Five for...Sunday?

It has been such a busy week! I'm joining the linky party a little bit late. Can I have a Five for Friday on a Sunday? Or would that make it a Five for Funday?  In any case, here are my five for this week.

We celebrated my mom's 72nd Birthday last weekend. Or, as the baker wrote on our custom order cake, the 72th. Oops!

My sister and I arranged a mini-family reunion as a birthday surprise. Two of my nieces came up from Florida with three of the great-grandchildren. My brother and niece came over from Tennessee. Mom was surprised and very happy. We spent the weekend hiking, looking through pictures, talking and reminiscing, going to Carowinds, and eating...a LOT!  No wonder I was tired this week.

After three weeks at school and I finally feel like I'm getting finished with the beginning of school stuff. On Monday, we finally finished decorating and filling our book boxes. This is the first time I'm using the cardboard magazine holders from IKEA. I like that the kids are able to decorate the boxes and make them their own. I even put their pictures on the front to make identifying ownership easier. However, I confess that I am a little worried about them lasting the whole year. We'll see. Here are a few of them before I put on the student pictures.

I'm loving my Owl theme this year. I was able to update a lot of areas in my classroom thanks to K's Classroom Kreations. I used her Classroom Decor & Organization: Owl Theme to update my schedule, "I Can" display, word wall, and clock display. Doesn't it look cute?

I've found yet another resource on TPT that makes my life easier. This one is a freebie from Reagan Tunstall.  I printed these Voice Level Charts on blue cardstock and then laminated them. For every activity, I move my magnet to the appropriate chart. If students don't use appropriate volume, I move the magnet to a lower level. If they can't reduce their volume, they lose the privilege to talk and the magnet gets moved to zero. Works like a charm!

We have a large population of English Language Learners at my school. Most of them speak Spanish in their homes. I've found it's helpful to include Spanish translations in much of my classroom decor. Here's a picture of my Color Words in English and Spanish.  After I took this picture, I found out that some of the students use naranja for orange, while others use anaranjado. The kids voted to include both in our display.

Check out my other Bilingual Resources in my TpT store!

That's it for this week. Make sure you check out all of the other great bloggers on the Linky. Thanks always to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

Until next time,