Special Shout-out Time!
This one goes to Amy at AdventuresinTeaching.net for awarding me the Versatile Blogger Award!  I am very excited to place this on my blog (and even more excited that I'm gaining followers every day)!  Thank you all for staying interested and keep the comments coming.
In keeping with the rules of the Versatile Blogger...here are my 7 random facts.
1.  My husband and I are actually Hatfield and McCoy (not joking).
2.  My father, mother, brother, and myself all have birthdays on major holidays.
3.  My guilty obsession is orange Kool-aid and peanut butter fudge.
4.  Because of #3 I am now addicted to P90x.
5.  I love Big Brother.
6.  I absolutely cannot whistle no matter how hard I try.
7.  I have 6 different colors of contact lenses - just because I think it's fun!







Nominate other bloggers...
1.  Just a Primary Girl
2.  Pocketful of Centers
3.  The Bender Bunch
4.  Leading and Reading
5.  Simply Sweet Teaching

Writing and Common Core

The level of rigor at which students are required to write is quickly changing. They have to be able to write for many audiences and purposes, as well as formats and styles. Many times teachers have little or no resources to teach writing. Here is an idea to provide hundreds of real, meaningful writing opportunities to last the entire year.
1. Give each student a disposable camera the first week of school.
2. Ask them to return it after taking pictures of their friends, family, neighborhood, grocery store, etc...anything (school appropriate)that is part of their everyday life. The point is for the pictures to be nothing extra special or extraordinary.
3. Develop the pictures and place them in sheet protectors in a binder!
4.  Since writing lessons are usually more fluid and may change on a daily basis, consider writing many of your strategy mini-lessons on sticky notes that can be easily manipulated.  If you use the template below you can add your own notes as well.  Some pics may lend themselves to a series of several mini-lessons.

Visit my TPT store to download both versions for free!
Cindy's Curriculum Corner TPT store

Newby Blog Hop!

1.  What state do you live in?
I live in Florida

2.  What is your current teaching position?
I am a Curriculum Resource Coordinator.

3.  What is your teaching experience?
I have taught all grades K-5. 

4.  When did you start blogging?
I started blogging two weeks ago!

5.  Share a bloggin tip.
Join a newby linky party!!!

CAFE and Back to School Organization

I love the pics of this classroom and how she organizes CAFE!

Teaching Blog Addict: Back To School Classroom Organization: CAFE BOARD - My new cafe board is still in progress.  One idea that I am really excited about is the magnetic (stove) burner covers fr...

Teaching Blog Addict: Conferring wtih Students During Math (with a freeb...

Guided Math book study...this post is for chapter 7 but if you click on the link you can scroll back to the beginning.

Teaching Blog Addict: Conferring wtih Students During Math (with a freeb...:   I am so excited to be co-hosting Chapter 7 with Beth over at Thinking of Teaching ! Although I've been doing my own version ...

Daily 5

Daily 5 seems to be growing bigger and bigger each day.  There are tons of resources popping up on Pinterest and TpT all the time.  Although this book study is hosted by a Kindergarten teacher, the basics are useful for almost any grade level.  This blog is doing a great job at giving you the quick, straight-forward foundations of Daily 5.

Little Miss Kindergarten - Lessons from the Little Red Schoolhouse!: Daily Five!: I am teaming up with some great Kinder friends for a closer look at the Daily 5. If you are in here is how it works... Each Thursday the ho...

Accelerated Math: Bringing Math To The Next Level

Bringing Math To The Next Level

Classroom Setup and Organization: Everything You Need | Scholastic.com

Here are some great resources from Scholastic on getting set up for the new school year.

Classroom Setup and Organization: Everything You Need | Scholastic.com

Head Off Behavior Problems With Classroom Procedures | Scholastic.com

Head Off Behavior Problems With Classroom Procedures | Scholastic.com

More on blog following...

I think the easiest way to keep up with blogs is to install the feed reader gadget on your computer desktop.  It's so simple!
Step 1:  Go to any blog site.
Step 2:  In Internet Explorer you can click on the "tools" and then "feed discovery".  You should see at least 2 choices ATOM or RSS.  I personally prefer ATOM but it really doesn't matter which one you choose but you will want to pick one type and stick with it (otherwise your feeds will wind up in two different places).
Step 3:  Click "Subscribe to this feed".  You should have a feed folder already there (who knew!)
Step 4:  Continue adding feeds for sites you enjoy.
Step 5:  Right click on any blank space on your desktop and select "feed headliner".  This will place the scrolling headliner on your desktop.  Then just select the feed folder you just saved everything in.  This should be fairly simple if you only have the default feed folder you began with.  If you added folders it may be a little trickier.  The headliner will continually update and you can choose options such as number of feeds to show, etc. 
Now just read the headlines as they scroll and if one looks interesting you can click on it directly from the headliner on your desktop!

Happy blog following!

Getting Organized for Back to School!

There are several awesome sites popping up in cyberland with great ideas for organizing and getting ready for the new school year.  Here are just a few of the ones I thought were interesting.
Our Class Web
Education Closet
Dandelions and Dragonflies
Mrs. Terhune

How to follow a blog

Here is a pretty simple guide to blog following.  It gives you several options.  I personally prefer the first method and I do have the follow (or join) button on my blog if you scroll down far enough.

Blog following

Learning Goals and Scales

Here are some pictures of how I set up student learning goals and scales.  Using a pocket chart with sentence strips is a time saver since many of the learning goals may be covered over multiple days or weeks and revisited throughout the year (not to mention following years!).

Making Connections

How are making connection going to look in the classroom with the implementation of Common Core?  The past several years have seen a push toward pre-reading strategies and making connections.  The Fordham Institute poses some thoughts on what these changes may look like under CCSS in the classroom.
Fordham Institute - Common Core Watch