Teacher Tip to Encourage Good Choices

Teachers are busy, but we can't be too busy to notice our sweet friends when they make good choices!

I wanted to add a quick way to encourage my students, but I wanted to also REMEMBER who I have encouraged!  Who might NEED encouraging!  While walking through the aisle of Dollar Tree, I recalled a cute idea from a blog post I read in the past.  I can NOT for the life of me find it---if you KNOW, please share as I'd love for you to see that post, TOO!  At any rate, seeing the $1 Receipt Book, I knew what my next project would be!  And I am LONG overdue for a Monday Made It!

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Quick & Easy Math Centers for December

Hello fellow Monday Made It fans! How I have MISSED you!!!!

This has been the school year BEYOND school years!  So little time for the extra "fun stuff" I enjoy.  We have switched to a Standards Based Report Card.  Ugh.......

It's not that I'm not a FAN mind you, I do like knowing a bit deeper how my kids are doing.  Truthfully, I do.   The paperwork, however, takes me back to when I taught Kindergarten to Pebbles & Bam Bam. Anyway....it'll get better....it always DOES because that's how teachers ROLL!

BA HA HA!

Just kidding......

Seriously, how many Mondays have you had this year when you were super glad to have your lunch made with a cup of coffee to go???  We gotta celebrate ALL the victories, right?

Seriously, I've been a pretty good TPT buyer this year, but I haven't had the time to make something special for my kids.  I just LOVED it last year when I would bring out some new game or task card set and they'd ask me...."Did you make this one?".  I don't bake or cook a lot, but I imagine this is the equivalent in my world.  "Home-made" games!!  With the holidays quickly approaching, I wanted to use my of my favorite tricks to organize my newest centers!

I wanted something super easy to put together, something that didn't take too much time to complete, but I knew would pack a punch in a short period of time!

I am so stinking excited to bring these out for the next two weeks!  It seriously was really quick, considering there were so many little activities.

I bought these cute little gift baggies for @ $4 for five of them.  I'm sure I could have gotten them cheaper at Dollar Tree, but I wasn't AT Dollar Tree when I needed them!  LOL!

After I laminated the pages with my little best friend, I taped a cover sheet to the bag.  Then, I just had to cut out three little pages...put them in the gift bag...and BAM!  Center is ready to go!

So, while I watched my Sunday night favorite, "Once Upon a Time, I had all the centers I wanted to use ready to go!  Just needed a few more bags...OR... I'll use 5 one week and 5 more the next week!

No picture (SORRY!), but I ran off a stapled bundle front to back of the answer documents so that they won't lose them, they're kept together, and can complete in ANY order!

Hope you like my tip for spicing up your December Centers!  

1. Pull out the task cards you need to do a spiral review while you work in a small group to enrich and remediate.
2. Put them in some cute gift bags
3. Staple the answer sheets together
4. Done!  Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

My kids went NUTS when I brought them in last week and keep asking...WHEN CAN WE DO THE PRESENTS GAMES????

That's it for me!  If you're looking for some centers, click on the image to see these December Math Mini-Centers in my store.  I've got them marked down for a short time, if you need something fresh! 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

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Monday Made It 7/28

Spent the last week in Project Lead the Way training and random time in my classroom.  I don't know about you, but I tend to kind of start lots of little fires.  And the room never really looks like I've made any progress!  That is pretty frustrating!  So, I don't have much to share this week.

I do have one thing I'm pretty excited about that I created for my Parent Orientation this week.  I love trying to find fun and new ways to share the Ins & Outs of 3rd grade.  I really wanted to make a Prezi.  Alas, I just never got around to it.  I settled for revamping my Powerpoint presentation.

I thought an ABCs of 3rd Grade would be super fun!  I used lots of my favorite clips from Melonheadz (LOVE HER!) in the corners to jazz it up.  Here's a sneak peak at "A".

I thought this would be a great way to organize the information I want my parents to have.

To try to keep it all as "paperless" as possible, my whole slideshow will be put on a Padlet to be referred to any time of the year from my class website.  Wouldn't a QR code be the perfect way for my parents to grab it???  If I get some extra time this week, maybe I'll make some business cards with the QR code.  What do you think?  Have you ever done that?  Oh!  And here's a little peak at some of the other slides!

