What Went Well Wednesday

HUMP DAY!!! I know it's old and cheesy, but I just LOVE that camel commercial!!

I am linking up with my #kindertribe blog, Kinder Tribe, for their What Worked Well Wednesday.

This is a link up where kindergarten teachers get to share what worked well during their week. I'm not back to school year, so I'm going to share something that worked well last year that I intend on doing again this year!!

This is a picture of my student data drawer. Each student gets a hanging file folder, with different color-coded file folders on the inside. Everything I need to know about my kinders is all in their folder, and I can just grab it and go to parent conferences or IEP meetings, or any other type of meeting where I need data on my students.

Here's my system.

Each hanging file folder contains 5 different folders, and each folder holds different information.

The first folder is a regular manilla folder, and that contains all the information I need about my student. Emergency contact info, medical info, phone numbers, address, personal likes and dislikes, fears and goals, all sorts of individualized information about my Littles.

Next is a yellow file folder labeled 'Assessments'. This folder contains all of the Reading and Math assessments we do throughout the year, including the ones we do three times a year. This folder shows all the growth my kiddos make during the year.

The red file folder is for Work Samples. I don't keep everything my kinders do, I would never have enough room to store all of that. However, I do pick out a few pieces throughout the year that shows how well they are doing with certain skills. In the beginning of the year, I keep some cutting and coloring samples. As time goes on I keep pieces that have to do with rhyming or number sense, and other skills we work on throughout the year. If there is a kiddo I'm concerned about, someone I think might need to be tested for special ed services, I tend to keep more work samples for them. This is a good folder to have during parent conferences, so you can show the parents the amount of effort their child is putting into their school work.

The blue folder is all about Behavior. We follow the PBIS program at our school, and that means students can receive MIRs and ODRs (Minor Incident Reports and Office Discipline Referrals). These reports are on carbon copies, and teachers keep one of the three colors. The others go home and to the assistant principal. I also do monthly behavior calendars where students color in the day for whatever color they landed on. At the end of the month I collect them all and file them in their Behavior folders.

The last folder I have in each hanging file is a green folder, and this one is for Parent Notes. Throughout the year, I get all sorts of different notes from parents. Everything from explaining why they couldn't get their homework done to the latest news from their doctor. Any and all attendance or vacation request notes get sent to the office, and I will get a copy of those in my mailbox. Many parents will send me emails, which I will print out and add to their folders. I have had a few times during the year where this folder has saved my butt, when a parent states they never sent in a note like that but I can pull it from the folder. Many of my kinders don't have anything at all in this folder, but I still make one for everyone just in case!!

So that's my filing system for student data. Do you think I'm missing something? I'd love to know so I can add it!! Make sure to leave me a comment!

Don't forget to swing back over to Kinder Tribe and see who else has linked up to share what worked well for them this week!

Don't forget that you can still link up for Spotlight Saturday!! It's a Teacher's Show and Tell link up where you can share with us your favorite products, activities, ideas, lessons, tips, tricks, resources, and anything else that makes classroom life easier and more awesome!!

Five for Friday

Happy Friday!! If you live around me, you're probably still in school. Hang in there, summer is just a week or so away!! If you're already enjoying your summer, I hope you have had a chance to get lots of rest and have lots of fun!! Have you done anything exciting yet? I'm still stuck on the couch so I'd love to hear what fun things you're out there doing!

Today I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her awesome Five for Friday linky party. I haven't done one of these since before the accident. I hope I can find 5 things to tell you about! :-)

Okay, here goes!

Tomorrow is the second Spotlight Saturday link up on my blog! There were some really awesome bloggers who linked up last week to Spotlight their favorite product, activities, and projects! I got a glimpse into a newly painted classroom, got to see how Pinterest crafts can pair up with TPT products, and I was able to download all sorts of awesome freebies! I can't wait to see who links up tomorrow and I am really looking forward to reading all about their Spotlights! If you're interested in linking up with us, click on the image below to learn a little more about Spotlight Saturday. Make sure to check my blog on Saturday to link up with us!

If you've been following me on Facebook or Instagram, you know how excited I have been lately to be getting organized. I have found so many amazing resources to help me stay on track with not just everyday things, but also blogging and social media interactions and giveaways and so much more!

One of my newest organizational discoveries is the 'TPT Project & Monthly Planner' FREEBIE from the super-sweet Maren from Malimo Mode. She teaches in Norway and if you haven't been to her blog to see the AMAZING pictures of where she lives and teaches, you are missing out!!

I LOVE this freebie! It is truly remarkable! There is a page just for Lists, and you all know how I LOVE to make lists! She gives you several formats on the Lists page too so you can easily visualize the difference between them. I may or may not have five different lists going on at the same time on that page...which means I will have to print out another Lists page soon! Besides the Lists page, there is a calendar that covers every month of the year. The boxes are already numbered, and on the bottom of each calendar box are these tiny little check boxes. These are for the various social media platforms that we use on a daily basis. There is a check box for blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. These are the perfect little reminders for which social media platform I need to reach each day. I have already planned out the entire month of June, and this little organizer is definitely helping to hold me accountable for what I want to get done!

