Summer Bucket ABC's

Good Morning Everyone!

I wanted to share my Summer Bucket List.  This isn't exactly my to do list - it's more all the fun stuff I hope to be able to do.  :)  See, there's a difference...  

Linking up with the Fun Summer Bucket List Linky Party and... 

... using What the Teacher Want's cute ABC List to share. 

  

Have a great day!

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Five for Fraturday and Saturday Motivation :)

Linking up with Doodlebugs Teaching with my 5 for Friday/Saturday and Head Over Heels for her Motivational Linky 

Random Moments of my Week

#1 Smores Cones

Yesterday my class camped out.  Our treat was creating a Solar Oven Smores Cone.  Last year we made Solar Ovens using pizza boxes - and quite honestly everything was just warm, the wind kept taking off with the boxes, and the marshmallows turned hard.  This year I needed something simpler and less messy.

Each kid got a sandwich sized bag with 14 mini marshmallows and a tablespoon of chocolate chips.  I scooped these on Thursday night so it was easier to pass out.  I was pleasantly surprised how one bag of mini marshmallows and one bag of chocolate chips fed all my students  - we made 36 bags total.  

In class on Friday I gave them each a bag, about a 9 inch piece of foil, and a sugar ice cream cone.  They poured the bag out onto their foil and then layered the yumminess inside the cone.  Then they carefully wrapped their cones in foil and stuck their foil cones inside their sandwich bag.  They labeled their sandwich bags with sharpie, and handed them to me.  

I have these plastic tubs in my classroom - about 18 inches by 12 inches.  I lined 2 of them with foil, stuck the bags inside, and then covered them with another sheet of foil.  We stuck them out on our ramp at 8:40 am, and after lunch at 12:20 the marshmallows had turned deliciously warm and gooey, and the chocolate had melted to bring it all together.  The kids devoured them.  

I'm sure a little extra time would have made it even more cohesive, but I didn't have more time with the minimum day.  I love minimum days.    

#2  Motivation :)

Motivation comes in all shapes and sizes, and I wanted to mention something relatively simple - Helpers :)

My class jobs include everyone in my classroom every single week.  I am a believer that a student needs to feel responsible in the classroom, taking ownership of the classroom, and how it runs.  I used to be a hog (aka control freak) and not share the responsibilities with the kids, but then realized that there were many many jobs they can do, and feel proud of themselves in the process.  I take jobs seriously.    

Here's my list of jobs - maybe you've seen me mention them before.  I have 32 kids in my classroom, so I have 1 Star of the week (lights, phone, line leader, rocking chair sitter), 4 helpers (odds & end needs, paper stampers, sometimes passing out things), 4 papers (passing papers, checking off names, sometimes stampers), 2 doors (open/hold/close), 10 lunch baskets (2 per day carrying the basket), 4 agenda stampers (checking homework written correctly in the afternoons), 4 clean ups (giving fairy notes to extra clean desks), and 3 librarians (making sure our classroom library stays organized for everyone.)  

At the end of the week - Friday's to be exact - we have a gigantic Paper Passing Out Party where EVERYONE has to help.  The kids get a stack of stuff from the basket, and then pass them out to the correct desks.  Everyone has to help, they are everyone's papers - so even if they don't want to, they still take that responsibility.  

#3  Pizza

Just a random thought - how many of you also have Friday pizza nights?  My family does every single week... 2 pizzas out of the freezer - one cheese, one pepperoni.  Then we hunker down for a movie night.  Pizza is on my brain since I just called Costco to order pizza for our pizza party next Tuesday...

#4  Teachers Care for Oklahoma

I am honored to help out with this bundle pack.  My Algebraic Equations task cards are somewhere in there.  :)  Go donate!  

#5  Pet Rocks

Like I mentioned, yesterday was camping day.  I love camping day.  I decided to do things a little different than last year though with the art projects.  I picked up 2 bags of small decorative rocks at the Dollar Tree and gave my students a choice of 3 paints.  They got to create any kind of animal they wanted.  They got into it, and these were some of the results.  I think they looked so good!

