Made It Monday 8*14*17

I've spent the last week working on "cosmetic aspects" of my classroom. I remade my 7 Habits Posters and letters for my classroom bulletin boards and walls. I'm not one to plaster my walls with store bought or even hand made posters. Everything on my walls now have a distinct purpose, mostly it's related to "creating leaders" in my classroom. As the year goes on, I'll add the anchor charts we create to various parts of our classroom. 

These are my new 7 Habit Posters. They are modeled after the ones in Amy Groesbeck's classroom. She offers the templates for FREE on TpT, you just add your own text. 

Here they are above one of my bulletin boards in my classroom. 

I made my bulletin board header out of the Creative Clips Alphabet Letter Bundle. I intend to post reading anchor charts and posters on this board. 

I also made this bulletin board header out of the Creative Clips Alphabet Letter Bundle. I intend to post math anchor charts and posters on this board.

I also made letters using the Creative Clips Alphabet Letter Bundle.

I have a huge wall above my cabinets in my classroom and I use it as my "anchor chart wall" and hang anchor charts from it that we create throughout the year. For now it has the school expectations pinned to it. 

Here's my classroom Wellness Station. My solution to bleeding, sore throats, tummy aches and sore limbs! I used Learning in Wonderland's Let's Get Organized for these labels. 

So that's what I've been working on. I'm trying to keep myself out of my classroom so I can enjoy my last two weeks of summer vacation, we'll see if that happens! Looking for more Made It Monday ideas, check out 4th Grade Folics!

Monday Made It 8*7*17

This week I'm showcasing my fabric tassel curtains I made for my classroom. I saw them in a teammate's room last year and decided to make them my summer project. I bought 5 fat quarter fabric bundles and 2 rolls of ribbon from Hobby Lobby to create my curtains.

Fat Quarter Bundles from Hobby Lobby, $9.99 a piece

Various Patterns in the Bundles

Various Patterns in the Bundles

I cut each piece into 12 strips, about 1.5 inches wide on the 18 inch side the other is 22 inches.

Here are all 300 strips in all their glory! This was enough to make two (150 on each) 78 inch long tassel curtains.

This was after I had tied some to the ribbon.

Here they are hung in my classroom.

As you can see my classroom is finished! I posted before and after pics below. We got the email two weeks ago that our wing would be ready effective last Monday. So I spent Monday-Wednesday moving desks, decorating and unpacking boxes. I had to move rooms this year but my new room is basically the same floor plan except I now have a cinder block corner that I didn't have before so that literally threw my old floor plan off and I needed to regroup, LOL. Teachers report on the 28th and I won't be back until then, welp, that's not true, I am going back to shampoo my classroom carpet, it's gross!

Before- see the two separate set of desks, had to move the set on the left myself since they didn't belong to me!

Before

After

I'll do a more detailed classroom tour at the end of the month. Looking for more Made It Monday ideas, check out 4th Grade Folics!

Communication Folder Inserts

I've been using communication folders in my classroom for years. The one's I purchase are durable and last all year. They also have a clear pocket on the front for me to add my own insert. The inside is imprinted: Left Side- Return to School, Right Side- Keep at Home. 
I absolutely love Nicky's Teacher Parent Communication Folders. You have to order a minimum of 100 folders so that's $125. I recommend going in with other teachers to reduce the cost or if you're lucky your school or PTA could purchase them for you. I was blessed with 50 black folders at the end of the year so that'll be enough for the next two years. I've ordered Metallic Purple, Metallic Silver and Black before. I really like the black ones best. You don't have to order all one color, you can mix and match as long as it equals 100.
For the last couple of years I've done a SMORE Folder. This year I'm switching to a SMART Folder because my school as a motto of Coalminers are SMART and SMART is an acronym for how students behave. Below is the insert I created for this year.

I was feeling creative and decided to make some inserts with some different themes. Maybe you can find one that you can use! Search the Teaching Oasis for these inserts.  

