Oh, how I love school supply shopping! This weekend we went to pick up the last of school supplies my oldest daughter will need for Kindergarten. She is definitely my child! She was hopping with excitement over pencils and crayons.
I also love that Target's dollar spot has been loaded with teacher stuff! Last year I loaded up on bins for the classroom. My favorite Target Dollar Spot purchase was plastic magazine files (except they were larger) similar to these that Lakeshore Learning carries for $2.50 a piece. It took me most of the summer but I found enough blue ones to put one in each child's cubby to use a mailbox, so their papers wouldn't get crumpled up.
What has been you best or favorite find on the back to school front?
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Beginning of another school year!
As the beginning of another school year is looming, I know everyone is thinking about classroom setup and management tools. Today I would like to feature my behavior management plan that I created for my classroom many years ago.
I've always used a traffic light behavior management plan. It is simple for even my youngest students to understand. I've put together a packet of wonderful tools to go along with this plan. If you are interested, the packet can be found in my TPT and Teachers Notebook stores.
This packet includes the following letters and forms that I use in my kindergarten classroom:
Letter to the Parents:
This is a letter that I send home at the beginning of year to explain the classroom behavior system to the parents.
Weekly Behavior Chart:
I used this behavior chart in my student's Take Home Folder. In my classroom, I use a light system to monitor behavior throughout the day. At the end of the day the student's are responsible for coloring in the block for the day, either green, yellow, or red to reflect their behavior and then I initial the box to ensure the have correctly recorded their behavior for the day. I also require the parents to initial each night to let me know they have seen the behavior chart. I use the comment section to relay to the parents any issues or accomplishments that the child had throughout the day or the parent can comment in that section back to me about any follow-up they have. Later in the year I will often have the student write what their bad choices were for the day and what the consequences were for their action or what good choices they had made for the day.
Traffic Light Chart:
I print this out on card stock and laminate it to post by the "How are we doing today?" pocket chart as a reminder.
"Caught You Being Good" Slips:
I cut these out and keep them in a basket on my table. Anytime I see a student making exemplary choices, I fill out what I caught them doing as a way to celebrate good behavior. I send the slip home in the student's home folder so the parents can see what their child was doing well with at school that day.
Red Light Report:
I use this form when a student has a red light. At the beginning of the year, I transcribe what the student says on the form. As the year progresses, the student takes over the responsibility of filling out what choices they made and what actions they are going to take to fix the problem.
Letter to the Parents:
This is a letter that I send home at the beginning of year to explain the classroom behavior system to the parents.
Weekly Behavior Chart:
I used this behavior chart in my student's Take Home Folder. In my classroom, I use a light system to monitor behavior throughout the day. At the end of the day the student's are responsible for coloring in the block for the day, either green, yellow, or red to reflect their behavior and then I initial the box to ensure the have correctly recorded their behavior for the day. I also require the parents to initial each night to let me know they have seen the behavior chart. I use the comment section to relay to the parents any issues or accomplishments that the child had throughout the day or the parent can comment in that section back to me about any follow-up they have. Later in the year I will often have the student write what their bad choices were for the day and what the consequences were for their action or what good choices they had made for the day.
Traffic Light Chart:
I print this out on card stock and laminate it to post by the "How are we doing today?" pocket chart as a reminder.
"Caught You Being Good" Slips:
I cut these out and keep them in a basket on my table. Anytime I see a student making exemplary choices, I fill out what I caught them doing as a way to celebrate good behavior. I send the slip home in the student's home folder so the parents can see what their child was doing well with at school that day.
Red Light Report:
I use this form when a student has a red light. At the beginning of the year, I transcribe what the student says on the form. As the year progresses, the student takes over the responsibility of filling out what choices they made and what actions they are going to take to fix the problem.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
I love teaching about the ocean!!!
I'm sure we all have a favorite thematic unit we enjoy teaching. Mine is the ocean! I love teaching about the various animals and aspects of ocean life. It all started when I was an intern eons ago. My student teaching was in the spring and the timing was perfectly aligned for me to teach the ocean unit when I was to take over the class. I had an amazing mentor teacher that let me sift through her ocean unit weeks ahead of time and really develop and awesome unit. With each book I picked up, I got wonderful ideas of comprehension lessons, crafts, math center, etc to go with. Over the years, I have added tremendously to this unit. I probably have enough activities and books to teach ocean for MONTHS now in all different grade levels! I don't know if it's because it was because ocean was the first unit I every taught or if it's because all of the ocean animals just amaze me, but I LOVE teaching about the ocean!
