Made it Monday: Summer Recap 2017

Today teachers in my district report back to work for Teacher Work Week. I've enjoyed creating memories with my family and friends. I've been blogging regularly during the summer and hope to continue once the school year starts. Let's take a look back at all the creations I've shared this summer...
7*3 Long Range Plans- This week I shared my long range lesson plans. 

7*10 Open House Stations- This week I shared my idea for a Cookie Themed Open House.

7*17 Leadership Teams- This week I shared my idea for classroom jobs. 

7*24 Erin Condren Teacher Planner- This week I shared how I adapted my planner to fit my specific needs.

7*31 Classroom Library- This week I shared my organization for this year's chapter books. 

8*7 Fabric Tassel Curtains- This week I shared my classroom curtain project. 

8*14 Seven Habits Posters- This week I shared my new 7 Habits of Happy Kids posters from a template on TpT.

8*21 Team Birthday Gifts- This week I blogged about the birthday gifts I'm giving my teammates this school year. 

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Made it Monday 7*17*17

For as long as I can remember I've only had two classroom jobs, the Line Leader and Caboose. They coupled as the helpers for the week as well. If I needed more than those two for a task, then they were able to choose additional classmates to help them. 
This summer I wanted to do something different and scoured Pinterest looking for ideas. I decided to implement Team Jobs next year. 
I'll spend the first two weeks discussing the leadership responsibilities of each team during morning meeting. Starting the 3rd week, I will divide the students into eight membership teams. The membership teams will stay the same all year and each team will do a two week rotation on each Leadership Team/Crew.

The Maintenance Crew is responsible for keeping our classroom clean. Not only will they clean up at the end of the day, but they'll remind their classmates throughout the day if their work space is in need of tidying up. 

The Technology Team will get the classroom laptops out for the day and make sure they're secure at the end of the day. They also will help classmates throughout the day if they need it.  

The Transition Team helps when we leave the classroom for resource, lunch and dismissal. 

The Library Team will collect the books on our library day and return them in the morning. They  are also responsible for making sure classroom picture books are placed in the correct basket and that our chapter books are on the bookshelf with their correlating color. 

The Kindness Crew is my favorite! These are the students who will escort classmates to the nurse, compliment classmates and greet visitors to our classroom. They will be trained to to say "Good Morning" or "Good Afternoon" to any adult that comes in the room. 

The Teacher Assistant Team will pass out papers and run errands. They will also be in charge of reading our Learning Objective before and after each lesson. 

The Cafeteria Crew will remind students of our "SMART Cafeteria Expectations." They will also make sure the table is clean and if any items (lunch boxes, water bottles) are left behind, they grab them and ensure it gets back to the owner. 

The Vacation Crew is the crew that is on "vacation." The only leadership responsibilities they have is encouraging their classmates to do their best on their teams. 

That sums up my team jobs, feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics for more Monday Made It ideas!

Made it Monday 7*11*16

Another Monday... another idea... we're just getting back in town from being in Havelock, NC for my husband's family reunion, I'm exhausted... that North Carolina heat is oppressive...I'm keeping it simple this week.

Road trippin' with husband...



Teach.Create.Motivate. Hydration Station

While exploring on Pinterest I ran across this pin and thought it was a great idea, a hydration station in the classroom! Why hadn't I thought of that? I allow my students to pretty much eat and drink whenever they want during the day but those nasty water bottle spills irk all my nerves! I have a pretty long counter space and have decided that the space next to my sink will now be our new Hydration Station. Students will house their water bottles in this space to free up space on their desk and avoid liquid disasters! Click the picture below if you'd like a copy for your classroom.

Click Picture for Link

Hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics for more Made It Monday ideas!

Made It Monday 7*4*16

For the past week I've been researching Brag Tags on Pinterest. One of my best friends teaches 1st grade at my school and she was sharing how she wanted to start Brag Tags in her classroom next year. She was going to purchase them but I told her that I could just make them for her. While reading up on them I decided that they were an awesome idea and that I'd love to implement them with my 3rd graders next year.

Basically Brag Tags are little badges that students earn throughout the school year. Brag tags can be academic, or character related. The following blog posts helped me understand them a little better.
 

Angie from Lucky Little Learners has a great FAQ's about them. This post answers any questions you might have about them. She also sells her Brag Tags on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Aimee from Primarily Speaking also has a blog post on Tips and Tricks for using Brag Tags in your classroom. You can check out her Brag Tags on Teachers Pay Teachers as well.

Jamie from Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher has a wonderful blog post as well. You can check her Brag Tags on Teachers Pay Teachers too.

Sample Brag Tags I'm Creating

So after all my research I think I've wrapped my brain around how I intend to implement them in my classroom. I've answered some questions below.