Hope you have a great day!    

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A School Timeline

So yesterday was a wonderfully wonderful day.  It couldn't have been easier, coming after the huge field trip from the day before...  I wanted it easy.  I needed it easy.  

 I passed out yellow paper and had the kiddos bubble write "SCHOOL".

Bubble writing is difficult.  I should have probably made it up on powerpoint in Word Art... but then I guess they wouldn't have learned the importance of sizing and spacing their letters.

They persevered though.  The above one is mine.  :)  

On my information wall I have a timeline that I have added apples to all year long.  Each month has a different apple, and on the apples I write fun activities to remember.  I took them down today and we reminisced about the year.  It looks like the one below - but without the pictures, and I have the months.  It's at the very top of my information board... can't believe I don't have a picture of it!  

The "SC" was the first trimester activities that we completed.  

The "HO" was the second trimester... 

...and the "OL" was the third.  

Then they asked me if they had to turn it in, and I said, "Of course not!  Take it home to show your families..."  I love this time of year.  :)

Hope you had a great day!

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Organization Linky Party

Linking up with Elizabeth and Kristen to share organizational ideas that have worked in my classroom.  

Get ready - I took a lot of pictures this week :)

Of course some of them are pretty old too...

First up - I LOVE my magnets.  I have them in one section of my whiteboard and the kids move them over when they are done working on the big thing of the week.  Sometimes it's a permission slip, sometimes a pen pal letter, sometimes a project.  I LOVE them!

Here's my classroom library.  I have it organized in clear plastic shoeboxes with packing tape holding on the different AR levels - AR levels are color coded.  I have chapter books in the smaller boxes, and in my big tubs are picture books.  I just can't part with my picture books.  My class librarians keep everything organized.  

Speaking of boxes - I have tons of those green & white moving boxes above my rolling carts.  They are mainly class sets of books.  I'm addicted to buying class sets of books with my bonus points.  I keep 2 class sets in each box - more than 2 means the boxes get too heavy and awkward lifting down.  Believe me, I've learned the hard way.  Also above my cabinet is an under the bed lift cover type of box - I use it to store my larger posters - you know the kind that I used to buy at the teacher supply store when there was a teacher supply store around here.


As for centers and task cards, I bought some of these 3 drawer plastic things (like my fancy terms?) over at Target.  I really want to get another one to fill in that spot with the crate.  Right now in the 9 drawers I have multiplication and division fact tests (one in each), math fact games, and math manipulatives.  The math manipulatives are in larger ziploc bags that are labeled.  I love ziploc bags.  Absolutely love them.

For task cards, I am in the process of switching some of the ones that are used all year long over to those cheap photo albums from the Dollar Store.  If something doesn't have color on it, I don't usually laminate it - but I want to keep them working for years to come.  I also picked up some of these reusable sandwich bags (super heavy duty) from Target's dollar spot, and want to switch them out from the sandwich bags.  It's a process that I'm hoping to finish before May 31st when I'm locked out of my classroom.  

Onto file cabinets - well 2 summers ago I went through my files and chucked a bunch of stuff that I never look at or that was already on my computer.  If I do use it I brought it home as a summer project and scanned the material into the computer to save it in digital form.  Now my cabinets have all my copies for the year (I send them off in April), assessments, extra math facts practice sheets & tests, and extra resources like those mentor texts that I can't just put into a rolling cabinet.  This week I also added a drawer filled with the printed 4th grade Common Core Workbook.   I organized them by standard and they are in a drawer waiting for other resources to join them. 

In past years I have used the plastic shoeboxes for my student's book bins (Daily 5) but this past year I learned my lesson when the first week of school many of the kids broke them.  Instead I changed out using my plastic shoeboxes for other needs - specifically to organize them in my rotating center station. This wire system used to be in my sons' closets - but it kept falling apart, so instead my husband zip tied it together extra tight and it holds the workshop binders and up to 16 plastic shoeboxes (if I squish them in) of different activities.  I keep one side for math, and another for reading. As kids finish their work they know where to go.  

