Vestibular What?

Did you know that most children have underdeveloped Vestibular Systems? This means that they have weakened balance. It is caused by restricted movement. 

Let’s face it. Our kiddos aren’t getting enough movement, and because of it, ADD, obesity and diabetes rates are climbing like crazy. 

When I was a kid, my brother and I spent our time playing outside with our friends – riding our bikes, running up and down the street, hide and seek, tag, street hockey… You name it! Kiddos today depend on technology to keep them entertained. They’d rather spend their time zoned out in front an iPad or Xbox for hours on end than doing something active. 

What does this dependency on electronics mean for parents and teachers? It means we have to work harder at being entertaining! It’s hard work, but it’s well worth it. Behavioral outbursts and symptoms of ADD are two things linked to restricted movement. The more our children move, the more controlled their behavior will be. Our bodies need to move, and when we force them to stay still for extended amounts of time… Well, it doesn’t work out so well. 

I’ve submitted an Action Based Learning project to Donor’s Choose, asking for wobble cushions, wobble stools, and thumb balls to keep my kiddos moving and engaged all day. My thinking is that if I stimulate and strengthen their Vestibular systems, not only will they learn more, but they’ll be more actively engaged and actually WANT to learn! When my project is approved, I will post a link here, so that you can read all about it :). 

I’ve also created a Get Moving Cup! This is a nifty little tool you can put together to use in your classroom or at home. Inside my cup, are 25 Brain Booster popsicle sticks. Each Brain Booster provides a different opportunity for the class to move around – sometimes individually, sometimes with a partner, and sometimes as a whole group. Each stick is labeled with the part of the brain it activates, too! 

Use your Get Moving Cup between activities, lessons, during transitions, and as a part of your instruction. At home, it can be used between homework problems or when your children are restless or unfocused. Brain Boosters are a fun way to reenergize the brain!

  

Here’s what you’ll need:
Popsicle Sticks (I used colored ones)
2 Cups (one smaller than the other, so it fits inside)
Paint Pens

That’s it! On each popsicle stick, write a Brain Booster and place it in your cup. So that you don’t get stuck repeating the same Brain Boosters over and over, place the ones you’ve already used into the smaller cup. That way, you can grab a new one each time. Once you’ve completed all of them, you can start all over. Feel free to add Brain Boosters to your cup as you come up with more of them!

Below, I’ve included a photo of the 25 Brain Boosters and the parts of the brain they activate. Feel free to use mine or create your own! (The Brain Boosters I used are from an Alief ISD Action Based Learning professional development I attended this summer.)

 

I’ve included some descriptions of the activities for you below. I changed the names of some activities to better suit my classroom. Feel free to add activities as you come up with them to your cup. 
   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 

As you can probably tell, I left some activities out, while changing the names of others. Make your Get Moving cup your own and fill it up with fun!

Which activity do you most want to try?

Enjoy ❤️!

Done With My Classroom!

After two grueling weeks of “teacher cardio” setting up my room, I can proudly say that I’m finally finished!

Although I’m finished decorating and organizing, I do still have a few things to complete to complete my prep.

A few more meetings and a little bit of time left before I meet my kiddos at Meet the Teacher on Friday :).

As students enter the classroom, they will each take their ID badge and clip it to their shirt from the pocket chart. Once inside the classroom, each child then has the responsibility of making their lunch choice for the day.

Cutsey little corner where photos from school years prior, restroom/hallway/library passes, restroom log binder, emergency drill bucket, and recess bucket live.

My classroom library! You can’t really tell, but along the back wall, I’ve set up some milk crates and plastic buckets as bookcases. We’re awaiting 140 books from Donors Choose! My word wall is located in my library area. The letters are laminated and have magnetic strips on the backs, so that stuck easily to my board. The orange “table” to the left of my library is actually a tub I used to store classroom materials in over the summer. This way, I don’t have to take it home and bring it back again at the end of the year! 😉

Academic bulletin boards inside the classroom take up practically all of our wall space. Anchor charts and vocabulary will be displayed in these places within their designated subject area. You’ll notice a mini trash can, supply caddy, and rolly cart at each table. Each table has these materials available to minimize excuses! Students no longer have the excuses, “I need to sharpen my pencil,” “I have trash to throw away,” or “I need to get my notebook from my cubby.” Everything students need is located right at their desks. 😀

My white board is complete with the ABCs and number line from 0-100! My CHAMPS can also be seen below my white board (I’m thinking of adding “Be a…” above the CHAMP.

