also have a lacing one with lacing cards and beads, one with unifix cube pattern cards I printed out and unifix cubes, and one with clothespins and paper plates that you put the clothespin with the corresponding cue on the paper plate such as colors and numbers. I plan on creating a few more, vocab and picture match, a pringles can that I cut little holes in and your put pipe cleaners into the holes, and a sorting one. A lot of ideas you can find under "toddler bags" or "busy bags" on Pinterest. 

Essential Questions and 100 days!

Hello! It is early February and I am back from Orlando from the ATIA conference! It was such a great experience and I had the opportunity to learn so much about the PODD (Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display) for children with significant communication challenges. All I can say is...WOW! A whole different way of thinking and definitely worth the research. I am practicing with a borrowed PODD in my classroom and we are going to see how we can effectively implement this for language in the classroom. If anyone is interested in learning more or discussing the PODD, please email me :-) I would love to chat!

I thought I would have a quick post because recently my school has been working on the common core (in my case the extended common core) and our PLC's or TBT (so many acronyms now... PLC is Professional Learning Community and TBT is Team Based Teaching) and we were asked to post "essential questions" in our classroom so any outsider would easily be able to see what the students are working on in the classroom. It is also helpful for the students, if they understand, to see what they will be able to do at the end of a lesson/unit/year etc.

My students all have IEP's so it was more difficult for me to write the essential questions because each student is so different! So, I took the extended common core standards for each IEP objective (we already wrote our IEP's based on extended standards so this made it a little easier to do this step) and made it into a simple question. I have an entire document that is of course, cute as well as informative, but I thought I would post the meat of the information here in case you are struggling to incorporate the extended common core in the classroom like I have been this year. If you would like a copy of this document, you can email me and I can send it in pages format or a word document.

Here it is! I hope this helps some teachers!


Reading
RI-L.K2.1c How do I answer “who” questions?
RI-L.K2.3c Who are the characters or people in a story?
RI-L.K2.1c How do I answer “what” questions?
RI-L.K2.2c What are the events of a story?
RI-L.K2.7c How do I show you a picture or object that relate to a story?
RL.K2.6c What does the author do?
RL.K2.6c What does the illustrator do?
RI.K2.4c How do I match a word to a picture?
RI.K2.5c Where is the front and back of a book? Where is the title?
FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS!
RF.K2.1c How do I listen to a story?
RF.PC.K.d What are letters?
RF.K2.2c What are the sounds of letters?

Writing
W.K2.1c What is something I prefer or like?
W.K2.3c What is something I did?
W.K2.6c How do I use the keyboard or computer?

Speaking and listening
SL.K2.1c How do I listen to others and respond?
SL.K2.3c How can I ask for help?
SL.K2.4c and L.K2.3c How can I tell you about familiar things in my life?
L.K2.1b How do I tell you what I see? (describing and 2+ word combos)
L.K2.4b Can I sort into categories?
L.K2.5c Can I say words I know?

Math
CC.K2.1c Can I count to 10 using objects?
How can I make sets of a #1-5?
CC.K2.5c Can I count 5 objects?
NBT.K2.2c Can I count by 10’s to 50?
NBT.K2.2b Can I count by 10’s to 100?
MD.K2.2c Can I tell you which object is longer than the other?
MD.K2.4c Can I measure something?
MD.K2.7c Can I show you what happens in the morning and at night?
MD.K2.8c Can I match coins?
MD.K2.8c Can I identify a penny?
MD.K2.11c How do I make categories?
G.K2.1c What are squares, rectangles, circles and triangles?
G.K2.3b How do I put something above, below, beside, or next to something else?

Science
ESS.K2.1c What happens in daytime and what happens in the nighttime?
ESS.K2.2c How do I tell you different short-term weather conditions?
LS.K2.2c What are parts of a plant and animal?
PS.K2.1c How do I use things for their purpose?
PS.K2.4c-5c How can I move something that is stopped, or stop something that is moving?


Social Studies
HIS.K2.1c How can I tell you what is on a schedule?
HIS.K2.4c How can I tell you something I like to do?
GEO.K2.1c How can I show you where objects go with words like “over, under, behind, next to and down”?
GEO.K2.3c/ECON.K2.6c What is happening in the community?
GVT.K2.2c How do I participate in a group activity?
GVT.K2.3c How do I show you the class rules?
ECON.K2.1c Can I show you which one is bigger/smaller, or more/less?
ECON.K2.2c How do I tell you what I want?
ECON.K2.3b How do I make a choice?
ECON.K2.5c Can I show you money?

Also, we celebrated 100 days in Room 5-we made a chain with colored paper in which each group of 10 was a different color. The students really were engaged with this and it worked on their fine motor as well. We also worked on identifying "who" gets a turn next, etc. The kids loved watching the chain get bigger, and bigger, and bigger....
I also made these 100 mats and you can see two versions below, one differentiated to include 10 dots on each group of 10. They counted out 100 objects in groups of ten, practiced counting to 100 by 10's (singing the song). I had all the students use Froot Loops that we then laced into necklaces after (actually I had to lace them because it was a bit too difficult) but I had one student who did not understand the concept of counting out food and not eating it! (I don't blame him!) So, I had him using cubes and stacking them into groups of 10 which worked out great. Sorting, color identification, counting to 10 using objects, counting by 10's ... plenty of standards in this lesson! And, it was fun!
We also decorated glasses that said 100 on them and did a 100 step writing prompt to predict where we would end up if we walked 100 steps. Let me know if you would like a copy of this writing prompt which includes pictures for students to choose from :-)

A little cleaning up

Hello there!
So soon for another blog post, I know...how awesome! But, you probably won't see one for a little bit because I am going to Orlando to the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference so I will be busy busy busy! SO EXCITED :-)
I also recently had a Donor's Choose project funded and got a new iPad for the classroom! I will be researching and exploring this new technology for the classroom and most likely will be posting some fun apps we use in the future!
I wanted to show you some very simple cleaning up fixes I did in my classroom, starting with changing the look of a rolly cart and a small file cabinet with some funky contact paper. Not time consuming at all, very easy to apply (easier than I remember contact paper being) and much easier than using scrapbooking paper.

 You can tell that these are old and pretty beat up, but they look much nicer now! You can even see some dents in the filing cabinet, haha. I may even do my big filing cabinets! I bought two rolls-way too much. These projects used less than 1/4 of one roll. Less than $6.00 a roll. Very Mrs. Flower's themed.

Next are some of the pictures I promised from the last post...my dry erase board/dish drying rack storage. It turned out really nice. Word of advice: I purchased a cheap one but I bought the "extra large" one (it either said extra large or big) but it was the same price but as you can see, just big enough to hold standard small dry erase boards.

On the side, I purchased some infant mittens on sale as small erasers for the small hands in my classroom (they can put a couple fingers in and work on some fine motor erasing rather than just taking a big sock and going crazy with it)

Here is a super cute cup that a great friend got me:

It is housing my highlighters right now and I love it. VERY MRS. FLOWERS <3 

And finally, I will leave you with an update from the last post...my light box IN ACTION. My student here is spelling the word "WINTER" using his word list and some letters from an old sign we used to have at the school.

Have a great January and I will post in February!