Well, that's it for me this week.  I've put together a version for you, if you think if will help with your upcoming Welcome/Open House!  I've dropped in a few "suggested" titles for each page, but they are TOTALLY editable.  Use the word that works best for you!  I also h ave some blanks included in case you need to add a few extra slides to introduce yourself or whatever.  Heck....you could put your room number in the Black bubble and make a Welcome sign for your door with it!  

Knowing what crunch time feels like, I've marked it down 50% until Tuesday night!  

Click HERE to hop over to my store for the listing.

Have a great week, y'all!  My first teacher day is TOMORROW!!!  Waah!  Where did the summer go?  Oh well, can't wait to meet my 22 new kiddoes though!!

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Blue Green Focus Wall Pennant Idea

It's official!  Summer seems to have barely started and yet its winding down!  I'm in training this week for Project Lead the Way.  Anyone out there familiar with it?  We'll see!  I'll be the Master Teacher for grades 3-5 at our school, so I guess I better learn all about it, huh??  My mind will be on my classroom and this weeks wonderful Monday Made It posts for when I get home!

Thanks, as always, to sweet Tara for this wonderful sharing event!  Yet another week of no Made-Its for home.  I really should.......

We were allowed back in our classroom this week.  I was super excited to see that not only did they install the MUCH anticipated new touch Promethian boards, but they painted the wall behind it.  Imagine that!  A pop of color in my room!  And it's PERFECT for me!

I didn't actually MAKE this one, but I'm super excited about it!

I wanted to tackle those bulletin boards this week.  Something about having some cute stuff on the walls makes you feel like you're making progress....even when there is a freaking mess everywhere else!!

The bulletin board on the left is the same size as the only board I used to have up front, so I just recycled that same fabric.  I had Math on that side of the room last year, but I need more room for Math.  So.....Reading Focus Wall it is!

I really wanted to switch the style of my pennant banners and came up with this one.  Y'all......I'm in love!  It takes up less space, I'm still not having to make the letters even (since I put right up at the top), and I still get that POP that I want!  

I didn't get very far on my Math Focus Wall yet because I'm still rolling that large space around in my head.  My clean slate is ready to go though!  And LOOKS better than that cork!

My Facebook friends really LOVED my new banners, so I decided to add them to my Blue & Green Classroom Decoration Bundle......and to the smaller set of Editable Labels, Desk Plates & Banners.

If you HAVE it already....go back and download the updates in time for school!

Click on the picture of the product you have so you can get it!

Last but not least, I've been working on getting ahead and having some multiplication task cards ready once CRUNCH time happens pretty soon!  Hoping to front-load some things before we REALLY hit it hard!  I love all these little cowboy clips, so they became a set I can use anytime.

 I'm planning to blog more about them later, but I'll just share the covers for now.  I know you have a lot of pages to visit!   These three new additions are 20% off in interested!

 

Tossin' Multiplication Fact Family Fact Cards: Two Sets

Scoot 'Em Up Cowboy Multiplication Fact Cards-2 Complete Sets

Write 'Em Up Cowboy: Writing Multiplication from Arrays & Repeated Addition

That's it for me!  Have a great week, y'all!

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Owl Classroom Decor Idea

Hi friends!  Missed Monday Made It last week!  I've been MAKING stuff, but I just didn't have any blog time.  I didn't even get to read the wonderful posts!  I need to do double duty this week, for sure.

But first.......

I hope you will pop into my Facebook page tomorrow (or the next few days) and  join in for this great event to kick off your school year prep.  About 20+ bloggy friends have joined together to hop from Facebook page to Facebook page giving away samples for you to download.  Mine...is a full item you won't want to miss!  If you've never checked out my store, I hope you'll check out my freebie to see the kinds of task cards that I love creating for my kiddoes!  Head over and like my page today, so that you'll get the reminders next time you cruise Facebook!  Click HERE or my Facebook tab at the top of my page!

Now....for the good stuff!

Once again...a big thanks to Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for having such a great blog and treating other teachers so wonderfully all YEAR that we can look forward to Mondays all summer!!

If you ARE one of my Facebook friends, you know that I've been really having fun making some different classroom items for my TPT store.  Stuff that I would like if I had more than one classroom to decorate.  I get these colors or clip art pieces that grow on me and I just have to find more ways to use them!  Over the last few weeks I've been working on these little sets because of the precious Owls Melonheadz clip art I purchased last spring.  My daughter's sorority mascot is an Owl so now I look for Frogs AND Owls wherever I go.  So, if my sweet daughter had a classroom, I think she'd love these!

