Using Bins for Organization

So at the end of the year, I tried to think of ways to make next year easier on me! I originally used these bins as shelves in my classroom. While I LOVED having the shelves, my kids were CONSTANTLY knocking them over and spilling everything. (I think the biggest problem was the bins/shelves were not heavy enough)  So I took the shelves apart and put them to a different use.

I made a bin for each month of the year and put all my units in the bin. It was much easier to do than I thought. I just looked at my lesson plans from the past year and pulled units from my file cabinet. I was also able to reflect on this past year and see where I would want to change when I introduce a concept.

If you look at the first picture you can see how I used hanging file folders for each unit. In each pocket there are worksheets/activities/posters/materials/copies, etc for everything I used for that topic/objective. I'm putting the bins on a top shelf in my room. I plan to just reach up and grab the bin for the month.

I'm hoping this will help me next year! I think it will be nice to just pull down a bin and look at what I need to do for the month:) 

A Little Moment of Honesty...

It was a horrible terrible no good very BAD year for me.

I jumped into a new grade level which I had NO IDEA would be so difficult. It felt like I was back in my first year of teaching. Late nights, tons of questions, always one step behind, etc.

I ended up with so many students in my classroom there was no where for anyone to sit. (I literally got 2 new students 2 weeks before school ended) We were tripping all over each other. Testing all of them individually was definitely an overwhelming task!

I decided around February that I was "done" with my classroom theme, my classroom set-up, my organizational skills. I became one of THOSE. Papers piled on top of papers. I would look everywhere for that ONE piece of paper that was due 2 days ago.

There were about 8 pairs of scissors on my table because no one knew who they belonged to. (I don't even want to talk about pencils, crayons, markers) I banished my students from our classroom library because I had to throw away so many damaged books.

I had another adult/aid/teacher's assistant in my room to help monitor a student in my class who was every form of the word DIFFICULT. He could not be alone for 2 seconds. I'm not kidding.

SO that pretty much sums of my lack of blogging motivation. I.was.done. I was so overwhelmed at work that all I did at night was sit on the couch and watch t.v. (this did not help the waistline my friends!) Thinking about school made me cringe.

We've all had years like this, right? I can only think of one other year that was like this one. It almost feels like I had to pay my dues to the "Horrible School Year Club." Membership fee is a good dose of craziness!

Anyways...all that to say I am SOOOOO excited about summer. One of the ABSOLUTE amazing things about our profession is that we get a fresh start every single year. I'm hopeful next year will be outstanding. I'm looking forward to loving on this little blog more, and hopefully I will be able to share ideas and lessons learned from last year. It's time to stand up, dust myself off, put on a little lipstick and move on! Please forgive my absence...here's to new beginnings...and I'll see you soon!

Last Week

April has just FLOWN BY!! I cannot believe May is only 2 days away. This is that time of year where I'm digging, digging, digging to find fun activities to keep my kiddos engaged (and let's face it, keep myself engaged, too).  So here are some things we have been up to..

PLANTS. I bought the Teacher Wife's Plant Activities packet:

My favorite thing from this packet was the Plant Journal. We put lima beans into ziploc bags with a damp paper towel and watched them grow all week long. Each day they drew a picture and made an observation. We stuck the ziploc bags to their lockers as you can see below:

CONTEXT CLUES. I began the week by writing a story with made-up words. I wrote one line at a time, and had my kids guess what I was doing. (After the first sentence I asked them about all the places I could be. Then I added that it was fun, so we started to narrow it down to places that were fun.) In almost every sentence I created a word that didn't exist (they had to read around the word to figure out what the word meant.) They had a lot of fun with this, and laughed A LOT at the silly words. In the example below, I was at Chuckie Cheese. They were able to figure it out by the last line, and then we went back through the story to figure out what the mystery words were. 

After that, they created their own stories with words that didn't exist. I had them share with their groups, then they picked one person from their table to share with the entire class. It was a lot of fun, and I was really surprised at how well they did. The next few days we used context clue cards, practice tests, and cloze activities to continue our work. 

