Organization, Motivation, and Bloglovin'

Motivation and Organization Time!  

Linking up with Joanne and Kristen & Elizabeth for their weekly linkies :)

I love pocket charts!!!

Yes, I know it sounds cheesy, but I do...  I use them throughout my room to make things interactive.

I use it for behavior.

The students put their weekly goals in them (that's a dry erase sentence strip).

I keep vocabulary weekly words in them - for all the different subjects.

I put random classroom pictures in them for throughout the year.

I use them for helpers.

I use magnetic ones for daily 5 stations (guess I haven't taken my own picture of it). 

Then I have random ones that I pull out throughout the year for centers, open house braille names, spelling words, etc...  

Do you also use pocket charts?  

Next up is Joanne's Motivation Linky :)

Wanted to share something I did 2 years ago that I have loved using... Vistaprint's Encouragement Cards.  

They are just their "free" business cards that I keep on my desk for a quick grab and give.    The top says, "Just a little note to tell you how wonderful you were in class today."  There is room to write a little note of what I saw that I thought they did great.  Students love them, I have seen them in pencil boxes and used as bookmarks throughout the year.  Not my own idea though, I created it from all the ideas of Stephanie in Teaching in Room 6.  She has a ton of Vistaprint ideas.  

Do you also do some kind of encouragement notes?  

Last up - remember to click the side bar button or the link

 "Follow this blog on Bloglovin".

Very soon there won't be any more Google Reader.  :(  

 

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Five for Friday - More Pictures from Alaska :)

Another Friday to link up with Doodlebugs Teaching.  It just hit me that 3 weeks ago I said goodbye to my class... 3 weeks of summer already have disappeared... now I'm a little sad...

It's been a great week though.  Actually a great 2 weeks since I'm now back from vacation!  Yesterday I shared a bunch of pictures - here are some more odds and ends to our 10 days away... 

Creek Street in Ketchikan

Whale Watching in Juneau

Gem Mining in Skagway

Border of Alaska and Canada

Here's an example of those fences around the Gold Rush graves.

So many icebergs... a view from the ship

Celebrated hubby's birthday - this was my surprise for him.

Very talented people love to carve up fruits and vegetables... maybe that should be my summer hobby??

Spent quite a bit of time in line in the ice cream area

Hubby, me, and our oldest

The best playground I've ever seen is in Skagway.

Okay - I know, nothing school related :)  I have to say that I haven't thought about all that curriculum at all these past 2 weeks...  now that I'm back it's time to kick it into high gear though...  maybe...

Hope you had a great week!  

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Alaska Vacation and Pictures

I'm back everyone!  Wanted to let you know that I am SOOO relaxed at the moment. I mean other than the overwhelming amount of laundry to still put away.  5 loads washed, still another 3+ to go...

Here's a summary of the trip :)

Ten days, traveling over 3,000 miles, 5 of us in a small cabin, 15 family members, tons of family time...

I read 7 books on my Kindle. 

The boys loved kids camp.

I ate too much.

In Ketchikan our adventure was the lumberjack show. Our team won the first competition and the lumberjack (on the right above) gave my youngest the first wood chip. We carried the big thing home with us.  It's still drying out now in our backyard.  We also wandered around the town - it's cute.  My husband has one of their childhood neighbors living in the town, so we met her for lunch - she told us the summer months are the best, though it's hard for her own little kids to adjust to the 18 hour sunshine days.  Summer is supposedly horrible with the 18 hours of darkness, not to mention the crazy amount of snow and cold.    

In Juneau our adventures included whale watching (hubby and older boys) and visiting the Mendenhall Glacier (above).  While hubby was whale watching, I took my youngest on a long walk in the town.  They have this crepe stand that was wonderful!

Yes, lots of walking - I had my pedometer going nonstop during port days - 7 miles one day, 6 the other days... no wonder my feet hurt!!  Proud of myself though for not giving up - I'm sure it counteracted all that food I consumed.  :)  

In Skagway we went on a 3 hour shuttle bus tour up to the summit and into Canada - Yes, I'm standing on the ledge looking down, I'm afraid of heights... We also took the boys mining for gems (since this is where the Alaskan Gold Rush started) - just like the olden days using a sluice box.  

Our tour guide was super cool and took us through the Gold Rush cemetery to see this awesome waterfall.  The cemetery was interesting.  I'm not someone that enjoys walking through cemeteries, but seeing the dates on the tombstones reminded me how young many of the gold rush miners were in both California and Alaska.  They have quite a few graves with fences around them to keep the bears out (not enough dirt on the rocky mountain to dig down deep).  Yuck!  

The waterfall made it worth it though.

Port days were full of education, but they were also full of mosquitoes.  Came home with too many itchy bites...

Our sea days were almost all fun - some sea sickness in the rocky waters. 

We loved Dramamine and the sea bands.  The kids played in kids camp almost non stop (well the stop was when it closed at lunch, for dinner, and when it was bedtime).  This was the first cruise that the boys wanted to be away from us - it was a nice break, got a lot of reading done.  

Since we were in the Inside Passage, we saw a lot of animals swimming by - dolphins, seals, whales... eagles taking off from ice bergs, bears swimming for their dinner.  So many animals to be seen just from the ship.  With the 18 hour sunshine, there were so many opportunities to keep looking at the water.  :)  

We did play a game of Bingo with my brother in law & his wife - we lost, they won $400.  