Welcome to my teacher corner/small group area! I’m happy to say that everything I need is in this corner of the room – organized inside my teacher toolbox or inside binders. To jazz up this space a little bit, I draped a plastic tablecloth ($1 at Family Dollar) over a student desk to make it look a little more snazzy tucked away in my corner. You can also see my bucket storage seats in place here. 😀

Turn-in center! Also found here are my privacy folders, math manipulatives, construction paper, and lined writing paper. The top of the bookcase is adorned with pictures and mementos from previous classes.

My hallway bulletin boards are fun and colorful. This is where most of our student work will be displayed!

What’s your favorite classroom essential?

Live. Love. Learn.
Roxana

Sticky Fingers & Bucket Storage Seats

Howdy!

I’ve been talking about this project with my husband for a year, and finally got it finished tonight… Bucket seats!

Although I’m creating them for my classroom, you could use them for a child’s room, play room, waiting room, any kind of room that needs some storage space.

What you’ll need:
– Buckets! You can purchase these from home improvement stores like Home Depot or Lowes or get them at a very discounted (or free) price from places like Shipley’s Donuts, Whataburger, or Firehouse Subs. Mine are dill pickle buckets from Whataburger 😉.

– Fabric! A 2×2 square is plenty with room to spare just in case. [$35]

– Foam! I used 2″ foam from Hobby Lobby [$3.99 each]

– All purpose spray adhesive! This is super sticky stuff. [$6.99]

– Cardboard! I used a trifold display board. [$3.99]

– Marker! You’ll use this to trace your circles onto your foam.

Directions:
– Trace and cut out a cardboard circle to fit inside the lid of your buckets.

– Trace the cardboard circle onto each of your foam squares.

– Cut your circles out of your foam squares.

– Spray one side of a cardboard circle and one side of a foam circle with the spray adhesive, wait one minute, and stick them together.

– Spray the outer edge of the cardboard side of your circle with spray adhesive and place it adhesive side up on a fabric square.

– Quickly and carefully pull the fabric toward the center of the circle and press down to stick it to the sticky cardboard surface. Do this until you’ve made it all the way around and your cardboard and foam now looks like a fabric covered cushion.

– Apply spray adhesive to the inner circle of the bucket lid and the underside of the fabric covered cushion.

– After one minute, place the cushion onto the lid and apply pressure briefly.

– Repeat with each bucket until you have created the desired about of bucket seats :)!

– If your buckets have writing, stamps, or safety warnings on the sides, use acetone and cotton balls to very easily remove them.

(If you look closely, you can just barely see the safety warning that was once on the side of my bucket in gold.)

– To take it a step further, ribbon can be used to jazz up the seats! I, honestly, don’t suggest using spray paint, because I feel like it would chip right away and be more of a nuisance than pretty.

All in all, this project cost more money and took more time than I had originally expected, but the end result is better than I thought it would be! I couldn’t have couldn’t have completed this project without the help of my sticky-fingered husband, who did all of the grunt work for me <3!

I hope you enjoyed this DIY and that it is useful to you :).

Paper Plate Bubble Letters

Tired of boring old bulletin boards?

There are a few very easy ways to make any bulletin board more festive and fun!

1. Choose brightly colored butcher paper for each bulletin board you are making.

2. Use a contrasting colored border. For an extra splash of fun, layer with a 2nd (or 3rd) border. A great way to do this would be to use border with subject related images or words (ex: beakers and magnifying glasses for science).

3. Spice up your letters by being creative! This year, I used simple paper plates as the backing of my letters for each bulletin board. Below is an example of my reading board:

Three easy steps, one great outcome!

My classroom is coming together beautifully! I finished all of my bulletin boards and lettering today :). Lots more to do next week before the kiddos come back to school 😀.

How’s your classroom prep coming along?

Teacher Toolbox

Wahoo!

I got a project done that I’ve really been wanting to complete for a while now… My teacher toolbox!

Materials:
-22 drawer Stack-On Toolbox [$19.97 Lowes]

-Labels printed on card stock [Free TPT]

-Scissors

-Double sided tape [$4.29]

Directions:
-Find or create your labels!

