Classroom 2013-2014!!!!!!!

Howdy! It is T- minus 4 days until we begin staff development week. I have spent over three weeks off and on getting my classroom set up. OF COURSE, I changed a lot of things this year so I took tons of photos and I'm giving you a sneak peek!

 This is the view from the door. We have suites so my room is the back room. You have to walk through my suitemates room first. The pictures are going to go counter clockwise around the room.

This is what I put on the wall in between our suites as well. It is my multiplication graffiti wall. The kiddos get to sign each section when they have mastered that fact!



 

 

Word Wall! 

If you notice I have a blue sparkly board to the left. It is my no name board!Here is a close up of that! Those are clothes pins I painted black and stuck to the sparkly paper I got from Hobby Lobby!

 



 

My Class Jobs Clip chart .

 

Next is the Turn in Table. Highlighters to help them remember their name. Box Tops can. Electronic Stapler. Both Math and Science turn in baskets. If you were absent box where I place extra copies. Construction paper and their privacy folders are in the little cubbies. Off to the left side is my "Drop Box". This is if they have any forms/notes/money/etc. to turn in.

Under the Turn in Table are the table baskets where I am going to store their notebooks and folders for Math and Science class. This way I don't have to worry about it not being brought to the room. It is already here. The clipboard is used to separate the different classes. the supply manager for each table will be in charge of grabbing it when they enter the room.

 

My Outstanding Work wall.

My teacher area.

 

My filing system behind my kidney table. I use the 10 drawer cart for copies of any worksheets/materials I will use that day. The bottom drawers have copies for future weeks. The smaller cart is my student files and teacher material files.

My Anchor Chart bulletin boards.And the mobile whiteboard is for when we do whole group instruction on the carpet ( which is not in the correct place, I'm just now noticing! It would be centered with the white board and Anchor chart boards.)

 

My Ticket out the Door poster. I will use sticky notes for quick assessing what they got that day. It is behind the mobile white board. The stars have the students numbers on them.

My station cabinet along with important binders that will need to be accessible. The bins I got at Walmart for 3.50 a piece.

My document camera area. The black hanging file thing is used to hold my class notebooks we do and any other items I expect the kiddos to have.

The camera area is right next to my teacher computer but we are going to skip over that. Next, is my Learn Bingo Board. For more information on how I use that, see this behavior management post from April 16,2013.

This is where my class pet Leopard Gecko will be located. The board behind him is for Anchor charts we use year long. The cabinet beneath it is used for extra tissues, sanitizer, construction paper, etc.

Next is my wonderful computer station! :) The table I did myself with DUCT TAPE YA'LL!

 

This is my whiteboard that I will use for my SWAG poster. ( Posting that when I have it made). MY objectives, and my instruction board.

Here is a close up of the instruction board. This was an idea off pinterest that I found really helpful!  Those are the questions or instructions  I constantly answer/repeat. Sooooo, I just check either side of the instruction before they get started so they know!

Moving counter clockwise still, my final wall. The lovely cabinet space we have.

 This Star Student display is for my 6 wks honor roll and Super Bobcats!

These are our Whole Brain Teaching Rules. I created a sixth one that our school might be adopting.

KETCHUPS AND PICKLES display! Another pinterest find! If they owe any work a clip with their name will be under Ketchups. It even specifies what subject because they have two teachers.

My Weekly folders. This is where I pass back graded papers and they pick up on Wednesdays to go home. I also keep extra forms/informational flyers in the bottom pocket in case they need another one!

And we are all the way around the room, walls atleast. Here are my desk arrangements. This view is from the front of my classroom.

 Another from the front. I have four tables.

This a view from the entry.

Now I know you noticed those lovely storage carts in the middle of every table. This is my first year to do supplies in this way so I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Here is a look at those.

 

A view of what sits on top. From left to right: trash can, pencil container. If you notice the toilet paper roll in the center that it where the SHARP pencils will be and the dull ones will be outside of it. NO MORE PENCIL SURFING! ( searching for a sharp pencil.) Then we have the tissue box and sanitizer behind that.

This is the labels on each drawer so it is a no brainer where the materials are.

Top drawer. I put colored tape around some of those supplies BECAUSE, they are only there to RENT. It is emergency supplies if someone forgot their stuff at home.. grrrrrrrrrrr. I will know if they are using the EMERGENCY stash because of the tape.

Middle drawer. Those great erasers are at the dollar tree. The big one is for whoever is the supply manager that week. ONLY THE SUPPLY MANAGER can access the entire supply cart. That way if it is messy, I know who to speak with.

Bottom drawer. The empty white bins are for our Goals Journals that you can see about in this post.

That's it for now guys! Have fun getting your stuff ready. Let me know if you have any questions and I will be sure to post more soon. What do you think so far?????

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



QR Codes for class Coupon

I have welcomed technology folks! :) I created these QR codes to phase out my class lotto tickets. Coolest thing EVER!  The Coupons graphics are made by THE 3AM TEACHER and The Teacher Chick! Here are some photos of my creations.

This is what the QR codes print out looks like. Be sure your device(smart phone, ipad, I pod 4th generation) has an actual QR scanner not just the barcode scanner. I was trying to use a barcode scanner it didn't work so well.

This is what comes up!

Here are all the coupons I made.

If you want them, you can get them here at my store.

 

When school starts, I will detail how I use it in my classroom and do a give away! Enjoy!

Mental Math Cards

Lining up, waiting for the restroom, waiting for specials, etc. The list goes on of down time you have and most of that time is spent on reiterating the rules and getting on to students who are just wiggly and bored. I then realized that if my schedule was cut down this year then vocabulary would be slightly difficult to practice. What a way to squeeze in those words that just don't stick with some kiddos... PRODUCT, QUOTIENT, SUM, DIFFERENCE, TIMES AS MANY. Here are my creations.

