Holiday Library Fun!

Sometimes, I like to play with books and pretend I'm artistic. The "Bookmas" tree is ALL my awesome volunteers and the Book Menorah is all me! Now to think of other neat things to do with books next year...maybe a Diwali candle?

Reflector is Amazing!

Finally got my IT person to install Reflector! How cool is this??

I love how I can ACTUALLY show my students how to use the iPads without confusing them using the website on a desktop and then them going to the iPad and not having the same menus/buttons! I highly recommend Reflector!

School Starts Tomorrow... Perfect time to change things....wait, I may have this backwards...

School starts Tuesday, September 2nd!

(By the way, isn’t this font adorbs? It’s called “KG Only*Hope” Get it!)

I have been concentrating on turning the mess back into a library (more in another blog post later...once I've calmed down, perhaps in a year or 2...).

However, I know the students are coming SOON and I need my centers and copies and ideas and books and computers and iPads and pencils (and a billion other things, you get the idea) ready! 

Because the library is a little bit of a disaster, I'm not sure if the computers are (a) going to be there, (b) going to be available, or (c) going to be enough for 12 - 30 students...therefore, I decided to take that center out altogether! So now the centers will be:

PreK and K - 

• Checkout (practice until October), with PreK checking out books to be kept in their classroom, and Kindergarten allowed one book to take home.
• Reading Area (practice reading with a partner, since Reading Buddies will also be starting soon), and 
• Brainpop Jr. on the iPad (I want them to learn how to use the iPads, get used to the size, learn how to use the headphones, and then we'll start making our own videos/pictures, other fun stuff to come, plus easy and less planning for me! (Spoiler alert – fun stuff to come might include Chromville....!)

1st and 2nd - 

• Checkout starting the 2nd or 3rd week of school (depending on computer/data ready) - planning one book for 1^st graders, 2 books for 2^nd, and up to 3 for 3^rd, up to 4 for 4^th, up to 5 for 5^th….going to try it out and if it’s a disaster, will scale back, but some of the students’ feedback asked for more to checkout at one time, which I can TOTALLY understand as I often had an entire shelf of public library books at home…ahem…I need to read 3 books at once…doesn't everyone? J
• Reading Area (practice reading with a partner, since Reading Buddies will also be starting soon), and 
• Explore SOAR (the online card catalog) on the iPad - we'll start learning how to look up and find books and I like the idea of the iPads, since they can walk around with the iPad (not so easy to do on a desktop). Looking forward to this change, and crossing my fingers that the stars align and the iPads, SOAR, and wifi all work together.

That will be September and October. It takes that long to learn all the centers, get all the routines, rules, and procedures down, and once everything is smooth sailing, I will change everything and use some of the new apps I learned about today! 

Comment and share how you are getting ready for the new year!

Keep reading, 

Mrs. Thakkar

Fonts used:

Calibri (part of MS Word, and most programs)

KG HAPPY Solid

KG I Need  A Heart

KG Melonheadz

KG Only*Hope

KG Second ChancesSketch

KG THE Last Time

Ms. Dhruv is Now Mrs. Thakkar!

I recently(ish) got married!

Technically, my husband and I got married in January on the 3rd anniversary of our first date! 

In January, my amazing students gave me some sweet notes and advice (and a paper airplane, of course…):

 
  

Dear Formerly Ms.                           Number 1,
Dhruv  I am                                   Allways live
going to tell                                           happy
you some tips                                    2, Have a
for your                                               good tim -
marreg                                                                 

If that isn't good advice I don't know what is! 

Wedding Invitation

Then for our parents, we had a Hindu wedding ceremony to be married in the eyes of God. 

Reception Invitation (made by me!)

Then we also had an amazing reception in the city for us! =) 

Want to see more pictures and my amazing "Engagement Photos"? 
Please enjoy! 

So now you know why my name changed! And soon I will get used to being Mrs. Thakkar, and not wonder who they are calling over and over again...(oh wait, that's me!) =)

New Year, New Supplies! And a Word Wall Idea!

Holy Moly,

School is Almost Back in Session!

(Shameless plug - TPT is having a Back to School sale! Go to my newly named TPT store: Thakkars Thinkers, it's all on sale! Ok, back to our regularly scheduled programming!)

You may remember my supplies from last year. 

Very organized, pretty straight forward. 

What you see: Crayon Drawer - Get the labels! 

Cups for colored pencils - labeled with the color that belongs in it
Construction paper
Sharp and Dull Pencil baskets
Blue cups - pencils
Red cups - colored pencils
Baskets of new crayons!
Marker pack
Glue
Scissors

Around mid - March, for a variety of reasons, I decided to switch over to bins.

The blue (pencil) cup and red (colored pencil) cup are in each bin + a crayon bin, all labeled with the table number.

I am debating buying all the same color or a certain color scheme for next year, but in reality, it probably will stay the same until the bins break! 

Let's be honest... The MAIN reason was that I needed something clip the table numbers to.

After re-taping the table numbers more than twice, I was just sick of kids picking at it. I also used to stick a "word wall" to my tables, with a circle for the pencil cup. I wanted to reinstate that idea, and I also wanted them to be able to move and manipulate the "word wall." The word wall is another of my ideas out of desperation. I don't really have any great centralized space for a word wall (someone wouldn't be able to see it or would need to get up all the time). I also wanted the word wall to be an activity for "fast finishers" who needed a challenge. I have some of the words up each quarter in the reading area, but this way they can see them. I'm debating making 4 to clip one to each side (instead of just one like you see here, so each child would have one) and making a new "dictionary" center where they go to the library website, click on the dictionary link, look up a set amount of words, and record them. (This was literally just a thought that popped into my head). 

Want the word wall? Leave a comment with your email and I'll send you the file! 

Keep reading!

Ms. Dhruv

Learning about Infographics!

Learning about infographics today! To start the visual thinking, made a word cloud with the words from this blog on Tagxedo, with a picture of my own as the "background."

Fun times!

Also made this on Google Draw using real life circulation stats!

Volunteer Gifts!

As we near the end of the year, I wanted to find something to thank my volunteers. This year I had 5 amazing volunteers who not only shelved and helped with check out, but also kept my sanity! I had one amazing volunteer who came in every Tuesday and Thursday for my worst Kindergarten classes (2 "SpEd" classes, one diagnosed, the other not...good times for 100 minutes!). 

Anywhoo...I wanted to thank them and I know that I appreciate the hand written thank you notes, so I had the students write thank you notes and I made them into a little book. I also included this: 

 

It's a purse hook with an apple! How cute! It came in 4 colors - red, pink, silver, and green. I also added chocolate because, well, who doesn't like chocolate =)

If you like the purse hooks, they come in a set of 4, and are $20.99 right now, I bought them on Amazon and used my Amazon Prime - Purse Hook. =)

First I took pictures of each student (the parent volunteer's child), with a letter from the word THANKS - for example, (I needed one more for the S, as one student was absent for a few days and I may have procrastinated a little too long =)  ) 

This is the S with our fave The Cat in the Hat! 

This is one of the Thank You Note books. I took the photo I took, merged them all together, changed the coloring (made it pale green) and added the text and printed 5 copies! I trimmed them down and used Scrapbook Paper, then folded in half  and stapled the TY notes into it. 

Close Up!

All the bags!

Cuteeee times!

Kept getting the bags confused, so made little name tags!

Close up:

I also found adorable Owl Gift Bags
and put the book, the hook (in it's little pouch),
and the chocolate in there. So cute!