Speaking of binders - I love them too.  Inside my binders are worksheets that kids can use during Word Work, Math time, etc... I have them stuck inside sheet protectors and the kids use their dry erase markers on them.  It makes it easy to put one or two copies of a story with comprehension questions on the back of it.  

What else?  

On my desk I made up my tool kit last summer.  This has been a lifesaver this year.  It makes it so easy to keep track of things.  I also have a smaller one that I keep on my table for parents to get supplies that they need.  It isn't labeled like my big one, but maybe this summer I will get around to it. 

I like these big tubs in my classroom too:

One has all my clipboards

Another has my privacy shields/offices/testing screens.

Another has my recess equipment.

Another has my rainy day games.

I can't forget about crates:

I use them for each team group to hold their books.  Our desks are super small and not everything can fit inside them.  These can hold 5 reading and 5 math books.

I keep a crate by my "real" teacher's desk with my go to resources to plan, as well as a crate by my cart up front with all the teacher editions in it.

I'm sure there is more organization in my classroom.  I love to be organized and I'm hopeful that one day soon I will be able to know where everything is within a matter of moments.  :)  

Hope you had a great day!

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Field Trip Day! Yeah, you'll laugh...and then be glad it wasn't you!

Oh Mylanta!  Actually, it's more - Oh, Aleve!  

I AM SO TIRED!!!

...and to think, I didn't even have all my students today since in March the office gave us permission to have families sign a behavior contract.  

Basically it meant that parents needed to sign a sheet of paper that said they understood their child would not be eligible to attend the field trip if their child received 2 or more referrals, or a suspension before the field trip.  It was written by the entire grade level as well as administration.

  Those ineligible kids stayed behind with their soon to be next year's teachers (but they don't know that part yet) to complete the 7 hour Roller Coaster Sub Plan.  It was so easy having this as their project of the day.     

So between 2 non eligible children, 1 child who never brought it back signed, and an absent child, I only had 28 children that went with me (and 5 chaperones) on our field trip to our state capitol.

Last year we got to be fancy and ride on a charter bus - complete with air conditioning and a DVD player since the school busses were completely booked.  This year we were told that we had to take a school bus.  Needless to say it wasn't as comfortable a trip.  

But it was $100 cheaper, so we lived with it.

A little about my trip - I'm sure someday I will smile :)

*We were on the freeway and the trunk of the bus flew open - 

so we had to pull off on the shoulder to have the driver get out to shut it.

*At the first museum it was interesting, though freezing cold, and the kids had fun wandering around with their chaperones doing a scavenger hunt.  I never take a group since I'm the official fixer-of-all-problems. 

totally not my picture...

*Even with the big museum of wonder, I think the kids most liked looking out the window and seeing a policeman riding a horse.  It was random, at least until we realized what was going on down the street.

*I bought a ton of stuff but I justified it as I am using it to further my 

future students' educational experiences.

another totally not my picture - but imagine this covered with tents.  Can't show my own picture with all the cute kiddo faces.  

*  We did the block walk down to the capitol - which had a ton of tents up.  Don't know what they were protesting/celebrating/etc... don't know if I really want to know.  Just glad to be able to take my picture of the kiddos with the capitol in the background.  Instant student gift!

*Then we went onto our next stop - the State Indian Museum which is located right next to Sutter's Fort.  We didn't get to go into the fort today, but it was alright.  Instead we saw the tiniest woven baskets in the world - seriously, you need a microscope to view them.  There was other cool stuff too.    

*Before we headed inside the museum we ate lunch at the park.  Lots of kids actually listened to me when I told them to pack a plastic garbage bag to sit on.  My bag became the trash bag for everyone.  It was during lunch that a random duck decided to walk by, and then the poor bird was chased by half my students.  I never thought I would have to yell, "Stay away from the duck!"  

All in all a good day!

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