Five For Friday

Teacher Tip Tuesday

This week's teacher tip was about hanging decorations/posters/resources on the walls in the classroom.  

I use packing tape and then hot glue the piece i want to hang on the wall so that it is easy to take down and the hot glue doesn't mess up whatever I'm hanging. Check out my Teach Tip Tuesday link for more information.

check out my newest FREEBIE in my TPT store.  This is a weekly to do list that can be used when planning out the following week.  Write down what to expect M-F and then everything you need to do to prepare for the week on the right side.  This is also part of my teacher binder that I am still working on, but hope to post soon.

This is a craft that I have my students complete the first week of school, to get them writing and tell me about their summer. They always turn out super cute and the it is the first thing that I will hang up on my student work wall.

One of our first units in math is number sense.  I created journal activities for my students to complete each day.  It gives them practice with the lesson, and allows them to use their journal as a resource to look back on later.

It covers numbers to 100 and place value.

Last year I implemented number talks into my morning meeting.  I really liked the placement of this in the morning and how the skill really helped the students understand number sense and later helped them with addition and subtraction.  

I have made the Kindergarten Number Talk dot cards and the First Grade Number Talks dot cards for you to use in your classroom.  They are already in order, all you have to do to print and cut.  Put them together by number and have the students first tell you what the number is and then how they got that number.,

Teacher Tip Tuesday #12

I know many of you are going back to school shortly or are already back to school. I still have a few weeks left of summer, but either way we all have to hang things and decorate our rooms to make them welcoming to our students.  This little trick is how I hang up EVERYTHING in my room and it allows me to reuse my borders/decorations year to year without ruining them.

If you place a small piece of packing tape on the back of whatever you are hanging and then add hot glue to the shiny side of the packing tape, it will not ruin the border or decoration.  It will stick to the wall just fine and when you are finished, it is also easy to take down without hurting your decorations. The hot glue will stick to the wall when you take down the decoration and not to the back of your decoration.
From there you can pick the hot glue off or use a scraper to get it off the wall.
Hope this helps when decorating this year!

Five for Friday

With less than a month left of summer break, I really started to work on things for the upcoming school year in my free time and make a "game plan" for the rest of the summer to help me get it all done by September.

The teacher tip of the week was about managing trash at student tables.  I have always used Table Top Trash cans in my classroom and think they are the greatest thing when it comes to having the students throw trash away.  

The students are at their seats working and they don't need to get up to throw scraps away.  They all put their scraps in the table top trash can on their table and continue working on their activity.  When they are all finished and are cleaning up their area.  They dump the table top trash can into the classroom trash can and continue with their day.  

I used a basket, but I have also used many different containers from the dollar store.  It just depends on my theme that year.

I updated my 100 chart number cards to include place value cubes as well as the numbers.

In my classroom, this is part of calendar time, which we review every day.  This year I wanted to spend more time on number sense, so I included place value cubes for the students to make the connection with the 100s chart.  The numbers and place value cubes are color coded to help students with skip counting.  Cards are made to fit in a 100 chart pocket chart. 

This is a picture of my calendar time set up, but you can see the pocket chart in the right corner and see how it is color coded to help with skip counting.

 I started thinking about my Meet The Teacher day, and decided to get glow sticks from the dollar store and make these cute tags to go with them.  I plan to place one at each student's seat and when they come to meet me, they will get to take it home. You can get these editable tags for free in my TPT store.

I started working on my positive notes for the first week of school.  I try to choose a few students who have been working hard all week to get a positive note from the teacher on Fridays.  Because first grade is new to the students, they ALL get a positive note on the first Friday.  I started writing these out this week.  For more info about this check out my link.  You can also get my note cards here.

Teacher Tip Tuesday #11

The teacher tip of the week is about the table top trash cans that I use in my classroom.  I have used these EVERY year that I taught and they are a game changer for me and my students.  These containers are places and kept at each table in my room.  Every time we cut something out and have trash to trow away, the students put it in their Table Top Trash Can and continue working on their activity.  That means no one is up walking around wasting time to trow away trash.  They don't even have to get out of their seats. They throw it in the bin and continue to work.

When everyone is finished, or at the end of class, someone from the table will dump their Table Top Trash Can into one on the classroom trash cans and return the empty container back to their table.

Five For friday

It was a busy week and I am happy it is coming to an end.  I was able to sleep in this morning and get some things done around the house.

I went to see visit this cutie in South Carolina for the weekend!  I had so much fun catching up and playing with this little girl.

This was week 10 of my teacher tips.  It was about my classroom library organization. I place colored stickers on each book and the sticker matches the sticker on the bin in my library.  I also have labels on my bins so the students can look for a specific kind of book if they want.

This is one bin from my classroom library.  You can see the sticker on the book matches the sticker on the library label and bin.  The stickers I got at the dollar tree and target.  The library labels are in my TPT store.

I also decided on my welcome wall for outside my classroom and job chart for the beginning of school.

I posted this on TPT this week for you to use as well.  

I am going to have a mickey/minnie ears for each student in my class.  When I get my class list, I will place a name on each mouse for my welcome wall and on each hand for my job chart.

Mickey Mouse Welcome Wall and Job Chart

I've been working on my teacher binder and updating it for this year.  We are going to have a lot of changes this year in the curriculum and in the pacing of each subject so I needed to create a better teacher planner to help me with all this change.  I am not finished yet, but I am continuing to work on my teacher binder.

I hope to finish this in a couple weeks and post an editable version on TPT.  If you have any suggestions about what I can add to it I would appreciate the feedback.

Since I have been tutoring, I started using these to help with print and forming letters and numbers correctly.  

I printed them out on card stock and laminated them.  Now i have the kids I tutor use a dry erase marker to write and erase when they are finished.

Teacher Tip Tuesday #10

This week I wanted to show you how I organize my library and how easy it is for my students to use.  I have 3 book shelves in my classroom library for the students to choose books from for their book boxes or to use in the classroom.  I have the students responsible for exchanging their books when they need new ones to read.
This is how I organize the bins and the books so they are easy to find.

I use dot stickers that I get at the dollar store or target and I put one on every book according to what bin I want it in.  Then I also place a sticker on the library bin so the students can match the sticker color and place it in the correct bin when returning a book.  I have my Library Labels in my TPT store is you would like to look at them.  It includes 18 different library bin labels in color.

Five For Friday

This was my first week since school was over that I had a day off that I didn't need to go into school.  It was very nice to relax and get some work done around the house as well as for the classroom when I return in September.

This was a unit that I posted on TPT as a part of my Guided Math Lessons.  This one is all about teaching money and the value of coins to $1.

This was my Teacher Tip Tuesday post about sharp and dull pencils and managing pencil sharpening during class.

My blog post this week was about online resources that I use during the school year to make planning easier.

For the last 2 days I have attended a Literacy Training that was based on writing.  I went with a few friends and it was a lot of fun learning about how I can better incorporate writing into my lessons for next school year.

Happy Friday!