Welcome to Mrs. McDowell's classroom on the web! I hope you are enjoying the summer and taking time to relax before going back to school.  Last year was busy and it has been a long time since I have had a chance to update the website.  I hope you will find lots of helpful tips, resources, and links for teachers. 

We are linked up with Amazon!  Now you don't have to search the web to find the resources I recommend!  Just click on the book and you can purchase it right away!  Anything you order through Amazon helps our classroom!  Amazon sells much more than books, so be sure and check out all of their amazing product lines.  If you purchase an item through a link on my site, you will help our classroom earn gift certificates to buy more books for our classroom library. Wow!  Find excellent resources for your classroom now by visiting Centers and Literacy Centers.  You can also search for Amazon products right here!

Bee Happy,

Mrs. McDowell

Please click on the links on the left hand side of the page.   I want to thank all of you who have purchased books, pocket charts, etc. from Amazon through a link on my site!  You are helping our classroom library and my professional library grow.

Fun Products from Amazon:

So how are you going to organize your classroom this year?  If you are like me you are constantly looking for new ways to update your classroom and organize all of that stuff you have.  I have recently created a page dedicated to getting organized, so Let's Get Organized!  I hope you will check it out and email me with your favorite organizational tips!

I can't wait to read Debbie Diller's newest book Spaces and Places!  It was just published this summer.  Order yours today! I have also included links to some great resources for beginning the school year from the Responsive Classroom.  Great ideas for setting up a classroom community.

I was honored to have Gail and Joan autograph my copy of The Daily Five last year when I presented at the Southern Alabama Early Childhood Conference.  Be sure you  have a copy of this great book! 

Looking for new ways to make math more interactive?  Check out these engaging resources:

Great picks for morning meeting, small group instruction, centers, and writers workshop!

Do you have Wikki Sticks yet?  These are great for underlining or circling words or sentences in Big Books.  They stick on and off books without damaging them.  Students can also use them to spell words in centers!  Have students lay a sheet of paper on top of the words they spelled and rub a crayon over it to see their words magically appear!

Pocket charts are great for creating centers, displaying the daily schedule and organizing materials for small group reading.  Here are some fun products!

Check out the following website updates:

Morning Meeting: 2008-2009 calendars are now available.  NEW for this year, each calendar page also contains a list of seasonal words!  Students can use the blank space to illustrate a picture for each month or write a few sentences using the seasonal words.  There are also weather graphs for each month, a birthday graph, and a chart for counting the days of school. For best format, download in pdf form. Find new resources for implementing morning meeting!

Open Court Resources: This page contains lots of pictures of reading and writing.  Many of the activities were created to coordinate with the open court reading program, but all of the ideas could be used in any classroom.  If you just went to an Open Court training, you will especially enjoy this new page.  Be patient because there are lots of pictures! 

Workshops: If your school is in need of a presenter, please contact me via email for more information. For information or handouts from previous presentations, please visit the Workshops page.