Last year, I lent my unit to my oldest daughter's preschool teacher. She was new to teaching (had only been teaching for a couple of months) and asked if she could borrow a few ocean book (we had become very friendly since I was her room mom and she knew that I had been a teacher before having kids). I almost jumped for joy when she asked! I'd been out of the classroom for four years and was so excited to see all of my beloved ocean stuff again. When I got home, I quickly dug out the multiple ocean bin out from under my stairs and loaded them in the car to take to Ms. M the next morning. She was so appreciate and I was so excited to watch my little girl learn about all the wonders of the ocean. Each day my daughter would come home to tell me about how she learned octopi or starfish and I would just light up listening to her because she had also discovered the same love of all things ocean.
What is your favorite unit to teach?
P.S.~ Be on the look out! If I can rustle up the time, I will be posting some ocean goodness!
Last year, I lent my unit to my oldest daughter's preschool teacher. She was new to teaching (had only been teaching for a couple of months) and asked if she could borrow a few ocean book (we had become very friendly since I was her room mom and she knew that I had been a teacher before having kids). I almost jumped for joy when she asked! I'd been out of the classroom for four years and was so excited to see all of my beloved ocean stuff again. When I got home, I quickly dug out the multiple ocean bin out from under my stairs and loaded them in the car to take to Ms. M the next morning. She was so appreciate and I was so excited to watch my little girl learn about all the wonders of the ocean. Each day my daughter would come home to tell me about how she learned octopi or starfish and I would just light up listening to her because she had also discovered the same love of all things ocean.
What is your favorite unit to teach?
P.S.~ Be on the look out! If I can rustle up the time, I will be posting some ocean goodness!
Monday, April 23, 2012
How many of you are on Pinterest? I'm totally addicted! I have boards for all the school units and then some. Oh and of course, boards for things around the home and for my own children. There are so many awesome ideas floating around on there. I LOVE IT! I would love to follow you, so if you wouldn't mind posting your link in the comments, so I become a follower of your. Click here if you would like to check out my Pinterest boards.
I've been a bad blogger!
I've taken a long break from blogging! After school kicked off, life got insane. I'm getting back in the swing of blogging so be on the look out for more posts to come!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
WAHOO! The furniture has been delivered!
This afternoon 22 boxes of furniture arrive in my classroom.I'm still missing a ton of stuff but atleast I have some tables and chairs. Right now I only have 6 chairs, but hey, it's a start. Now everything just needs to be assembled. What are the chances it will be all put together when I go in tomorrow morning? I'm guess slim, but a girl can dream, right?
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Oh the craziness that is my classroom!
I found out my room assignment yesterday and was told that I could start moving in and setting up, so I went to scope it out between training sessions. OMG!!! It is a mess and right now I have NO furniture! Oh and they have been using my room as a storage unit for anything that has been shipped to the school all summer so I have tons of boxes stacked in there of random stuff that doesn't belong in to my classroom. I'm totally freaking out! Meet the teacher is on 8/17 and I have to move all of my stuff in, clean, setup, learn a whole new curriculum, and hope and pray I get furniture soon. I have no idea how I'm going to be be ready for meet the teacher. I'm a nervous wreck!
This afternoon after my training was over my husband came and helped me move some of my stuff out of storage and into my classroom while I started cleaning. I found open containers of food in the cabinets. It was so gross! The few manipulatives that are in the classroom are colored all over and have gunk all over them. I have a ton of cleaning ahead of me. Hopefully I can get the cleaning done this week and next week I will work on unpacking and setting up. Fortunately, my husband is home watching our three kids this week since I have training every day, but next week I'm alone with the kids, so hopefully my oldest two enjoy playing with all the new toys as I start unpacking my stuff.
This afternoon after my training was over my husband came and helped me move some of my stuff out of storage and into my classroom while I started cleaning. I found open containers of food in the cabinets. It was so gross! The few manipulatives that are in the classroom are colored all over and have gunk all over them. I have a ton of cleaning ahead of me. Hopefully I can get the cleaning done this week and next week I will work on unpacking and setting up. Fortunately, my husband is home watching our three kids this week since I have training every day, but next week I'm alone with the kids, so hopefully my oldest two enjoy playing with all the new toys as I start unpacking my stuff.
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