I Made It: The Student Tracker Board

I got a lot of comments on my last post about this lovely board I made for my classroom:

Ok so I totally got this idea from Pinterest but I can't find the pin now! Aaaggh! So if you pinned this originally please let me know so I can give you credit!

Here's my quick and easy tutorial!

Materials Needed:
- cookie sheet (I got mine at walmart but you could use a dollar store one too)
- round magnets (again from walmart, they come in a pack of 50)
- hot glue gun and sticks
- pretty ribbon
- cardstock or labels printed with "In the Room" and your destinations
- cardstock printed with numbers or names

1. I printed all my labels. I used publisher to make the circles with numbers and painstakingly cut them out.
2. I glued magnets to the back of each number.
3. I glued a ribbon to the top and then the "In the Room" label.
4. I put all my numbers on the board to make sure I would have enough room for them.
5. I glued the rest of the ribbon and labels to make the remaining sections/destinations.

The awesome thing is I never had to explain this to my kiddos! They saw it and just started moving their numbers down when they left the room. In case you are wondering Mr. H is one of our resource teachers that some of my students see and VI stands for our Visually Impaired department.

I hope you enjoy!

Back To School

Yep, I'm already back to school for a new year! In year round we start our new school year in beginning of July. But before you start to feel sorry for me remember that I just had 4 weeks off which is one week longer than my usual 3 weeks. It was fantastic!

I don't even know where to start with this blog - so many ideas, so many great things I've found, phew! Also I took pictures of my classroom at the end of my last workday but they were taken with my phone and are no good. Boo that! So instead I'll share some things I'm loving so far about this year:

1. I'm loving Whole Brain Teaching. Yep I've joined the WBT bandwagon! I did my research over my break and watched a ton of youtube videos. So far it's going great! Class? Yes! is such an easy and quick way to get my kids attention and they are loving the scoreboard. I'm also loving mirror and teach okay. I feel already that my lessons are becoming much more interactive and engaging. The kids are gesturing, talking, and moving. It's awesome! I still feel like I have a lot to learn with WBT but I'm taking it slowly with my comfort level. One of my favorite examples of WBT is this video below. I love how engaged her students are but how it's not a LOUD screaming classroom. I can't handle that!

2. I'm loving the new school supplies. Anyone else have to seriously avoid the back to school section at target and walmart? If I go there I WILL find something and I WILL think of a reason I must have it!

I made this little "Where Am I?" board after seeing it on Pinterest here. Love it! 

3. A little more sleep! My school is starting 45 minutes later this year. While this means my afternoons seem to stretch on a bit more I'm liking the mornings. I'm still getting to school way before I have to be there but I'm getting a bit more sleep and having some quiet time in my classroom in the morning to get things done!

4. Pinterest - Goodness gracious I was pinning it up over break. Even at the beach on vacation! If you aren't following me on Pinterest you should - especially my "Beginning of the Year" board. Lots of great ideas - many that I have already used!

5. Blog world! Seriously YOU all rock! I have found so many awesome ideas from YOU! Also I love the blog comments! Sorry that I definitely not the best blogger ever about posting frequently but thank you to those of you who stick around and share some love!

Open House & Getting Organized

A few weeks ago I had Open House for the upcoming school year. I know it seems early but my "track" has ours early right before we track out. Pinterest inspired me this year to try some new things for Open House. Our Open House is basically a Meet the Teacher night where parents and kids stop by, meet their child's new teacher, check out the classroom and get a supply list/information for the new year.

The weekend before Open House I was a busy bee at home making some things. I made my coworker and I new signs with our names on them. I am in LOVE with the dots on turquoise/paisley decorations. This poster was clipped to my easel and put in the hallway to let parents know which room I am in.

 I saw a glow stick idea on pinterest and made a quick little note to go with it. 

 I was so excited about my wish list/giving tree. I put it up on the door and actually even made it look like a tree. Only problem was NO ONE SAW IT. Since the door was open and people were constantly coming in and out no one really saw the door and I was so slammed meeting parents I didn't have a chance to direct them towards it. I was kind of disappointed in that I didn't think it through but oh well I saved the apples to have out at parent night.

 Here are my student information folders. They contain a letter to the parents, a letter to the students, a supply list and information for the parents to fill out and send back the first week of school.

I also have the parents stop and write a little encouraging note to their child. I call them "shine on notes". I put them on each child's desk on the first day of school. The kids love them!

While I was on the creating kick I decided to work on a few organizational things as well. I use plastic drawers to organize papers. I simply added some paisely border behind them and they look so much cuter!

