My Classroom Reveal.....

Welcome to 4th Grade and to my classroom! I am linking up for the #2getherwearebetter blog post this month. Big thank you to the hosts Angie at Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeders Shenanigans in 2nd. I am going to be taking you on a quick tour of the place I will call home for the next 9 months!

My theme this year is sports, anyone who knows me knows that this is right up my alley. I play sports and they are a huge part of my life. I am going to begin my tour right behind my desk. This is where my students jobs are posted, the calendar is hung and where I will be putting my super improver wall. This part of my classroom is in the basketball theme,

My next imagine is a place where my kids love to hang out and that is my reading corner. I have tried to leave them quite a bit of space to sit between all the book shelves. They love to pull some of the chairs I have in the room and make reading forts with the blankets we have in the class. You can see that this book corner has the football theme!

This one has a bit of a soccer theme! Added boring words posters to my reading corners. The kids love to use them when they are writing!

Sorry about the step ladder in the picture. This is where are rules are posted with sports balls surrounding them. Also some of the reading comprehension posters that I found on Teachers Pay Teachers! 

These two pictures are my favorite two things in my classroom. The first picture is the wreath hanging on my door. It was made for me by one of my best friends who is the same lovely aide that did my bulletin boards you saw in the last post. She made it in the colors and the letter of my favorite baseball team the Chicago Cubs!

The next one was also made for me by a fellow teacher in the building, It was my Christmas gift this year and I absolutely love it. Of course it is baseball themed which the teacher knows if my favorite sport of them all. I have this in my computer corner.

Well thanks for checking out my room! Don't forget to give me a follow on, TPT, twitter, Instagram, Periscope and Blab all under the Hanging Out With Miss B!

Until Next Time,

Miss. B

Beginning My Teachers Pay Teachers Journey!

Last week I decided to do something brave. I decided to stop talking about being a seller on Teachers Pay Teachers and actually do it. So I posted something and people downloaded it. Then something truly incredible happened. I posted another item on there, but this time I put a price on it. I was truly convinced that no one would buy it, but I wanted to try and see. Someone did buy it though and although it is just one person, that one person has changed my life. They have now given me the confidence I needed to post something and know that it is worth buying.

I have taken on the social media adventure with Teacher Happy Membership,  Blab, TPT, Periscope, Twitter, blogging and Instagram and I can tell you it has changed my life. I meet other teachers from all over the world and they are not just people I follow they have become my friends. They have become that pat on the back I need when I have had a bad day, that cheer section that listens as I brag about my great days. However the most important thing they are is the supportive group that says stop waiting and do it, stop being embarrassed and do it, stop worrying what others think and do it. They are the kick in the pants I need to become a better teacher and a more confident person.

I am not sure where my social media journey will take me, but I can already tell you that I am a happier and better teacher right now then I have ever been. The friends I have made have made the social media journey so worth it and have made my teacher life so much easier.

So to all of you out there who have ever read my blog, like a picture I have posted, listened to me talk about my day on Periscope or re-tweeted something I say. Thank you for making me see the teacher that I not only want to be, but need to be. Without the support of my new Teaching Family I am not sure how exciting the adventure would be.

Until next time,

Miss. B

My Three Promises to My Students

Well Friday officially marked the first day back to school. Aside from the lack of sleep and the nerves I was having trouble controlling, it all went down without a hitch. Being that this was my official first day of school as a teacher I was terrified of how the day would go. What if I run out of things to talk about? What if I have nothing for them to do? What if they don't listen to me? The questions floating around my head were endless. However, something crazy happened the moment those new fourth graders walked through that door. Instead of being worried and freaked out I remember I was a teacher and that I knew how to do this job. All of my worries went away and I just did what I was good at, I was a teacher.

I did the normal first day of school rules, consequences, unloaded back packs and did a classroom tour. However I also did something that to me was the most important thing I may do all year. I made promises to my students, three promises that I will spend all year doing my best to keep.

My first promise is that I will never embarrass them for making a mistake, because we all know Miss, Bolton is going to make a lot of those this year. We are a family and family doesn't make fun of mistakes. They learn from them and encourage their family to correct them,

Second promise is that no matter what they are doing in class I will never call them out for doing something wrong. This one is a big one. I caught myself last year, saying across the room Hey so and so stop doing that. Everyone in the room then turned and looked at that student and two things would happen. One they would get embarrassed and then would act out more. Or second they would enjoy the attention and continue to do it. I told them that if I do that I will apologize and try to never let it happen again. In my class I will walk over and only talk to that student so only we know what is being said.