Another amazing organizational tool I have found recently would definitely have to be the Weekly Planning Calendars from The Creative Chalkboard's newest Creative Paper Collection, Paint & Confetti!

I just can't say enough good things about this set! As you can see, I have next week all planned out. There's even a few things I need to go back and add, since I found out about some awesome linky parties I want to be a part of! See that little 'Notes' box in the lower right-hand corner? That is the PERFECT size for a Post-It Note, just in case you have more things To Do then will fit in the box! 

Two different styles of weekly calendars are offered in this pack. <The notecards are a separate order.> I like the option on the top left because it reminds me of a desk calendar. Rumor has it Krista is working on a GIANT calendar that will be perfect for our desks! Yay!! I use the different colored pens when filling out my calendars because it helps me to differentiate at a glance what I need to get done. For me, when I use all the same color, everything tends to run together and I end up missing something. I'm really glad to have found these amazing planners! Krista is currently sold out of hers, but she is getting a new shipment and they will be on sale again on June 11th. I got mine from her Etsy shop, and I'll be ordering another set to get me all ready for the upcoming school year!

Speaking of the amazing Krista Wallden, not too long ago she posted a snapshot on Instagram of her Monthly Summary sheet. She pointed out the importance of reflecting on your TPT store every month to help identify trends and to become a better all-around seller. I thought that was an AMAZING idea! So I sat down and thought about what I'd like to reflect on in my store each month. I've never done this before, so I'm not sure that I covered all the important points. I suppose I won't really know until the end of this month when I sit down and reflect! Here's what I came up with.

Can you think of anything else I should include? I think I'm going to do one for May, even though we're already into June, because I'd like to have something to compare. I believe I'll use May as my 'base-line' and see how things change come the end of June. If you can think of anything else I should include, I'd LOVE to hear from you!!

I have been hard at work creating things for my TPT store! I was a big ol' slacker since the accident in January, but I am starting to get back into the swing of things! My most recent product posted is designed for the beginning of the year to help kiddos get ready for Write the Room Centers. Instead of writing, since many of my kinders cannot write when they first start school, my Dragons will go around the room coloring the pictures to match the posters.

Click on the image above to head over to my TPT Store and check it out! There are 8 activities in this pack and all of them are designed to help kiddos understand the procedures and routines for Write the Room centers. Four of the activities have students coloring the picture on their response sheet to match the color on the poster, while the other four have students coloring the picture to match the color of the frame on the poster. I wanted to have two different styles for them to practice since each Write the Room activity is slightly different and I want them to get used to looking for different things.

Now that I've shared with you a little bit about my week, I invite you to hop on over to Doodle Bugs Teaching and see who else has linked up! You never know what you're going to find!!

Spending Sunday

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I lost my mom in 2013, but I still love her with all of my heart!

It's Sunday, a day oft known for being a way to relax and recharge for the upcoming week. Although others dread Sunday, because it means that Monday is one short sleep away... Since being out of work due to the car wreck, I have had a lot of time to spend working on various projects that I didn't have time for during the school year. Today I am spending Sunday working on a few of those projects.

First, I've been working on getting my computer files more organized. I started with my clipart, since I have SO MUCH of it! Are you a member of Krista Wallden's Monthly or Season Graphics Clubs? You should really check them out, they are AWESOME! I have been a member of her graphics clubs for over a year now, and never once have I been disappointed! Here's a shot of how I kept my graphics club files.

I started organizing before I thought to snap a screen shot, so there are a few months missing. Anyway, I had them all stored like this, which made it hard for me to remember what clipart I actually had. For whatever reason it never bothered me before, but all of a sudden I decided this way wouldn't work anymore and I needed to change it. So, I went into each Month and Season Graphics Club I own and determined the best spot for those sets of clip art. In the Monthly Clubs, you get either 4-5 weeks worth of clipart. In the Season Clubs, you get 10 weeks of clipart. Needless to say I had A LOT of sets that needed to find a new home! I began creating folders based on topic or theme of clipart so that I could easily drag new sets into these folders.

I like this system WAY MORE than what I had previously. Now I can find graphics based on their theme instead of having to search through each Month and Season Club to remind myself of what I have. I still have a lot of work to do in narrowing down the themes, and sometimes I'm not sure if sets fit best where I put them. I imagine this will be an ongoing process, but that's okay. The more organized I can be, the better!!! How do you handle organizing your clipart files? I would love to know your styles and strategies! Do you keep a list, like typed or handwritten, of all the clipart you own so that you can have an easy reference? Do you have folders labeled with different themes or styles and you search each folder for what you need?

This is a file I'm not completely satisfied with, my 'People' clipart. I'm not really liking how it's organized, and I feel like there should be a better way to make it more organized and less cluttered looking. I would love to hear any suggestions you might have on how to improve this!

Oh, and if you're interesting in becoming a member of one of Krista's Graphics Clubs, click on the image below for her May Monthly Graphics Club or her Summer VIP Graphics Club. Trust me, you won't be disappointed!!