Dinner was wonderful - some interesting food choices though - our youngest son did a great job with his potty training, average of 3 times per meal of leaving the table to walk up a flight of stairs for him to use the restroom.  

The tooth fairy also had to make a visit for my middle son.  :)

In Victoria we visited the BC Royal Museum - the one right next store to the Empress... 

and the Government building.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of it.

So wish that we had more time to explore the city... I think the little bit of time we did spend there convinced hubby that we need to make another trip.

These were just some of the pictures that I took on my phone, hubby took around 800 on the camera - so you will probably see more of our trip popping up.  Between leaning about rocks & minerals, glaciers, fossils, the gold rush, etc. it was a totally educational 4th grade trip.  So many things to bring into my lessons next year.  :) I keep telling hubby that some of those receipts could be educational expenses - he isn't buying it though.   

I'm glad to be home though. Now it really feels like summer! :)

 

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Revisiting the Plink

Hi Everyone!  Today I'm supposed to be getting off the boat.  I wanted to share one last revisit with you before I get home and get back to internet. :)

At the beginning of last school year I showed off this picture.

It's my team behavior system.  The power of the plink.  During the past school year I used it on a daily basis.  Some months I only had 2 teams, other times 5 or 6.  It worked the same though no matter the circumstances.  

I have glass marbles/gems that I drop inside the plastic cups.  Those plastic cups are located on my metal whiteboard.  Even one marble drop makes a loud "plink" sound, which gets so much attention.  I change up my team/seating arrangements every month, so at the end of each month we count the team points from the cups and the winning team gets a prize.  Sometimes it's a box of donut holes, sometimes it's a homework pass or school cash.  They buy into it. 

How do the teams get a point?  For being on task, being quiet, doing their best, cleaning up their area, having their books ready to go after transitions...  simple stuff.  

I will definitely be using this again next year. 

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with pictures from the trip.  :)  If not, then definitely for Five for Friday!       

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Revisiting Labels

Hi everyone... Yes, I'm still gone but had something else I wanted to revisit.

Labels!  

Remember last year when I got the deal of the century over at Office Max - 6,000 labels for pennies?  Anyhow, I made a bunch of labels to start out the year.

I had...

*writing labels

*Ask me about my test labels

*AR level labels on the back of ID cards

*Math Score Labels

*Parents, Please Sign and Return

*Parent Response Labels

*AR Levels

*Team/Student #'s

At the beginning of the year I was using all of them.. until I ended up forgetting to bring the labels to school and making more copies.  It was a good way to start out the year, oh so organized.   

So, what ones will I continue this next year?  

1.  The kids really got a kick out of the Ask Me about My Test ones.  Of course so many of my kids were getting them that I probably should have just made some buttons/awards/medals to have them wear for the day.  It's a future Monday Made It.  I just don't have the label deal again at this moment in time.  So yes, will do - just probably not in label form.  

2.  I will also definitely keep doing the Student #'s again.  In fact I already put student labels on the new workbooks/curriculum that was delivered before vacation started.  

3.  It was a good thing to use the writing labels (picture above) on the bigger final draft/projects, but I mainly only used them after a while on the ones that didn't score proficient.  I wanted to save them. 

4.  I will definitely do the AR levels again on the back of their ID cards.  It helped keep me organized when we went to library since it allowed myself, the student, and our librarian to know the level of books they should be reading.  

5.  The home communication sticker on low test grades "Parents, please sign" was also a winner.  It helped me to know that the parents did indeed look at their child's work, so it was a clue in before progress reports and report cards.  

What will I NOT print again?  

*I don't see a need for their math scores on a sticker.  It wasn't necessary last year like I thought it would be last summer.  

*The parent response labels "Thank you for your note.  I did see it, but there wasn't time for me to write you back before the end of the day..." - I still have these from last summer if I ever do need it.  Most parents usually email, hardly any wrote in the kids' agendas.  

If you want any of the labels I mentioned, head back to the old post (links are in green above) to download from Google Docs.

Hope this helps someone!  

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Revisiting Birthday Pencil Bouquet

Hi again!

Today I wanted to revisit my Birthday Bouquet from last summer.  Here it is:

The kids really looked forward to getting to choose their pencils.  I had used the dicuts from the Dollar Tree, but I think they were a little too thin, going to use card stock next year, and print them out of my Cupcake Birthday set (see below).  My friend used silly straws and they were adorable too.  

I'm definitely going to be prepping this again this summer.  Hope you have a great day!  

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Revisiting Homework

Hi everyone - I'm still cruising along... do you miss me yet?  I'm sure that I'm going through withdrawal from not having internet....  and yes, all these revisits were written and scheduled back when I should have been packing for the trip.  :)

Priorities and all that... 

Anyhow, I found another post from last summer that you may remember... Homework Folder.  

Last year my students brought in their own homework folder and we stuck a sheet protector inside.  They kept these papers tucked in there basically all year long.

Their daily homework checklist

Their spelling unit list

Now last year I also mentioned the sheet from Teaching in Room 6, but it turned out to work better in their folders as a reference guide.  

What do I want to add for next year?  I've been eyeing these monthly reading log menus from 3rd Grade Thoughts

Actually my entire grade level has been eyeing them to use next year.  We are thinking that it would give the students the perfect opportunity to use the different reading skills.  :)  Just a little something...

Hope you had a great day!    

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