Finally the third promise is that when they walk through that door they are my family and I will always love them. We may not get along, we may drive each other crazy but at the end of the day I will love them. This one made the boys laugh and some of their faces got red, but they understood that in my class they were going to be loved and protected. Hugs will always be given out, Good Mornings will always be said and high fives are welcomed.

My class is my kids since I don't have any and last year I made a lot of mistakes. Embarrassed kids when I shouldn't have and didn't say I love you enough. That is going to change, from now on it is less about being the best teacher and more about being a better human. The teaching part is important, but not as important as the impact I am going to have on my students.

I am going to make mistakes this year and so will my fourth graders, but going into a year knowing this will make us more prepared for the mistakes. We are not perfect and thank god for that. Being perfect is boring and in no way do I want to be perfect. I want to be the teacher that down the road my students remember and not for what I taught them in the classroom, but for how I made them feel while they were in it.

Until next time,

Miss. B

My Bulletin Board Reveal

This month in the #2getherwearebetter linkup I am going to be introducing you the bulletin boards that will be in my classroom! I am linking up with Angie from Lucky Little Learners and .Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd. I am not a very artsy person, it is truly one of my weakness. However I have all of these ideas for how I want a board to look, I just am not artistic enough to make it come to life. I have an amazing friend in our school who is a classroom aide and was in the class I student taught in 2 years ago. I have the privilege of calling her one of my best friends and she took my ideas and turned them into something better than I could have ever pulled off.

My first bulletin board will be one that stays up all year. It is right above my classroom library (which is still a mess). The idea is the kids get to break into  two teams (they choose how the tgeams are split) and they are competing against one another for what team can get the most readers out of the end zone. I found last year that my strong readers only cared about their reading goal, but I thought making them teams would have my stronger readers motivating their teammates to continue to read so the team could win. This idea will allow the stronger readers to push themselves to try and make the 50, but also motivate those who are my reluctant readers to work hard to make it as far as they can. I have not decided what quarterly winners will get, however I am open to ideas if anyone has any!

See what I mean by having an awesome friend who can bring your ideas to life! I had this imagine in my head, but would never have been able to actually produce this. This bulletin board is actually out in the hallway and it will be the first thing the students see as they come down the hallway. I plan on changing this monthly to go along with our sports themed classroom. Most of my classroom is football, baseball and basketball, however my friend knows how much I love softball and added softballs as well.


Those are my boards so far, but I am going to keep you all updated on the changes I make to them throughout the year. I also hope to have a board added to my room that I can make into a science bulletin board for my students. I can't wait to see all the amazing boards that the rest of the lovely teachers come up with.

Until next time,

Miss. B

Currently: Gone to the Dogs

I have linked up with Farley for my June currently! Been a while since I have done one of these and glad to be back at it. Hoping our warm weather comes back, it has been down right chilly last few days around here!

Until Next Time,

Miss. B

Summer Break is among us!

Summer Break has finally arrived! It brings with it rest, relaxation and the realization that I have survived my first year as a teacher! I can't tell you how much I have learned about myself after this first year in the classroom. I can tell you however that I have so much to learn and so much more to bring to the table for future classes.

 I feel bad for this first group of kiddos to come through my classroom as they didn't get me at my best. They got me at the tip of my ability and I feel that I had so much more to give them that I haven't figured out how to give yet.

To the wonderful parents in my classroom this year. Thank you for hanging with me and being so amazing. Your patience and belief in me made this year so much smoother than it could have been. Without this wonderful group of parents I am not sure we would have fared as well as we did.

As I enter the summer I plan to work a lot of my weakness and try to turn them into strengths. I am going to read lots of books and blogs  on everything education, going to attend every Professional Development class I can find and finally going to pin everything I can find to improve me as a teacher.

Hard to believe that my first year is over and in 2 short months I will begin my second year as a teacher. When the time comes to go back I know this time I will be more prepared than the first go round.

Until next time,

Miss. B

Spring Break At Last!!

We have finally reached spring break and I am not sure who is was more ready me or the kids?  It is so hard to believe that once we return to school we will only have a month and a half left of school. My first year as a teacher has flown by! I am hoping to spend my break relaxing, exercising and reading the book Teach Like A Pirate! I have heard such amazing things about it and I can not wait to read it!

I am also going to use my break to reflect on the year so far. There have been so many postive and a few negatives that I have faces in my first year as teacher. I know one thing I would not change this year in the classroom for anything. I could not have been blessed with a better group of students or a better group of parents. I hope that the last month and a half are a smooth and wonderful end to a great school year!

Hope everyone out there enjoys their break and comes back from it energized and ready to go!

Until next time,

Miss. B