Revisiting Clipboards

Yep - I'm still gone... Do you miss me yet?  Here's another revisit post in case you never saw it....

Remember this picture from last year?  

Last summer I spray painted my clipboards in my front yard for a Monday Made It.  I have loved them and they really have held up to the demands of 9 and 10 year olds.  Kids didn't write or doodle on them, except for a couple of markings on the top silver spray.  They still look great.  A couple of them have part of the red ribbon unraveling, which is understandable - the kids used these basically every day.  I probably should have used another type of ribbon at the time, but I went with the cheap thin stuff (which was what I could afford).  I'm thinking of replacing the ribbon when I go back in August.\

I did end up adding a huge apple sticker to the back of each clipboard.  It wasn't necessary at all, but all the stickers held up over the course of the year and was a great addition to tie it into my apple theme. 

If you are thinking of doing this project this summer I still totally recommend it.  Just remember to get a bunch of cans of spray paint since it takes a bunch to cover them all on the front and back.  Also pick up a drop cloth and watch out for the wind.  It took me 3 cans of blue and 1 of metallic.  Maybe a different color wouldn't mean as many coats - of course I love my blue!  Use a cut file folder to place under the clip part if you decide to spray metallic colors on the top (to protect the color underneath).

The link above goes back to my post from last year.  

Hope this helps someone.  :)  

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Revisiting Student Yearly Challenges

Hi everyone - I'm still somewhere in Alaska, so I found this post from last summer that you may not have read.  

Student Yearly Challenges - Reading, ELA, and Math

Last summer I had just read The Book Whisperer for the first time and wanted to make up my own form for my students to aim toward.  Instead of the author's 40 book challenge, I changed it to 32 books.  

How did it work out?  It was so great!  The readers were reading, the kids were excited.  I didn't push the different genres in my class, but we did discuss it together.  I just wanted them reading since so many of them started the year at least 2 years below grade level.  As they finished their charts, they had a choice of classroom tickets, extra credit, or our school cash.  I'm definitely going to continue this next year, I'm just thinking of making it cute before I print it again - adding some clip art or something... another summer project.

The other 2 charts I mentioned last year I mainly started pushing closer to testing time.  Throughout the year I had my students circle the different skills after we finished the specific standards so they knew what to practice.  As we started getting into main test prep, I went over their specific areas and made sure they practiced the ones they hadn't mastered yet.  

This is the Internet 4 Classrooms game board

This was for IXL.  

 All in all - highly recommend something to get the kids motivated to take responsibility for their own learning.  

Have a wonderful day!  

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Revisiting Dry Erase Markers

I'm still cruising along... can't wait to share my trip with you when I get back.  :)

Another revisit today from a past post:  

Something that I did last summer was hot glue a bunch of pom poms to the top of my dry erase markers.  

Guess what?  Those pom poms lasted the entire year!  Seriously!  You wonder how that happened... well those markers turned into the ones that my students could use when they needed an extra - you know, when their own markers from home ran out and they hadn't brought in a replacement yet... so they ended up being able to use mine.  I knew they were mine because of the special tops, and they were returned promptly.  I had them in a special little box on my whiteboard, so I also used them when I needed black ink - and then I just used the eraser on the whiteboard as well.  It was so handy!  Then I also let my parent helpers use them for their intervention activities... and also for my small group centers.  They lasted...

Now I went out looking for more of those markers since I loved them so much and I found the brand over at Staples.  These kind the tops turn around and attach on the base & the pom pom goes the right way.  These markers were the ones as part of the Staples back to school special, I think $2 for each package.  I will definitely be doing this again this summer, already bought the pom poms over at the Dollar Store.  

Hope this helps someone!  The green link above heads to the post from last year.  :)  

Have a great day!

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Revisiting my Teacher Binder

Hi all,

Was going through all the old posts to see what has gathered a lot of looks, and this one kept popping up - My Teacher Binder from last summer.  

So how did it all work out over this past school year?  Well, honestly I really missed my spiral bound lesson plan book.  My gigantic binder was really too big to bring back and forth from school to home every day.  I really do bring my lesson plan book home every single night in the off chance that one of my boys get ill and I have to write up sub plans in the middle of the night.  It always happens at the worst possible moment, and then I'm trying to remember page numbers by memory - and we all know that doesn't work!    

So what happened was that I had my huge binder that I kept on my desk and I referred to for all the other areas, but the month that I was in went into a 1 inch binder that I brought to and from school.  I also pulled out the trimester's worth of my grade book and put it inside the little binder.  I'm sure it wasn't a big deal, but it kind of bugged me not having my entire year's lessons all together all the time, so for this next year I bought this with Scholastic's Bonus Points.  Here it is over at Amazon if you want to see inside.

It comes with a CD of different templates to use.  This next year I will still have those different sections in my big binder, but I'm not going to even worry about my lesson plans or grade book being in it.  :)  Happy Teacher!  