May has already started with an adorable set for Week 1 and Week 2 coming very soon! You can also search her store for her June, July, and August 2015 Monthly Graphics Cubs. Yeah, I already have them all and am eagerly waiting to see what incredible sets I'll be getting each week!

You can also snatch up her Summer 2015 VIP Membership. You'll get 10 weeks of clipart sets PLUS an amazingly incredible Newsletter full of Tips & Tricks to help you best utilize the sets you get each week. You can also search her store for her Spring 2015 VIP Membership, but hurry because it's almost over!

Oh, and another REALLY ADORABLE club she has going on right now is her Nursery Rhyme Club!

So far there are two weeks worth of Nursery Rhyme Clipart, and they are absolutely adorable! You won't be disappointed!

So tell me, how are you spending your Sunday? Relaxing and recharging, or catching up on work you need for the upcoming school week? I know that some of you are down to the teen numbers for days of school left! That's awesome!!  In my district, we have another 4 Mondays of students and 5 Mondays of working. I know you are ready for the summer break!!

Share It Saturday

Hello friends!!  I am so excited to have my Facebook page up and running, and I am SO CLOSE to getting 100 Likes!!  What an incredible milestone that would be for me to reach, and you KNOW I'll be celebrating as soon as I do!!  If you haven't already done so, I invite you to come 'Like' my Kindergarten Dragons Facebook page.  You can get an EXCLUSIVE freebie by clicking on the FANS Only tab!!

Today is my Share It Saturday, where I like to share with you different amazing gems I have found throughout the week!!  Pretty much anything and everything I find that I think is 'share-worthy', I'm going to tell you about on Saturdays!!  :-)

One of my goals for this upcoming school year is to be more organized, with EVERYTHING!!! So I have been collecting resources that will help me do that!

This AMAZING bundle is from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd and contains plenty of resources to help me organize my blog, my TPT store, and my weekly team planning sessions!!  Click on the picture above to go to her TPT Store and get your own bundle!!

One other thing I wanted to share with you was a techy tip that my new friend Kayla from Mrs. King's Kinders shared with me!!  

See, I was commenting on new friend's pages and never got any kind of response.  I just assumed everybody was really busy.  Nope.  Kayla let me know that, when she tried to respond to one of my comments, she got a 'noreply blogger' message.  I had no idea this was even happening!!  Not only was she kind enough to let me know, but she also sent me a link to where I could go learn how to correct the problem!!

I followed the link from Kayla to a lovely blog called Anyone Can Decorate, and she had an awesome post about fixing the no-reply blogger problem!!  If you have this problem, or if you aren't sure if you have this problem, click on the picture above to go over to her blog post about it!!  I'm so very glad that my new friend Kayla shared this with me!!!

One more thing I wanted to share with you.  Some of you may know my obsession with all things Crayola, so when I found out about this you KNOW I had to 'Follow All'!!!

They have SO MANY awesome boards with great crafty pins on each!!  If you want to follow Crayola on Pinterest, just click on the picture above!!

Don't forget about my GIVEAWAY!!!  Wednesday is the last day to enter!!

Five for Friday

Happy Friday everyone!!!  Pretty soon it will be Purple Friday time again, GO RAVENS!!!  Today I've decided to link up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for my first Five for Friday linky party.

This linky party is about sharing 5 random things that have happened this week, or that you'd like to talk about.  So, here goes!!

{Numbers created by Mel from Graphics from the Pond}

This week my niece Lilly went on her first trip to the zoo!!  She seemed to really enjoy looking at the animals, and she did a great job on her first trip!

I have been hard at work creating new activities for my TPT store.  The one I am working on currently has totally absorbed my time for the past few days, and STILL isn't finished yet!  However, when it is, it will need these little gems I've been fixing up.

Make sure to stay tuned to learn just what I did with all this stuff!!

I am excited to star the school off as organized as I've ever been!!  Being organized for the entire year is one of my goals for the 2014-2015 school year.  This product I recently purchased should really help me with that!!

This little bundle is really going to help me keep my guided reading (AND guided math) groups more organized this year.  Even though this will be my 4th year in kindergarten, I still feel that there is SO MUCH I need to learn!!  Staying organized has been a struggle for me, so I'm trying to do whatever I can to make it easier!!

In order to help with my organizational goal, I downloaded this AWESOME freebie from Ashley Hughes at The School Supply Addict.

These fantastic EDITABLE binder covers are available as a FREEBIE in Ashley's TPT store.  They are for PERSONAL USE ONLY, but that's okay because I need to get myself organized!!  If you do too, click on the image to take you over to Ashley's TPT store and get a copy for yourself!!!

Finally, I have some VERY EXCITING BLOG NEWS!!!  My little blog is coming up on it's very first birthday!!!

I am fast at work creating a little packet of freebies to celebrate my blog's birthday.  The packet will be available TOMORROW for downloading, so make sure to come back and get your copy!!

I know that some of you are coming up on your Back To School week.  I'm headed back August 18th...ACK, there's still so much to do!!!  I hope you are able to enjoy the rest of your summer!!!  Don't forget to go back to Doodle Bugs Teaching to see which other bloggers have linked up!!