Spring Cleaning Means Spring Organization!

This year has been crazy with new teachers, new students, new ideas, RTI, Intervention, Co-Teaching, Space Night, STAAR testing, Benchmarks, SPED requirements, new professional development and so much more. I still love it, though :)

Now that it is spring, it is more important than ever to get organized. Everything is getting jammed into the school day along with testing coming up, so people are freaking out about getting it all done. I wanted to share my Daily Teacher Organizer that I use to help me get through the day. In the morning, when my head is clear, I fill out my organizer with all of the things that have to be done that day. Everything that is school related fits in one of the sections in the organizer, and I have a dedicated clipboard for it so I can find it easily and quickly as the day goes on. I am offering it as a free download on my blog and in my TPT store.

There are 3 versions, so use whichever one works best for you. I use the middle version, the one featured below. It does what I need it to do daily. I really find it helpful for me, and hopefully some of you will, too!

Have a great week!

Classroom Management for the New School Year

Every year, no matter how good it goes or how many headaches occur, I am always ready to try new things when a new year approaches. I finished my room this year in record time...5pm Friday before school :) I am going to implement a few new things in my classroom that I saw on blogs over the summer and I am keeping some that I thought worked great from last year.

*FYI - I have about 120 students in 4 science classes (one regular, 1 co-teach, and 2 pre-AP) and one hour long Intervention class where students get enrichment or intervention at the end of the day. I have one lab classroom and work on a team with 4 other teachers (Math, ELA, Soc.Studies and SPED).

1. New Volume Board -It won't flip, even if it is saved that way, so instead of fighting it, please tilt your head :) If anyone can help me with this, I would greatly appreciate it.

I have used a C.H.A.M.P.S. board, but I found it too hard to switch all sections each time we did something different in class. I saw something similar to this this summer and I decided it would work better. My whole team is using this in each of their classrooms so students get to used to it and know exactly what the expectations are for each section.

2. Old Supplies Marking

I used pickle duct tape on my class sets of supplies last year (glue, scissors, red pens, etc.,...) and I lost so many less supplies to sticky fingers than in years past. I chose a duct tape design that I didn't see many places, so another teacher probably would not have it. Dill Pickles seemed appropriate. I wrapped it around my glue, and made little flags for my scissors and pens and things. When the tape stuck to the sticky side of itself, it was much harder for a student to pry off or for it to just fall off from wear and tear. I decided this was a great thing to do again this year.

3. New Exit Tickets - Stoplight Method

I have wanted to routinely implement exit tickets in my classroom for many years. It has been hard to find a system that was not wasting paper, was easy for me to assess, and was easy for the students to remember how to do. I saw this video on Teacher Channel. It seemed really easy to make, and the students could easily slap them up on the wall as they left the room. The green one says, "Today I LEARNED...(be specific!)." The yellow one says, "A QUESTION I have is..." The red one says, "What STOPPED my learning was..." Hopefully I can easily grab stickies by color and really make sure I focus on those points. This will also help me prioritize which exit slips get the most attention when I have to leave right after class and cannot assess 120 slips in one evening.

4. Old Enter and Exit Checklists

 I used these last year, and they were a good reminder of my expectations when entering my classroom and before being able to leave the classroom. It also gave me a place to direct the students to reference when they forgot or needed redirection.

5. New/Old Finger Signs

I know a lot of teachers think 5th graders are too old for finger signs, but they make my class run a lot smoother. Students hold up certain fingers for certain needs, so you can just nod your head while you are teaching or talking to others without interruption. It is especially helpful during testing and other silent times. I just updated my posters from last year so they were easier to see from across the room (my science lab is pretty long).

6. New Absent Files

I think it age appropriate for 5th graders to be responsible for their own absent work. Last year, I had a folder on the wall per class. If a student was absent, I would write their name on the papers and put them in the right folder. This year, I made a simple stacked file pocket out of file folders and duct tape. It was another idea I saw this summer. It was really easy to make. Instructions are here. When a student is absent, I can just put all the copies from the day in the folder and they can get one out for the day they were absent. We will see if this way is easier that last year's way.

7. Old Color-Coded Classes

To make my life and the students' lives easier, each class is color-coded. The labels for their turn in boxes, journal bins, and warm up / pass back shelves all have the same color. We will also tape a piece of matching colored paper on the spine of their journals so we can easily get each journal back into the correct bin.

Hopefully all of these classroom management strategies will help make life a little easier in the classroom so we can maximize learning time. I hope you have a great year, and I will post again, soon!

C.H.A.M.P.S

This year, already as week in, I would like to implement C.H.A.M.P.S in my classroom. I had seen a few of these floating around other blogs, and I thought this would be a great idea in my classroom. It is a classroom management tool that allows you to easily set up guidelines for basics like conversation levels, how to get help, activity level, movement allowed, and participation required during different classroom activities such as labs, testing, independent work, journaling, and other activities.

I will post a picture this week once I set it up, but I made the printables for it. You print them, and laminate them stacked on top of one another. Then you can put them on the whiteboard and use magnets to show what the guidelines are or stick them to a wall leaving the left side unattached and use clothes pins to show the guidelines.

 

The top page has a spot to write the activity you are working on (use dry erase markers after laminating). I also included a grid page that had the different activities we would be using in my classroom and the guidelines for those quickly so students could have a reference in their binders to refer to, too.

There are two different versions; a bright version, and a robot version (to match my classroom, of course!). You can get the bright version on Teachers Pay Teachers and the robot version up above!

If you download it, let me know if you are able to implement it and how it goes or if you already use this system :)

First Week Survival and Erin Condren Teacher Planner

So the first week of school is over and I think teachers and students alike have earned this three day weekend. Between the constant roster changes (new additions, students who never showed, and flip-flopping), mountains of papers due to different people by Friday (I just thought of one I forgot to turn in), trying to get all classes to the same point in my schedule, and the 4 student-teacher conferences already, I am exhausted but happy to be back teaching. I truly love it.

At the end of the day Friday, I came home to my sweet destructive babies and saw a week's worth of a mess of a house and a package at the door. 

I knew exactly what it was: my new teacher planner from www.erincondren.com! I knew what had to be done. We had to clean the house and reward ourselves with getting to open the package. So we knocked out the playroom (garage turned into a child's dream) in 10 minutes, moved on to the living room and dining room with Emily pushing around the shopping cart and collecting toys in it, then we even swept all the little people and balls from under the couch. Then we got to open this greatness:

I am in love! I got a teacher planner in Instagram (that is the cover design name) and a free set of elastic bands. It came with a ruler bookmark, personalized gift tags, and 3 $10 coupons. If you haven't seen these teacher planners, you must watch the intro video here. 

*WARNING!!! If you watch the video, you WILL want this planner, and it is $60. No one warned me how much it was before I watched it, and I was hooked and had to justify my $60. I love it, and I hope I find it useful all year.