Hope you have a great day!  

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Revisiting Trifold Display Boards

Hi everyone :)

Today I wanted to revisit all those Trifold Display Boards that I made up last summer and let you know how they were used throughout the year.  

There was my Boggle Board,

my Homeworkopoly Board (Ladybug Teacher Files templates)...

and my Student Response Board.

Every Friday I would pop my Homeworkopoly Board up in front of the classroom, get out the cards and dice, and the kids that had everything turned in on time would get a chance to play the game.  I used the little foam squares that came with our math manipulatives and had written their student numbers.  What held them onto the board was just a little piece of scotch tape.  The board has contact paper on top of it.  Everything worked well all year, and we will definitely be using this again next year. 

Boggle... well I'm embarrassed about that board.  It just didn't work the way I thought it would - those cards slipped and fell and then it took up so much space.  Instead I ended up using a single page 4 x 4 template that I hung on the wall.  I used that website with the different arrangement of letters for specific topics (I mentioned it in the past post), and I would just write the letters up for the week and kids would write on their sheet protectors to keep track of their list of words.  On Fridays we would check in to see who came up with the most amount of words.  The kids loved the concept, I just didn't like the big green board.  

The Student Response Board turned out wonderful.  Basically once a week I would pass out a post it note and the kids would have to answer and stick it onto the board before they would move onto the next activity.  I didn't use it as exit tickets, but rather interesting facts, concepts, questions, etc...  I will definitely be using it again next year.  

Hope you are having a great day.  The green links above will take you back to the posts from last summer.  

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Revisiting Bucket Filler

Hi everyone!  Hope you are having a great day.  I'm somewhere on the ocean heading to Alaska at the moment, but wanted to do a few reruns when I'm gone.

Today I wanted to revisit my Bucket Filler area.  

Here is the first post I did last year (talking about 2 school years ago in my classroom) that explains how I run it in my room.  

My area looked like the picture below.

Then last year I decided to change it a little since with the shoe organizer being completely vertical it was hard for my shorter kids to reach their buckets without pulling it off the wall - so it turned into this...

Same 2 shoe racks, but I used cups inside the pockets after cutting it in half.  The cups held up (though they were really dusty last week when I pulled them out).  After 2 school years of it over in the corner, I decided that next year it's going to be on the main front wall (along with my information/behavior/helper/star of the week/weekly goals, etc).

So, it's not at all done yet at all - basically I did what I could the last day of school - but you can see that the white shoe organizers are under half the whiteboard.  (Yes, I thought I was taking a picture, but instead hit the video button.)  It's not a video, I promise.  Since I still had a ton of extra pockets that I don't need, I turned it into 4 groups of 8 pockets by cutting the 3rd row off.

Hope this helps someone.  I highly recommend the book if you don't have it.  Even my 4th graders enjoy it.   

Have a great day!

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Bon Voyage! Alaska Bound & SALE

Hi Everyone.

You might be thinking - yesterday, she said no more internet... well this is brought to you from the "schedule" feature of blogging.  :)  

So - yeah - I'm heading out to sea this morning.

I'm so excited.  I have always wanted to visit Alaska.  We've been looking at the excursion options and trying to decide how and where to splurge.  Don't know when we will be able to visit again.  :)

So here's what we ended up with as for luggage (at least as of Saturday night):

Yep - 3 gigantic suitcases, a smaller carry on, our toiletries bag, the boys backpacks for toys, our backpack with all the electronic gadgets, our stroller, the potty chair is tucked inside the carry on, with the smaller collapsable one inside his backpack, the diaper bag/backpack (not shown), and my purse.

... and my husband's back is still sore.  :)  Fun for me!  

Here are the stops for our trip - Pictures are from Princess Cruises Lines.

Juneau

Ketchikan

We are planning on seeing a lumberjack show.

Skagway

Tracy Arm Fjord

I'm excited to see the icebergs up close. 

Victoria, B.C.

I've been to Victoria before after I graduated college.  My mom and I had a special weekend just the 2 of us.  We stayed at the Empress, had tea, went to the gardens, etc... this trip my boys really want to do the Pirate excursion.  I'm positive that it's going to be so different... and the day that we land will be my husband's 40th birthday - so I really doubt he will want to have high tea with me.  :)

Over the next 10 days I have a bunch of "revisits" to share with you.  Things that I posted last summer that have been a big hit over on Pinterest.  Basically a reminder of what I did or made, and what actually happened over the last school year with those items.

Also wanted to give you a heads up that I'm throwing a sale over at TPT to celebrate this happy day with my family.  It'll be going today and tomorrow.  Happy Day!  

I'm sure I'm going to have internet withdrawals, but we aren't splurging on it that often... my Kindle is loaded and books have been downloaded, my nano and phone are charged, and we're heading out!

Take care people!  

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