Interactive Notebook Cover {A Freebie!}

I've recently transitioned into a brand-new teaching adventure teaching ESOL and I love it!  My ELL students are amazing and I can't wait to learn and grow with them this year.

Last week, I officially started pulling them for their instruction.  The first few weeks of school were spent testing new ELL students and completing federal paperwork.  Those were probably the longest weeks of my entire teaching career because I missed seeing students.

Which is one of the reasons that I've been sporadic (at best) with posting to this blog.  I really haven't had too much to say.

Now that I've started seeing students, I hope to start sharing more of what we are doing.

I'll start today with sharing our interactive notebooks.

If you have been a reader since the beginning, you already know that I am a strong believer in interactive notebooking.  Yes, "notebooking".  It's a verb.  As in we "DO" this together.  It requires active thinking and "doing".

When I transitioned into this new role, luckily for me, I was partnered back up (although virtually as we are in different schools) with my best teacher friend in the whole-wide-world.  I shared two years ago about how sad I was that she was leaving me to do ESOL.  You can read all about that {here}.  But, now that we are back together, we have been sharing ideas again and we are back to being like peas and carrots :)

Anyway, she has been notebooking with her ELL kiddos and I knew that I would want to do that, too!

Take a look at the covers we created last week.

Do you need a notebook cover?  I made this one available as an editable file.  Check it out by clicking on the image below:

Do you use interactive notebooks?  I'd love to hear about how you have your students create covers.  Leave me a comment below!

Hope to be back soon!

Finally, a Classroom Reveal :)

Hello all,

I know it's almost the end of September...it's fall after all.  But, I am finally ready to show you what I have made of my new classroom.

If you have been around for a while, you know that I have changed jobs, changed schools, and pretty much changed everything that there is to change...

Change is good.
It's good for my soul, that's for sure.

So, sit back and enjoy my new view:

First, let me show you the focal point of my classroom.

I love it!  It is so bright and cheery and several people still stop by daily to pop in and let me know how inviting it looks.  It's kinda hard to miss a bright orange sofa.

Back story:  My in-laws moved to town this summer and sadly luckily their sofa wouldn't fit up the stairs to their bonus room.  So, I said, "Hey, I know just the place for that sofa!"  I mean, duh.  How perfect is it?

I've had the opportunity to sit on it a few times to read some books with my ELL students and they love it!  (So do I.)

Mostly, though, we sit here:

See the cute, yellow chairs?  Donors Choose, baby! Thank you, donors and Donors Choose!!

Reading nook:

Complete with a few yellow chairs.  I still need another bookshelf.

One of my filing cabinets made it's way over to my new school.

Don't worry, I replaced it at my old school ;)

And, what classroom is complete without a few poof balls hanging?

That's one of the reasons it's taken me so long to post these pictures.  I just hung them last week.

So, there you have it.  Wish you all could come visit and sit on the big, orange sofa with me.  I'd make you a coffee.  For real, why don't you stop in?

And, How Have You Been? And, Giveaway Winner Announced

So, I've been a little MIA lately.  I've been in a blogging/creating slump lately.  I've been overwhelmed with my job change (in a good way), and have wanted to devote all of my energy to my new position and to my family.  I hope you understand :)

However, I woke up with the most amazing feedback on Teachers Pay Teachers and it made me miss y'all.

Check out the sweetness:

It totally made my morning.

So how have you been lately?  Are you back into the swing of things at school?  Did you just head back?  I hope you all have a wonderful 2014-2015 school year!

Now to the winner of the BIC Giveaway!  Congratulations to Chris L.  You are going to love the goodies from BIC!  (I sent you an email.)

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!!