All of the Editable Labels, Desk Plates, and Banners sets I've been making are pretty similar.

They all have desk plates in two sizes-2 to a page and 4 to a page.  I love the chalkboard look, but I know that for printing purposes, I have to pick and choose when I use that.   So, I've made my sets have both, since it would be hard for me to pick and choose.  All my desk plates also have slides with and without clip art---because, well......I guess I just like options and I figure other teachers do, too!!

Just like all the options above, I've done the same with the labels.  They come 4 to a page and 8 to a page.

I'm pretty much addicted to banners.  They are just easier to me than buying letters.  They cap off any door or bulletin board.  PLUS, I don't have to see if I've lined up the letter right....the ribbon just swags for me!  I've made these in two sizes, too.  3 banners to a page, and 1 to a page.

I just love how they turned out.  If you're an owl fan like my sweet daughter, head over to my store and get a closer look by clicking HERE!

I ALSO made some Classroom Schedule Cards to match them!  I have a variety of colors in my store for the schedule cards, but I decided to make one to match this set perfectly with the sweet owls.   You can get a closer look at that one HERE.

I had been making classroom sets out the wazoo and it occured to me........I had ALOT of blue and green!  So, I branched out and made a primary set of Editable Labels, Desk Plates, and Banners that is HUGE!!!!  I kept playing with color combinations and just couldn't STOP!  The end result was a huge set that any classroom with primary colors really have a variety going on.  For the purposes of sharing, I clustered them to present this way.

 They all come in a plain desk plate, a desk plate with an apple, and a desk plate with a cute Scrappy Kid.  AND the choice of chalkboard and white center.

Banners are included, too....but I left them off here as this post is getting pretty long!!!

So that was my creative outlet just to have fun playing with clip art and digital papers.  It was time to get down to business and go back to MY classroom.

Classroom jobs have been on my brain for a while.  I haven't had classroom jobs for about 3 years.  I always did them in Boy/Girl pairs and rotated them together.  That helped them remind each other and keep each other in check.  The trouble was that I always ended up having either more boys or more girls.  Thus, either the girls or the boys had jobs more than the other.

It has been VERY successful having table Captains.   They collect the papers, pass things out, check to see if names are on all the papers, etc.  I am planning to keep doing THAT for sure.  If you've never considered it...DO!!

That said, I decided to return to classroom jobs.  I think I will keep it small though.  When my captains turn in work, they come to me.  I think I'd prefer to have an assistant do that.  Let me continue prepping for the transition to the next lesson while they handle those kind of tasks.  Kids always want to be the messenger, so I thought that would be a good job to have.  Since we are a digital 1:1 school, when trouble pops up....I can't get to kids quickly enough!  Having a Tech Assistant is just the ticket.  And frankly, they often know how to fix a problem quicker than I do!  That's just a few to start, so I whipped up some cards to display in my room.

The black and white is perfect for my classroom!  I'll be using numbers next to the jobs to rotate each week, I think.  That system is great and won't require me to remove labels or get GooGone out to get sharpie off the labels to reuse.  Knowing that others don't do that, I made a few extra pages so others could use them, too.  Threw in my cute birds that match my Aqua, Lime & Orange Classroom pieces, a page of my newest Owls, and a page of Apples since, well.....apples are just a school teacher thing that ALWAYS works with ANY theme!  Then, I made two more pages with just some cute little kids.  I might just have to use them!!  If you are in need of revamping your Classroom Helpers Chart, click over and take a look HERE!

That's it for this week!  I"m heading back into the classroom to start setting up THIS WEEK!  AAH!  Hoping to be very efficient in doing this!!  

Don't forget to get my Freebie on my Facebook page in the next few days!!  It's a good one!!

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DIY I Can Wall (+FREEBIE) and Classroom Decor

Hello everybody!  I know slowly but surely more of you are beginning your summer!  I'm so sad that mine will end in July!!!  How crazy is that??  Gotta use these precious days wisely, huh?  On to the good stuff, right?  Don't you just LOVE Mondays with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics??  Make sure if you are starting here with me, you head back over there to read all the great ideas!

But FIRST, I'm also meeting up with The Teaching Tribune for their Monday Meet Me.