-Print your labels out on card stock and cut them out. I’ve read that some people laminate their labels, but I didn’t, and it worked beautifully!

-Apply double sided tape to the front of each label and place it inside the drawer. Press firmly to apply it in the proper place.

-Voila! You’re finished. Admire your work :).

The majority of my time for the project was spent filling in my labels on the computer and cutting out the labels. It’s a super simple project that will give your classroom (or office space) a refreshing vavavoom! 😀

Summer is Officially OVER!

For teachers, the summer comes to an end at the beginning of August, and you know what?

I kinda like it.

It feels good to be back in the classroom. Organizing, seat arranging, posting motivational words around the room.. I feel alive again! Like my life has a true purpose once more.

Although I’m extremely excited to be getting back into the “groove,” I’m also also feeling a little overwhelmed.

Goodbye to the many summer projects I was dying to complete that were never started.. Until we meet again next year!

I did get one thing done, though! Lol

I completed a bucket seat for my small group table. I’m going to use these bad boys to secretly store classroom supplies (Shh! Don’t tell! 😉)

Although I’m back in my classroom and back in school for PDs, I still have a couple little projects I plan on completing before school gets started on the 25th, but we’ll see if they actually get done or not! I’m really hoping they do 😀!

I can’t wait to show y’all my classroom!

Live. Love. Learn.
Roxana

Teaching Second

I know it’s been a while.

I don’t have much to share, other than the fact that I am moving to second grade!

I’m rather excited, and have already started moving into my new classroom. Luckily, I’m moving into a classroom that is not in use this year, so I’ve been slowly taking my things in over the last week and will continue to do so until the end of school.

Mine more days of school left!

Love. Love. Learn.
Roxana

This is really going to happen!

I ordered my first cycle of meds for our IUI + TI cycle. I didn’t think I’d ever see this day… We’re finally going to try.

Our meds came out to less than we thought they would without coverage, although the pharmacy is going to try to authorize the prescription with my insurance company (I was told it’s very unlikely, but we’ll see).

E2 labs are on Thursday morning and injections start that evening!

Wahooooooo!

Live. Love. Learn.
Roxana

Classroom DIY: Student Grouping Cards

Today was the coldest day of winter, yet! Of course, the freezing cold would come with my first day back to school after winter break. I started my morning at a bone-chilling 27 degrees.. yikes!

Although I would have loved to stay in my warm bed today, it felt nice to be productive in my classroom all day. It may, however, take me a few days to get back into the swing if things. We’re starting our morning tomorrow by discussing our school expectations an routines. We will also be creating a new “Do & Do Not” chart together during our Community Circle :).

The Classroom DIY I created tonight is a set of student grouping cards. love having these cards for use in my classroom. They make grouping students so much easier!

To make my grouping cards, I used paint swatches from Home Depot. I chose 6 bright colors, and took 4 of each.

On each card I glued a university logo, animal, and number. This way, students don’t ever know hoe I’m going to group them – by the color of the swatch, university, animal, or number! Keeps them on their toes :).

Live. Laugh. Learn.
Roxana

Reading Small Group Organization

Although this is my third year teaching, it is my first year implementing small groups (my HISD school didn’t implement them… go figure). Because small group rotations are new to me, I wanted to make myself organized an orderly, as to aid in the small group rotation process being smooth on a daily basis.

I took over a corner of my classroom with chapter books chosen for each child’s reading level (to be used for independent reading – organized my animals: bears, lions, elephants, and giraffes), table top flip chart stations (reading response, writing practice, and word study), vocabulary words (I use Word-A-Day), and construction paper to use in the stations.

(Among the above stated items, I also have items stored that will be used for future work stations – skill games, magnetic letters, and vocabulary cards)

Here are a few more photos that show things up close:

(Daily Small Group Schedule – A used an old pocke chart of mine to create this rotation chart. I will be, within the next few days, putting up notes with the names of the children in each group. This makes it, not only easy for them to understand, but also simplifies it for me!)

(Weekly Small Group Schedule – I coordinated the photos on the weekly schedule to the photos on the daily rotation chart and book bins.)

I will post photos of how I keep myself organized, in regards to my small groups (we’re blocked – so I have two sets of groups) tomorrow. Keep an eye out <3!

Love. Laugh. Learn.
Roxana