 And I had to make the teacher toolbox from Create Teach Share. It's perfect since I try not to store these things in my desk drawer since I have to move every 9 weeks.

I can't believe I'm already planning and organizing for the new school year! 

Why I Change Classrooms

A few people have asked why I have to move classrooms every 9 weeks. The answer is that I teach in a year round school. Let me explain:

- I still teach 10 months out of the year but those 10 months are spread out over the year. I do not have a long summer break.
- Typically I teach for 9 weeks and then have 3 weeks off. That means I get a break in each season!
- There are 4 different schedules in our year round system. Each schedule is called a track.
- Only 3 tracks are "in" at a time. There is always one track that is "tracked out". For example - Tracks 1, 3, 4 may be tracked in and track 2 is on break for 3 weeks.
- Because only 3 tracks are in the school building at a time, the school is designed to only fit 3 tracks. This allows there to be more students enrolled in the school than the building's capacity allows.
-In second grade there are 8 teachers/classes but only 6 teachers/classes are tracked in at a time. This is why we have to move - when you are tracked out you do not have a classroom!

It may sound complicated but once you get used to it all it's pretty simple. As a teacher I LOVE teaching year round. I love having breaks in each season. I love having breaks more frequently. It really cuts down on teacher burn out.

One disadvantage is that when I set up my classroom it's only for 9 weeks. I don't put up near as much things on my walls as the typical teacher probably does. At first this bothered me but honestly I like it now. I only put things on the walls that have a purpose. I don't have cutesy bulletin boards but I do put up student work and anchor charts. As year round teachers we also tend to be super organized - because we have to be! We all have 2 large rolling carts that we store our materials in. When it's time to track out the carts are moved to storage. As a grade level we have many items that stay in the rooms so we don't have to move them around.

This is my little cart - full of craft supplies, manipulatives, workbooks, tissues, pencils and SO much more!

I always store my large cart behind my desk because it houses my teacher manuals and resources that I use frequently. In this picture I have containers stacked on top of my cart because I took this right before I tracked out - so I was packing up!

Year round is definitely a different kind of teaching, but I've found that it's just right for me! 

Nonfiction Writing

We just finished writing biographies about classmates and are diving head first into more nonfiction writing - Informational Texts. Yesterday we discussed a very important word: Research. We made an anchor chart to discuss what research was. For our texts students will write about an animal. We will use 3 sources: nonfiction books, the internet, and an encyclopedia. We also brainstormed sub-topics that to research for our animals. 

 Then I began modeling the informational text writing process myself. My text is going to be about Jaguars. I got to see lots of Jaguars when I traveled to Belize last spring and I think they are pretty cool!

 I have showed the kiddos how to use each source to get notes. I simply take 4 pieces of notebook paper and write one sub-topic at the top of each page. Then whenever I come across a fact that I want to remember I make a bullet and write it down. By the end of yesterday I read information aloud/showed it on the document camera and they were able to tell me facts and what topic each fact should go with.

It's always interesting to hear where they think we should look online for research. Most of them said "Google". While I'm definitely a big fan of googling myself I want them to learn to use information from reliable sources. Our school subscribes to Pebble Go, an online nonfiction listening library, so we used that. I highly recomend Pebble Go as it is an awesome way to expose young children to nonfiction that they will understand. My kids love watching the short "video" of each animal along with listening to the sounds.

Next I showed how to write an opening paragraph and then copy down 3 facts for each topic. My kiddos were shocked at how simple it really was to make their plan! I also had them pick a few key vocabulary words for each page and think about a text feature that would make the page more interesting.

The planning page is available for free on TPT. I recommend copying it onto 11x17 paper as it gives the kiddos more room to write.

Today my assistant and I were very pleased at how engaged my kiddos were during my writing mini-lesson. They loved helping me find facts from my sources, pick the 3 facts to use for my plan and come up with ideas for the title. I'm really excited to see them write their own informational texts!

Long Live the Clip Chart

Behavior. It can make or break any classroom! I don't know everything (major emphasis on that) but I do feel that I've learned quite a bit about behavior/classroom management over the past years. Mainly, stay positive! It works so much better to praise the positive and then watch others try to do the right thing as well.

When I first started teaching I had "elephants" (little elephant post its with the kids names on them) that moved down levels with push pins in a cork board. It was cumbersome and not easy to manage. After that, I made the elephants magnetic and added a "soar" level. My awesome cooperating teacher from when I taught came up with the "soar" level for students to move UP to for doing a great job. My kids loved our new soar level and really got into it!

