Monday Made It September Edition Getting My Back to School Craft On

Today starts are first full week of school!  I have a few things to share today, because Tara has started her Monday Made-Its as a monthly link up, and that gives me time to actually finish what I am working on.

First, I made these clipboards:

I have to show off a little of my Gator pride when I am not in Gator Nation.  I am still looking for Syracuse duct tape, to make 2 more, I may have to order it online.  This project was relatively simple for me. I use one sheet of duct tape for the blue in the center.  I found it on sale at Staples for $0.25, and I figured that would be easier than running the lines of tape all across the board.  I knew I would never get them all straight!  I made two of these clipboards, and I'm going to keep them separate from the ones I give my kids to use.  I'll use them for my grades, and data collection, and as my clipboard for busing at the end of the day.

Second are these numbered clothespins.

 I am going to attach magnets to the back of these and have my students use them when we put writing or projects up in the hallway.  All of my students are assigned a number, and by using these, I will easily be able to tell who is finished or not finished with a particular assignment.  I love the ease of washi tape!

Speaking of washi tape:  Here is my third project:

This is my fastpass board.  Because I work on a team, I convinced my teammate to number her students with different numbers than I did, so that we could create and collect data on all the kids without having 2 number one's.  She is totally crafty, and created a really cute board for exit slips using library pockets. This way, we don't waste as many post it notes. Our district will print pads of paper for us, so our students will answer our question for the exit slip, and put it in the library pocket.  My teammate is a Disney fanatic!  So her board is made with a cute Mickey ear stamp.  Keeping with the Disney idea, we decided to call it a FASTPASS station instead of a ticket out the door.  Since I am all about the converse sneakers, I made mine with chucks.  I created the board using the library pockets, and old diskette labels... DISKETTE!  Found them at a Goodwill for $1.00  I can't beat that!

Lastly, to use up the labels I found at that super low bargain price, I made Smartie Locker reminders for my kids for the first day of school.

After I got  my locker list, I added student names, locker numbers, and combos to the list, and my students keep these in the plastic pocket of their agendas until they memorize the combos.

Do you have anything fun that you have made over the past few weeks? Stop by and visit Tara, and link up to share!

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Thursday Throwdown: Sending Students Off With a Few Reminders

Today is our second day of school!  I'm already TIRED!  But I couldn't pass up the chance to participate in Erin's Thursday Throwdown over at I'm Lovin Lit.

I love this link up.  I always get so many great ideas of ways to interact with my students.  I'm sharing a simple, easy one today, plus I get to show off my cool new clipboard that I made!

My classroom sits next to an exit door to the buses.  Fortunately, my fabulous teammate has her classroom on the other side of the exit door. Starting with our first day of school, we teach our students to exit through the doors between our classrooms.  The last period of the day many of our students are not with us.  It is the scheduled period for band or chorus, and a lot of our smarties participate in these activities.  We want our students to pass us on the way out the door so we can give them gentle reminders about having all of their materials.  My teammate and I park ourselves on stools in the middle of the hallway with our clipboards.  Our clipboards have messages on them.  They usually remind students about an upcoming test, or ask them if they have remembered their Communication Journal, etc.

Sometimes we ask the kids a question and have them answer it on the way out the door.  Sometimes we give them Jolly Ranchers or Hershey kisses as rewards for having what we are looking for, or answering questions correctly.  If they don't have what they need from their backpack we have the opportunity to send them back to the locker before they get on the bus.
Hopefully we are reinforcing key organizational skills and the importance of being prepared!  Although this isn't interacting WITHIN my classroom, it is a great way to touch base with our students and build rapport with them.
Stop by and visit Erin at I'm Lovin Lit and link up an idea or two of how you make your day more Interactive!

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Monday Made It and Read Read Read

It's Monday and that means I'm linking up with two wonderful gals:  Fourth Grade Frolics and Kellee at Unleashing Readers for their linky parties.  This is a quick week on both accounts.  We are in FULL on SOFTBALL mode and spending our weekends traveling to tournaments.  Nine games of softball in four days takes a little recovery, and I'm too tired to be super crafty!

This week I made some cute push pins for my bulletin boards.  

I found these wooden school shapes at AC Moore, and simply glued them to the back of a push pin.... real creative, I  know.  One of the bulletin boards in the front of my room stays basically the same all year long.  This is where I will be placing agendas, and work for absent students, and I'll be using it for my math group board and ticket out the door.  The push pins just simply make it more fun.  They were easy to create, and I may make a few more using magnets for the rest of my walls.  Be sure to use a high heat glue gun so they stay on.

I also made a Common Core Checklist for my math standards that will hopefully save me a little time and keep me on track in the classroom.  You can go {HERE} to check them out in my TpT Store, or {HERE} to see the blogpost I wrote.