The Owls are mixed operations - ALL 4. The monsters are only add/subtract. Answers are available to print on back for yourself.  You can get them here.

I am working on geometry mental math cards as well. I'll post once I've got them finished!I will probably be creating a master pack once I get the geometry done.

How do you manage those down time parts of the day?

Multiplication Quizzes... Problem Solved!!!

Happy Hump Day!
Okay I was surfing pinterest.. and found this genius idea! It is a way to do multiplication fact quizzes in your classroom as time efficiently as possible. I don't know about you but, I had to ALWAYS keep track of how many copies I needed and since the kids went at their own pace some days I would need 10 copies of X5 and I only had 4 because I forgot to make those copies! AHHHHH!
So I found this video by Suzy Brooks on Multiplying Mavens. She had the greatest idea to make these type quizzes.

Step 1:
Copy the quiz for a class set. ( I have two classes for math so I will copy two class sets and let each student take care of their own.)

Step 2:
Slip those pages into page protectors...TADA instant white board. 

Then you have a teacher checklist and you are good to go. I am so excited to use this idea this year. I am still racking my brain to figure out how I can use it for mixed quizzes of multiplication and division. I'll keep you posted.

I don't like to separate out the operations because I want my kiddos to realize the important of understand their fact families to help them with division facts. Here is my version of the quiz.

You can get it as a FREEBIE in my TPT store here.

What do you think? How do you do your fact quizzes in your classroom?

Make your own Supply box!

I don't know about you, but last year I had several different mismatching containers on my desk that held pens, markers, my pencils, staple removers. It was a CLUTTER DISASTER! So I found this idea on pinterest and altered it for my classroom.

Here is the finished product!!!!

Here is the shoe box and fabric. I cut the fabric like this.

I used glue dots and tried hot glue. But you could do it mostly on glue dots! I had the mini glue dots, but the bigger ones would probably work better!

This is how I set my glue dots on each side. then just started from the base of the shoe box and smoothed it over the glue dots.

I put glue dots on the inside of the box and folded the fabric into the shoe box.

The fabric doesn't go all the way down but it wont show once you have the toilet paper rolls in there.

Then, I spray painted toilet paper rolls and hot glued them together and to the bottom of the box so they won't lift up when I pull pens and markers out. TADA! No more mismatching containers and jars.

What do you think?? How do you organize yourself with those commonly used supplies that need to be within reach??



Journaling

I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to start a GOALS Journal with my students next year.  Well I have a spent a few days of my summer vacation ( WHAT?!) :) putting this together.
 First I got composition journals that were left over and had a to buy a few extra. I took them to office max and they will cut them for you!  OFFICE MAX.. I called every other place that Pinterest tells you to go and they acted like I was CRAZY! Then I made a cutesy cover page.

 

Then I found that cute quote about mistakes here. Then I created this math label for a subject title page. I didn't save it :( because I am going to have the kids draw their own... if we do a reading part as well.

 

STARTING HERE, I will use the following forms for EACH UNIT.

 

The next page is used to chart their progress FOR EACH UNIT. We do weekly testing. I also decided to only do 12 question tests this year. No reason to bog the kids down and my math period got cut down to an hour. The chart is calculated to each box is colored in for each question they answer correctly. The star box is indicated for bonus questions. :)  If you don't 12 questions and you want to use this graph, you could just white out my numbers and write in your own. Now we might not do five weekly tests before the unit test and that's okay. Those columns will just stay blank. No biggie!

This is the next page. I don't know about you, but our district has been pushing learning objectives. This is for the students to understand what skills they were taught, tested, and had a hard time with. I even considered them highlighting the skills they thought were difficult. There is not a unit test section here because the unit test will be of all the skills for this unit.

STARTING HERE, the following will be used per weekly test.

This is the next page. I will use this every test we complete. At the top it is numbered from 1-12. Here the kiddos will color in the corresponding problem numbers that they missed. Then, they will write in the date and use each box to list the problem number they missed and why. The small box if for the problem number and the big box is for the mistake made.

Here is the next page. It is blurry so the next page is a zoomed in version of what the directions are.

This is the zoomed in version. Students will identify only one mistake they made to work on. You want them to work on the mistake that was made the most, but if its pretty evenly spread out, jus have them choose one. One goal per week is ideal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My MASTER PLAN : After the students finish their test and I quickly grade it, the students will visit a station where I will have a master copy of a completed test. This test will show strategies as we learned them, the correct answers circled, and highlighted key words. ( It will be what an ideal student test should look like) The students will then complete the data pages on their graph and the numbers missed page. They will then use the teacher version of the test to look for mistakes they made. We will use a class ANCHOR chart to help the students identify what mistakes they might have made. At the end of the testing period, we will have a small discussion on what some of their mistakes were. This is how we will create/build our anchor chart.

 

 I know some people will want their students to just write out everything, but that is such a time waster and the students are still writing in their journal, they just have guided pages! :)

 

REMEMBER. Modeling this process is key. You might have to do all the pages with them for the first full unit so they can be totally independent with it later on. Be sure to check in with them individually. You will have some students that will just write in any mistakes and not fully understand what they are doing wrong. Small groups might even be helpful with some of your struggling students.

 

I will make a new post with pictures about this in action once the school year starts. I have these pages for my journal in my TPT store. GO GET IT!

So, what do you think? Tell me what you think! Any suggestions??

 

 

 

Reading

Although, I don't teach reading I had to share this idea. One of my 3rd grade team members did this activity. After the STAAR, the reading team decided to try out book studies. They read How to Eat Fried Worms. Super cute! This was an activity she had them do for fun. They create their own recipe for a writing assignment. I had to share these pictures! :) Enjoy!