Name Posters

So I had been planning to share with you all what I do with my students' names as one of the activities on the first day of school, however when I was looking through my pictures I found that I really didn't take any good pictures of them! They were above the windows in my classroom (which I LOVE because they let in tons of light), however I usually don't take pictures in that direction because bright light from the windows makes everything inside the room look really dark, which = not a great picture. 

So, the best picture have from last year is one that I took one day with the windows closed!

I also have this picture of some of the ones done by my students two years ago.

So now hopefully you have a picture in your head of what I'm talking about!

This is an idea I got from Katie, one of my wonderful cooperating teachers back when I was doing my student teaching!

To make their name posters, I start off with white and black sheets of 12x18 construction paper.

The black papers I cut in half lengthwise (I use these pieces to back the white pieces before I put them up on the wall).

Since the white pieces need to be smaller than the black ones, I cut the white pieces so that they are 11in x 17.5 in. 

Then I just hand-draw my students' names with a Sharpie and they are ready to go!

When I have my students color these on the first day of school, we talk about power coloring (which I also got from Katie)! Sometimes students have the tendency to draw really lightly with colored pencils, which looks nice up close, but from far away it can be hard to see! I show them how to "power color" by pressing down hard with their color pencils and the difference that it makes. I refer to power coloring many times throughout the year when we are using colored pencils, so this is great practice!

Here is my sample:

My kiddos color these on the first day of school, and then I keep them up all year long!

 I tell them that it is not just my classroom, but all of ours, and they love having all their names proudly displayed in the room!

Colorful Supply Caddy & Vocab words!

Hey everyone!

I am linking up today for Tara's weekly Monday Made It!

I feel like my summer is slowly drifting away from me and I still have so much left to do! Thankfully today I got a few things done that I can share with you! One is a fun thing that I have been wanting to do for a while now and one is a very loooonnng (but colorful!) task that needed to be done for next year!

First, I saw this pin on Pinterest and knew I HAD to make one! I wish I knew who the original source was, but it doesn't link back to a specific website. If you know who did it, please let me know!!

 

I like to have an area in my classroom with sharpened pencils, extra scissors, and other supplies that my students may need. Also, last year I had a small bucket for misc. items that students found on the floor (markers, pencils, erasers, etc.). I liked having a place for the found items, however it drove me crazy that they were all mixed together! This will be a perfect place for students to put those items for other students to use when they need them!

Here are the supplies I started with:

Lazy Susan: This is an old one that we used for several years and then decided we didn't want it anymore! I think we originally bought it from IKEA. It was a little used, but I just sanded it down and painted it and it was as good as new!

Colorful Cups: I was SO excited when I saw these cups at Sears! I saw them earlier in the summer, but didn't buy them, so when I went out shopping today I was really hoping that they would still be there, and they were! AND at 60% off! All of these cups (plus one more set) cost under $5!

White spray paint

I am so, so happy with how my supply caddy turned out and I can't wait to use it in my classroom!!

My long task that I've been working on the past few days is typing up all of our vocabulary words for our word wall!

216 words total!

I color coded them all so that each unit has its own color, that way it will be easy to sort them at the end of the year! We will be putting them up on our word wall as we go so that my students can refer to them while we are working on vocabulary and writing! Also, my students love to point out when our vocabulary words come up throughout the year in other reading and writing that we do, and our vocabulary word wall is a great way to reference them!

I spend hours typing, cutting, backing with cardstock, cutting again, laminating, and then cutting a final time. So glad to finally be done and that they turned out so well!

Don't you just love these long sheets of lamination?! I know I will be going back to Lakeshore many times before the year begins and bringing home many more sheets of this!

My last project that I made was actually for my husband for our anniversary! I have seen several of the "I love you because..." picture frame/dry erase boards on Pinterest and wanted to make one of my own! It was super simple and didn't take a lot of time to make!

Then I found these adorable mini erasers at the Target Dollar Spot that are perfect for it!

I have been absolutely LOVING Tara's Monday Made Its and all of the fabulous, inspiring ideas that everyone is posting! I know I will be spending this week checking out all of the neat projects to get more ideas for my own classroom... like I need more things to add to my list!!!

Bucket Fillers

Halfway through the year last year I decided to start doing Bucket Fillers in my classroom after reading about it online! I love using it because it's all about giving compliments and building each other up, which of course we all want our students to do!

We started by reading the story Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids by Carol McCloud. It introduces the concept that everyone has an invisible bucket, and when we say nice things we fill the bucket, but when we say mean or hurtful things we dip from the bucket. My students love the bright, colorful pictures and they can really relate to this concept. They know how it makes them feel when people say mean things to them vs. when people say nice things to them and they definitely want to hear the nice things more than the hurtful ones!

In order to do bucket filling in the classroom, you have to have some kind of "bucket" or spot for each child to hold notes that other students write. 

I appologize for the glare, but this is my bucket filler board! It is at the front of my classroom and I have a pocket for each of my students and then a bucket (bottom left) where the blank bucket filler notes are kept.

I got the plastic organizer thingy at the Target Dollar Spot a while back, and I also got the pink dotted bucket from there! I don't think they have the organizers anymore, but I saw some at Michaels the other day with 30+ slots if you are looking for something similar!


After reading the book we talk about different things we can say to other people when we notice them doing something special or kind. We talk about being specific! I tell them I don't want to see any notes saying "you are nice" or similar statements. They should refer to something specific that the student said or did that they noticed and thought deserved a special note.

Throughout the day when students are finished with their tasks, they may write a note to another student and put it in their bucket. By Friday all the buckets are filled with several positive notes!

I made these "business cards" from Vistaprint after seeing them on someone's site, but I can't remember whose! If you know or if they were your idea, please let me know so I can give you credit!!