To Link up with Kellee at Unleasing Readers, I read Gingersnap by Patricia Riley Giff.

Here is the summary from Good Reads:

It's 1944, W.W. II is raging. Jayna's big brother Rob is her only family. When Rob is called to duty on a destroyer, Jayna is left in their small town in upstate New York with their cranky landlady. But right before he leaves, Rob tells Jayna a secret: they may have a grandmother in Brooklyn. Rob found a little blue recipe book with her name and an address for a bakery. When Jayna learns that Rob is missing in action, she's devastated. Along with her turtle Theresa, the recipe book, and an encouraging, ghostly voice as her guide, Jayna sets out for Brooklyn in hopes of finding the family she so desperately needs.

Honestly, This book didn't do much for me.  I was interested because WWII was the setting, and I am teaching that this year.  I was looking for a few books that I could recommend to students while I was teaching this part of history.  I will still mention it to my students, and I may have a few girls who pick it up because it shares recipes that Jayna's cooks as she is waiting for her brother, but overall, I felt the writing was quick and forced.  I didn't really connect with the characters, and as much as Giff was attempting to draw me in to rooting for this family to come together,  I felt there could have been better connections and back stories told.

Stop by and visit these two wonderful ladies to get your craft on AND find a few good books to lose yourself in this week!

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Printable Labels- A Teacher's Best Friend

Today I am linking up with Kristen and Elizabeth to get my organization on.  I love this linky... So often I feel disorganized, and when I post about BEING organized, it balances my universe <hee hee>

Today I just have a quick one.  I wish I would have remembered to post about it when the gals started the linky because many people were still in school and I use it mostly at the end of the year.  I am fortunate for the most part that I do not have to put everything I own into boxes when I leave my classroom, but I do have to label all of my chairs, book boxes etc.  Instead of writing my name on everything, I simply write my name and room number on paper, copy and cut.  My teammate taught me this one when I started working with her like 10 years ago.

I tape these sheets to my classroom chair, desk, computer chairs etc. so when our custodians clean all the classrooms in our hallway, they know what goes back in my room. 

Something else that I do is print my name and room number on labels.  I usually end up getting these for free from Vistaprint if I can.  I put the labels on all of my staplers, and tape dispensers etc.  That way when my smarties take them to study hall or out into the hallway to work, and of course leave then there, they get returned.  Also, I have a teammate that often will send his students over for things, and then they get left in the wrong classroom.  Using the labels just simply saves me from having to sharpie marker everything to death. 

Stop on over to visit Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files or Elizabeth at Fun in Room 4B
and share your Organization Tips!

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Organizing for Retakes

In Math, I allow my smarties a chance to retake sections of their test that they have done poorly on.  I grade tests according to our curriculum standards, instead of just giving them a single grade.  It has been tough this year with the introduction to the Common Core, and I've kind of had to hodge podge my way through, but with the year under my belt, I'll have the system much more organized next year.
So today I'm linking up with Kristen and Elizabeth to share an Organizing Tip.

When my smarties have to prepare or retake assessments, they are always looking for extra practice problems, so I use this file system to hold papers for each lesson.

Our math units are divided up into 6 lessons per topic.  In each section I put additional practice problems that I have created or found in other workbooks or TpT.  There is a self checking answer key section in the back so that my students can come in and check work during a studyhall.  Then, if they have any questions I can help them work through the problems they missed.
I used to use a crate that sat on top of a table in the front of my room, but it was big and bulky and always getting moved.  Over this past weekend I found this at Target:

I really love this file case.  It is sleek and classic, and best of all it does this:

A NET!!  As in...... I teach surface area and now have ANOTHER real world example to measure! and what is awesome is that they will have to calculate the surface area MINUS the top.. it adds a level of differentiation!  So excited!  My smarties loved the surface area lab I did this year.  If you want to learn more about it, you can go {HERE}  or {HERE} is where we put info into our Interactive Notebooks

Even if you don't allow retakes, or have another place for extra practice sheets, using a file box like this is great to organize papers for students instead of a standard mailbox. I know a lot of people hold papers and pass them back on a certain day of the week.  I don't do that in middle school having 90 math students to keep track of, but I was thinking of getting another box to place homework or other papers I return when students are absent.  I'll label them by the periods I teach.  Then when a student is absent they can go to the file box to get class notes, homework, notices, returned papers, etc. Right now those papers are clipped to one of my magnetic walls, but that is a problem when my walls fill up with anchor charts.
One other Organization MUST for me are Post-it TABS... Have you discovered these? LOVE them!

Do you have an Organization Tip or Trick?  Head over and visit Kristen or Elizabeth and share your ideas. Summer is a great time to be organized!

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