Then I learned about the clip chart. This was back in the days before Pinterest (can you imagine?) so I read about it in this ebook by Rick Morris. I quickly got to work during one of my track out days and made a clip chart. It works wonderful!

Now I'm on my second clip chart, since the old one took so much wear and I wanted to pretty-fy it up a little. :)

The kids all start on Ready To Learn and from there move their clips up or down. At the end of the day if you are on Great Job you get to stand up on your chair and the whole class does a cheer for you. If you are on Outstanding you get to add a sticker to your clip. My how they love those stickers! It's the simple things folks! I will say that the "jewel" stickers (get them from Micheal's) stay on the clips better than some regular stickers.

If a child moves their clip to consequence then they get a refocus form where they write what they were doing, what they should have been doing and what they will do next time. Then they have to take it home and get it signed and bring it back to me. Sometimes I will choose a different consequence based on the action so that's why I labeled that level consequence. Parent contact is pretty straightforward - I hardly ever have kids get to this level and by this point in the year I usually am not moving many clips down but UP. :)

About halfway through this school year I came across a very good problem - I had kids filling their clips up with stickers on both sides! So thus came about the "Clip Hall of Fame". A child moves their clip to the hall of fame once their clip is completely full. What a reward this is! They get so excited about it! I then will make them a new clip so they can keep on earning stickers.

At the beginning of the year I teach my kids hand motions that I make to tell them to move their clip up or down - a simple pinch of 2 fingers and a thumbs up or thumbs down. To reinforce positive behavior I simply will start some positive behavior dialogue "Wow, Bobby you are doing an excellent job of getting started on your morning work, please go move your clip up!" Before you know it, everyone is getting to work on their morning work as well!

I also have had kids make it to pink/outstanding and I will tell them to move their clip up. They then go to Top of the Chart. After Top of the Chart comes Off the Chart where I will then proudly wear that student's clip. Yes, I usually look like a dork with a clothespin clipped to my shirt, but they love it! Once this year I had a student who was already on Off the Chart when I asked her to move her clip up. So we invented a new level where I go take a picture of their clip with an Administrator and then write them a positive office referral.

Word Work Updates

Every now and then, I feel the need to spice things up for Daily 5, keep the kiddos engaged and interested. During my workdays before track in I hunted all over the lovely blog-o-sphere for new word work ideas. I've always loved this list of ideas from Christina Bainbridge. Definitely worth checking out.

On the far left in the green basket, are our Writing Folders from Really Good Stuff. I love those things. They really help the kids learn the writing process. We don't keep them in our desk because our grade level has to keep the same ones for 2 years before we replace them. So to keep them from the doom of what is often my kiddos' desks they live in the green basket.

Next is one of the new word work choices, ipad words! I found this via a pin on pinterest - Mrs. Gilchrist adapted the iphone idea into a larger ipad. I have a list of "ipad words" that goes with this. The kiddos have to first write the words in alphabetical order in the boxes with a dry erase marker, then they "type" them and hit "send". Seriously, it is the cutest thing for this apple-loving teacher to see. I told my kiddos that I would LOVE to have more ipads and have them using those for word work, but I'm not made of money so we make do. :)
Next up is Boggle Words. Anyone else out there ADDICTED to playing Scramble on their iphone? Me me me! I love this game and have seen Boggle bulletin boards for the classroom. I bought this set of cards by Rachel on TPT. I laminated 4 of the cards, put recording sheets in the folder, and voila challenging word work. I've explained to my kiddos that this choice is a challenge, that even adults find it hard! Therefore, this is not always the best choice for everyone. But I knew my higher readers needed a word work choice that was challenging and I can tell already that they love it. Sometimes we'll do one as a class in between rounds and I'm always shocked by how many words they find!

Bananagrams has always been a popular and favorite choice for word work and I don't think I'll ever get rid of it. I have a spelling list in a sheet protector and the kiddos use the tiles to spell their words and any other words they know. Scrabble Flash is a new one this year by the reccomendation of my coworker, Jim. It's basically like making words except the game self corrects and tells them which words are actually words! I love it! My kiddos can tell you what a stickler I am for quiet during Daily 5 but I do allow for the beeping of this fun game.

I forgot to take a picture of my last choice, Lacing Letters. Basically the letters have holes in them like beads and the kiddos lace their spelling words onto strings. Very kinesthetic. We've had that choice around for a while too.