I got 250 of these cards for free during one of their promotions and they were great, however they were out within a week! I will probably order more of them this summer to start off the year, but then after that I will be going back to printouts that I can just make a bunch of copies of!

On Fridays my students get to read the notes that are in their buckets. After they are all packed up, they can go to their buckets to grab the slips and then have a seat on the carpet and read them while we are waiting for everyone to be ready for our read-aloud! It is a great way to end the week and my kiddos are so anxious to read their notes!

I'm going to have to be updating by bucket filler board for next year since I will no longer have my wonderfully small-sized class, so I will definitely share it with you when I set it up in August!

Work on Writing

Hi everyone! 

Today I posted over on We Read, We Blog, We Teach for our Daily 5 Book Study. If you haven't read up on the first few chapters make sure you head on over there to check them out!

We are splitting up chapter 6 into two sections: Work on Writing and Word Work. I am going to be talking about Work on Writing while the wonderful Dana from 3rd Grade Gridiron will be discussing Word Work!

Work on Writing

"In helping students tune their ears--and mouths and eyes, and even their fingertips, their nerve endings--to the glorious range of ways they can string words together, we need to encourage them to fool around, to experiment, to break rules even before they know all the rules. Who ever knows all the rules, anyways?"

- Judith Rowe Michaels

By the time work on writing is introduced, students are pretty familiar with the gradual-release model for the Daily 5. Ideally, Work on Writing is not meant to be the sole writing time for students, it is meant to supplement writing instruction done at another time during the day. The difference in Work on Writing is that instead of writing a specific genre, it is writing of their choice.

Work on Writing is one of my students' favorite times during the Daily 5. Why? Because they have a choice on the writing that they want to do. Here are a couple favorite choices my students pick during Work on Writing.

Kidblog

I've blogged about Kidblog before, and it is wonderful way to integrate writing and technology! I set up an account at the beginning of the year for our class, and each student has their own blog. On their blog, students write reviews for books that they have finished. Then, they all show up on the homepage when students log in, so they can see the most recent book reviews. Students can use their Work on Writing time to write book reviews and to write comments on their classmates' posts. Throughout the year I will also write a post asking them to reflect on something we did, or discuss their favorite part of a field trip, so they can write a response to that as well. 

Friendly Letter

Another choice during Work on Writing is writing a letter to me about a book they are reading. I did away with reading logs (thanks to The Book Whisperer!) and in their place students write me a friendly letter every week telling me about a book they are reading. Some of my students use Work on Writing to write me a letter (or several letters) telling me all about the books they are currently reading! You can read more about the letters here, and see some samples of my students' letters.

Power Writing

During our regular writing block we begin by doing power writing. That is when I give students a fun story starter or question and they have 2 minutes to write on that topic. When time is up, they put their pencils down and count how many words they wrote down. It focuses on getting your thoughts down on paper and not worrying about spelling as much. This is such great practice for my kiddos and it is amazing to see them go from just a sentence or two the first day to whole paragraphs after several weeks! My students always get so excited about the stories they start during power writing, so many of them like to come back to them and continue working on them during Work on Writing!

Story Folders

Story folders are another great choice for students during Work on Writing! I got this idea from Tara from 4th Grade Frolics and this is something that I plan on doing next year! To make story folders you can use book sleeves from picture books (or print out pictures of book covers) and glue them to the front of folders (one cover per folder). On the inside of the folder you can put pieces of looseleaf paper. Students can pick a folder and write a story that goes along with the cover and title!

These are just a few of the many choices you can offer students during Work on Writing. And of course, I have a spot in my classroom where I keep a bunch of looseleaf paper if they just want to get a piece a piece and write something else that comes to mind... a poem, letter to a family member, anything goes, as long as they are working on their writing!

You can head over to We Read, We Blog, We Teach to join in the discussion on The Daily 5!

Business Cards & Gift Card Cake!

I am linking up a day late for Tara's Monday Made-It linky!

First, I have been wanting to make business cards for the longest time! Then I found an adorable new 4th grade blog

and the awesome business cards that she made for a friend!

They are super cute and reminded me that I really need to make some of my own! There are SO many choices that it is hard to just pick one! Here is what I came up with from Zazzle:

This is the front side and then all of my information is on the back (email, class website, school phone number and address). I'm kinda leaning towards putting all the information on the front and then putting special business card sized magnets on the back so my students' parents can put the card on their fridge/file cabinet, etc.! I'm not 100% sure that this will be the one that I will end up using, but this is my favorite design so far! I definitely want something fun and colorful... I'm not sure if I like all the white space though or if I want the whole card to be colored... there are just too many choices out there!

I'm sure I'll be browsing all the business card sites this week and then hopefully order some this weekend!

Also, my sweet mom's birthday was this past Sunday! My mom is one of the most amazing people I know! She is so thoughtful and inspirational and I love her so much! In addition to being a fabulous mother, she is also my favorite shopping partner, so for her birthday I made her a gift card cake!

I have seen baby shower cakes with baby gifts, wedding cakes with wedding gifts, and even back to school cakes with school supplies, and was trying to think of something similar that I could do, but for a birthday! I was super excited when I thought about making this, and was so happy with how it turned out!

It even matched her card!

Now I need to check out what everyone else made for Tara's Monday Made It!

July Currently & Book Study Day 1!

July is here! And of course, what better way to start off the month than by linking up with Farley's Currently party!

Make sure you stop boy Farley's Blog to link up and see what other people are up to!

Also, today was the first day of our Daily 5 book study!! Abby from Third Grade Bookworm did a fantastic job starting us off with chapter 1! You can head over to We Read, We Blog, We Teach to see what Abby had to say about the 1st chapter and reflect on how the Daily 5 will fit in with your own management techniques!