Super Improver Brag Tags I'm Creating

• Where will I get the brag tags? I'm in the process of making my own. There are some great ones on TpT, but I have hundreds of dollars worth of clip art and I really need to use it! School Life.com also has some you can purchase. I intend to purchase some special brag tags from them such as Happy Birthday, 100 Days Smarter, Honor Roll, Read Across America.
• How will I make my brag tags? I started making them in PowerPoint, basically copying and pasting each design into a template I made. Then I discovered this YouTube Video by Diane from 5th in the Middle and learned there was a much easier way to do it!
• Where will I get the necklaces? I'm going to get mine from School Life.com. The 24 inch Ball Chain will work perfectly for my students.  
• How will I store my brag tags? I'm going with the storage I saw on the Primarily Speaking blog post. I found the compartment organizers at Michael's for 50% off last week. That made them $1.49 a piece and I purchased 7 of them... enough to store the hundred+ brag tags I'm making.
• How will I display them? I'm thinking of using the bulletin board to hang them on. Every student will be able to wear them on Fridays. I'm debating if I will allow them to wear them any day they earn a badge. I'm also thinking I'll let students wear their brag tags to lunch if they have a family member coming to eat with them.
• Will students take them home? They will only go home on the last day of school. They will be stored in the classroom all year and free for parents to see during back to school night, conference time, classroom parties or anytime they're in the building.
• How will students earn tags? That question will be answered in a future post! Check back soon...

Hop on over to 4th Grade Frolics for more Made It Monday ideas!

Summer Projects Part 2

It's August and I report back to school in 22 days. Summer school is over and I've had my family vacation at Massanutten Resort. I'll spend the remainder of the month at home creating resources as I promised myself I wouldn't work in my classroom this summer.

 

For the last couple of years I've spent part of my summer working tirelessly in my classroom but not this summer. I intend to do it all during teacher work week, so between the meetings and professional development this teacher will find out if it really is possible to put an entire classroom together during work week, before Open House. Good news is I've done my first week planning and already made my copies, so the clerical work is done.

  Here's what I'm currently working on.

I'm making headings for my focus bulletin board, it has purple fabric with green chevron border so I think these will coordinate with it.

Remade my Whole Brain Teaching Rules, wanted something more simple and chic.

Remade the WBT Call Back Reponses as well.

Made these color posters for a K-Teacher friend of mine, she wanted to update the posters in her classroom. I used the Color Kids from Krista Wallden. You can download these at the Teaching Oasis.

I made a Welcome Bunting Banner for the hallway, I'm going to run them on brightly colored paper and tie them together with ribbon.

I also gave my library labels a makeover. Frames courtesy of Krista Wallden.

Super Improver Wall {Whole Brain Teaching}

Current Super Improver Wall

Super Improver Wall in August

Let's just say this is the best thing I've ever implemented in my classroom! It comes from the Whole Brain Teaching book.

I run the template above on the correlating color copy/construction paper. All my students started off with a white sheet of paper and they have to earn 10 stickers (the mini chart stickers you can find at the teacher store) to level up to the next color. So they've gone from white to green to blue and so on. They absolutely love it, who knew a sticker and sheet of paper would be so motivating!?

Ways students earn stickers:

1 sticker a week for having appropriate behavior
1 sticker if you're my helper for the week
1 sticker for every five AR points they earn
1 sticker for reaching the highest level on our classroom clip chart that day
1 sticker if they can reflect on their week and tell me how they've used one of the 7 Habits of Happy Kids
1 sticker if I see them demonstrating our Life Skill of the Month
1 sticker for homework, I may do this once a month with one particular homework assignment, anyone who turns that one in gets a sticker

Basically they can earn stickers for anything I want them to earn stickers for. I have contracts with certain students. With one if she finishes all her literacy tasks that day she can earn a sticker. With another if he gets less than 3 redirections a day he can earn an additional sticker.

As you can see I have three students at the Pro (brown) level. From time to time I ask certain levels to complete certain responsibilities. For example I may tell all the Team Captains (yellow) to clean the floor. Or ask the Specialists (pink) to run errands for me. Or have the Whiz Kids (purple) be the monitors in the bathroom.

Super Improver Wall Levels from Tonya's Treats for Teachers,
click picture for link

 

Professional Reading

There are several books I intend to read for fun this summer... the Divergent Series, new books from Mary Monroe. Then there are the 3 professional books I intend to read this summer. I've got them in my Amazon cart ready to purchase.

Each habit has a story that illustrates it, a little tidbit for parents or teachers to read, discussion questions, and several suggestions on how a child can implement that habit. I look forward to implementing this in my classroom this year. I've already created some posters and I'm in the process of creating a clip chart and a leadership binder for each student.

I've seen many ideas on Pinterest about Whole Brain Teaching. I decided it was finally time to read the book. Not sure if I'll implement the entire program next year but I may implement parts of it.

This is the perfect resource for Christian teachers, it provides tips and strategies to help you do just what the title suggests: create the classroom you've always wanted. This book contains fifty daily readings designed to help new teachers conquer the learning curve and to bring fresh ideas to veterans.

What professional books are you reading this summer? Have you read these, what do you think about them?