Five for Friday

We just finished the second week of school! I'm so ready for this long weekend :) I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for 5 for Friday to share the highlights from our second week!

Organization and storage!

We got new (to me) desks this year and I love them! They're light, big, and the chairs stack nicely on top! However, they don't have storage underneath which posed a problem.. we do interactive notebooks and they have a few other supplies. I could always have them keep it on the floor under their chair but I could just see the tripping and sliding that would occur.

A teacher was getting rid of book boxes and I thought BINGO! Each table can store their notebooks and folder there! 

Kiddos just come up and grab their notebook when it's time for them to do their assignments. If we ever need to all get our notebooks at the same time then just one kiddo goes to grab them for the whole table. It's been working great!

I saw the desk fairy on "Learning in Wonderland"' instagram account and I HAD TO HAVE ONE! Especially since we don't have the storage, keeping desks neat has been a challenge. Kiddos loved to see our fairy move in and I can't even pretend I didn't copy it even down to the door color :) She has such neat ideas! She also makes the light box designs I bought- if you haven't checked out her blog you must!

You can get the same fairy door on amazon right here.

Our standing desk and balance boards!

Over the summer I planned out a grant proposal for balance boards. I used to have bouncy chairs at this small group table, but honestly the bouncing up and down gave me a slight headache. I still feel there is a lot of benefit to those chairs so I have them in the room for the kiddos to use during math centers. I just couldn't have six bouncy children right in front of me while I tried to teach! But besides that selfish reason, I also had seen a lot of good coming out of the standing desk and balance boards. I noticed many of my students liked to stand while they work, but would have to bend over. I bought bed risers for my table and did a Donors Choose project for the balance boards! We were so fortunate to get the Target funding for the balance boards, and they are a hit! My students actually prefer these to the bouncy chairs! They're also quiet and not so distracting (to peers or their teacher LOL!)

I got the steppie balance boards on amazon if you want to check them out here!

Did you see the dry erase tape idea get shared around on Facebook? I'm trying these as name tags and quick checks. Each desk has a foot long strip that they write their name on, answers to math questions, or write sweet messages to the other class to start their class off on a positive note!

I will say, after two weeks of using them I have already had 4 or 5 peel off. Water bottles are sworn enemies of the dry erase tape! The condensation just peels them right up! I have now taken clear packing tape to secure both ends to hopefully stop the peeling. We'll see how that holds up!

Farm update!

This here is 4 dozen quail eggs! All boiled up and ready for pickling :) 

I have to let them sit for one more day before I can give them a try!

That's all for our week! I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend. My husband's birthday is Sunday and our 1 year anniversary is Tuesday, so I have some shopping to do! Have a great Labor Day weekend and stay dry!

Rock on,

Diana