 

Made It Monday 7*31*17

This week's Made it Monday is about how I intend to organize my chapter books this school year. While my picture books will still be in bins with labels, I wanted a different approach for my chapter books. 

I ran across a pin on Pinterest...

And quickly decided that this was how I wanted to organize my chapter books. There are many different ways to use these labels, but I decided to organize them by series as opposed to reading level or alphabetical order. I used the PowerPoint template and created text boxes over the color squares to label them by series. Then I had OfficeMax print it on 11x17 cardstock and had it laminated. This will be taped on the end of the bookshelf for reference. I purchased the Avery 8160 Labels and had OfficeMax print the colored sheet file onto the labels and since I had my EllRay Jakes books at home (I purchased them from Target this summer for $4) I labeled them as an example. So instead of my chapter books being in bins this year, they will be placed onto one bookshelf with their spines out grouped by color/series.

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

Classroom Library Rainbow Book Spine Labels

Avery 8160 Labels

Monday Made It 7*24*17

This week I'm keeping it simple and sharing how I adapted my Erin Condren Teacher Planner for next school year. They come out with a new design every May but I purchased mine back in April when last year's design was on sale. 

My Planner

I purchased the Create 365 Teacher Planner Stickers to use with my planner. You can find them at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. 

I decided to take the Absentee Log and turn it into an Inspiration List like I saw over at 3rd Grade Thoughts. I used planner stickers to replace Name with Idea and to replace Note with an apple and checkmark. I also used the tabs to replace Absent with Inspiration.

Since I've already created my Long Range Plans I really didn't need this page for plans but I do intend to use this page to list monthly 7 Habits of Happy Kids, Leadership Skills and Growth Mindset lessons and ideas. 

This is one of my calendar spreads. I'll use this to record important school dates and holidays.

I opted for 2 sheet protectors, it comes with 1 but you can add 2 more if you like. I use one sleeve for my long range lesson plans and one sleeve for our district calendar. 

I've already written all the dates in my planner. Then I used the tabs from the sticker book to section the lesson plan pages into months. 

I'm looking forward to using an actual planner again. I've done planbook.com for the last two years and I loved it but there's nothing like a pretty planner to get you excited about writing lesson plans!

Character Education

For as long as I can remember, I've focused on character education in my classroom. I'm passionate about cultivating leaders and all around good citizens. I enjoy integrating character education into my morning meetings, writing block and shared reading block. 
My favorite books that focus on life/leadership skills are by Julia Cook and Maria Dismondy. For the first couple of weeks in school I read a different book (see this post) during morning meeting and we discuss the theme and message. I also spotlight one life/leadership skill each month. We discuss the skill in depth during morning meeting. As I see students demonstrating the skill, I reward the with the correlating SMART(Brag)Tag.

• September-Initiative 
• October- Organization
• November/December- Responsibility
• January- Cooperation
• February- Problem Solving
• March- Integrity
• April- Effort
• May-Perseverance
• June- Caring

While browsing Pinterest one evening I saw this Character Education Booklet. Rebecca, over at CreateTeachShare, created this wonderful resource and you can download it for FREE! I plan on using this booklet in September as we build our classroom community. Each page focuses on what the trait means and ways to show the it. I've included possible read alouds to teach each character trait below. 
Kindness-

• Recess Queen
• The Potato Chip Champ
• The Jelly Donut Difference
• Enemy Pie
• Have You Filled a Bucket Today

Empathy-

• Stand in My Shoes
• Amazing Grace
• Chrysanthemum
• Hey Little Ant
• Wonder

Courage-

• Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun
• Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon
• The Story of Ruby Bridges
• Shelia Rae the Brave
• Scaredy Squirrel

Integrity and Honesty-

• Lying Up a Storm
• The Empty Pot
• The Boy Who Cried Wolf
• Eli's Lie-O-Meter
• Dessert First

Tolerance-

• The Name Jar
• Strictly No Elephants
• The Brand New Kid
• We're All Wonders
• Separate is Never Equal

Compassion-

• Those Shoes
• Christmas Soup
• The Lady in the Box
• Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen
• The Can Man

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!