Thought you might not mind a little Snippet to know more about me!  Be sure to click back over there to meet lots of your favorites and meet some new folks!

This isn't a NEW project, but I think it's a good one.  I've never blogged about it, so I'm sharing a super easy project that would be great to use in your classroom.  You've seen this picture and frames like it all over Pinterest.  I loved that you could use a dry erase marker on the glass----and wipe it off!  And there is only so much room we can take away from our white boards for permanent displays.  With the addition of Promethian Boards, even more space is taken away.

I really loved this idea and really wanted to use this idea for either a Homework board or something else.  I could never really find the frame that I liked, but I could easily find frames at the Dollar Tree.  So, that is what I did!  I also decided that I needed a permanent spot to display our I Can statements that we were required to to display.  Here's the end product!  If you display "I Can" statements in your room, you can pick up this banner as a FREEBIE in my TpT store by clicking HERE.  Be sure to leave me some LOVE if you get it!  :-)

This is an empty spot on my wall in view of the students, but it wasn't in a spot where I was doing my direct teaching.  Here's what I did:

1. Stapled some black fabric to the wall.
2. Stapled some border to cover the edges.
3. I created a banner on PowerPoint with my classroom colors.  Holes were punched in the corners, strung with skinny ribbon, and tied pretty ribbon to the edges.
4. I hung 6 prepared frames on the wall.  Behind each bow are two tiny flat thumbtacks on each side of the bow.  The frames stayed in place through lots of erasing all year!

It was really simple to create the frames, too.  After purchasing the $1 frames, I went to Hobby Lobby and found some 12x12 scrapbook paper that also went with my classroom theme.  I chose the 12x12 because it would fit in my frame no matter which direction I hung the frame.

I put together a border and title page on the computer.  Printed and cut them out.  Then glued it to the scrapbook paper.

After putting the paper in the frame, I stapled two pieces of ribbon (in two different directions on each side for extra support) to the cardboard backing of the frame.  Then I put the frame back together!

And there you have it!  An erasable spot in your room and NOT using the space you have left on your white board.  Cheap, too!! $6 for the frames, scrapbook paper on sale was about $1.50, and yard of fabric.  Not bad!

My next MMI is my very first cohesive classroom set with my classroom colors.  I've put together a hodge-podge of things for my room over time but nothing like this.  I've really fallen in love with the chalkboard look, but I didn't want it all over my room.  Just in POPS! So, I created a set of labels in white & chalkboard to work on this summer.  I made them editable so that I don't have to worry about saving or messing up my originals.  I'm ready to get busy creating a new look for my classroom library this summer using these, redoing my cubby numbers (I don't do names), printing my own desk plates, making more banner titles for my bulletin boards, etc.  It took me FOREVER to figure out how to do this editable without Adobe Pro, but I love the challenge in learning new things on the computer!  My daughter says that I'm Cra-Cra!

My Word Wall needed to be updated, so I coordinated that with my "I Can" banner that I had already made.  I use black fabric, blue fabric, and green fabric in my room for all displays.  Mostly black though.  It's just crisp and clean.

Funny how when you get started, you just keep rolling!! I've been using a really cute free Behavior clip chart, but it wasn't REALLY in my colors. So............ I updated that, too!!!

I did an update to one of my old calendar sets to make it cohesive with these papers, and I'm really pleased with that.  

I'm trying to store all of my task cards with some sort of rhyme and reason, so I created these labels for them.  The containers were only 88 cents at Walmart, too!  I think I could have just kept going and going, but I decided to call it quits!

 I can't tell you what a labor of love this was!!!  I spend so much time in my classroom, that I want to walk in each day and feel happy.  I know it's silly, but I do.  I appreciate so much when my parents come in and say how much they love walking in.  They know that I've created a setting for  learning but with a bit of personality.

Let's face it, ladies.   Our hubbies would never let us have a Frog, Wild West, Sports (well.....maybe) themed room in our homes, right?  This is the one room where WE'RE the BOSS!!  If these are your colors, check out this set in my TpT store by clicking HERE.  I hope that you'll "FOLLOW ME" on TpT to see other Freebies and new stuff I put together!

I'm headed to south Georgia to go to the beach this week!  Fingers crossed for good weather!!  Of course, a bad day at the beach is STILL better than good weather at home!

Have a great week y'all! 

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