We are wrapping up our measurement unit in math. My kids have had a lot of fun measuring different things around the room, and we are moving on to capacity this week. So that's what we have been up to in my room. I hope you can find some of these tips helpful, and I hope you have a great week! 

Reading Response Booklets

Does anyone ask their kids to respond to their reading? Does anyone think it's a PAIN keeping up with all those loose papers? ME!! My kids have such a hard time keeping up with their reading response pages this year. I could almost label it a disaster! They are losing pages, not doing what they should, not completing the assignment, etc.

If you look at my last post, I showed you these word work centers we have been using. I have LOVED having the word work booklets to go with the centers because it keeps all their work in one place. SOOOO I took that idea and made reading response booklets! I just debuted them in my classroom last week, and they have definitely been a hit so far!

I have been really happy with the change! My kids fill out one response each day after their independent reading. I made 20 different responses so it will take up around 4 weeks. (I say 'around' since we all know some days just never go as we plan!)

If you are interested in this for your classroom, you can click on the pictures which will take you directly to my store! Thanks! 

Word Work Stations

I just thought I would show something that has been a lifesaver in my room! Lory Evans has made these amazing word work centers for her Daily 5. You can find the centers here. These are SO GREAT. There are 12 different centers: synonyms, antonyms, syllables, prefixes, suffixes, adjectives, verbs, nouns, contractions, abc order, compound words, (and one more I just cannot remember tonight:)).

We do our centers for about 15 minutes each day. My kids work in partners. 

I have all the pieces to each center together on a large ring. They are stored in the pocket chart below:

The BEST part about the centers? They come with a booklet that matches the worksheet/sorting page for each center. AMAZING! My kids keep all their work in one booklet for the entire month. 

My kids have really enjoyed these centers, and it's been great to watch them master these skills while having fun! I'm not going to lie...putting the centers together took a while, and it was hard work, BUT it has been worth it! (Not to mention I will have them ready to go for next year!)

Idea and Laminator

I know this is a little LOT late, but I wanted to show you a cheap way I handled Valentines Day this year. Honestly, the budget at our house just didn't allow for me to buy all these cute valentines, create homemade, amazing, awesome, cute things from pinterest, etc. So I made something for free...bookmarks. I whipped them up on my computer, printed them off on card stock, had the kids color them, and then I laminated them. The kids actually LOVED them and are happy to have something useful they can use every day. 

How did I laminate these so fast you might ask? 

Scotch Thermal Laminator. 

I asked for one of these for Christmas. At first I kept it at my house, but then I realized I was just dragging stuff home from school to laminate then bringing it right back. So I decided to bring it to school and it has been AMAZING! If I want to create a center or laminate bookmarks, I can have it done in about 5 minutes! SO NICE. The refill packets are around $15 for 100 on amazon. I'm also pretty sure the laminator sells for around $30. This is definitely a purchase/present I am super happy with! 

ALL ABOARD! The Money Train

So my littlest woke up with pink eye this morning! Ugh! I can't think of anything worse. They feel absolutely fine, but you can't go ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING outside of the house. (not to mention my eyes all of a sudden feel very itchy! :)) Of course we are super busy this weekend, and we even have a wedding for a good friend tonight. Oh well...I'm grateful we had a great spring break without it!

Anyways, I'm writing venting about the littlest because he gave me the idea for this next unit. He is obsessed with a train song from the Disney Channel. He actually says, "too too train" and it's SO CUTE! I attempted money with my sweet seconds earlier this year and it was a DISASTER. Not a good idea. At all. So I knew I wanted to revisit it after spring break. One day my littlest was singing his song, and it just hit me! What a great idea for a money unit....TRAINS. So that is when I created:

I thought it would be a fun way for my kids to review/learn money as a train of coins with the values increasing with each car. I'm super excited to get started on it next week! I already have most of the pages printed, copied, and stapled for Monday. I included posters, worksheets, matching games, word problems and more. Here is the preview:

I hope this might get some ideas churning in your head if you are approaching money soon. If you are interested in what I made, you can get it in my TpT store HERE.

Lucky Lengths Makeover

I just wanted to let you know my Lucky Lengths (the one with a St. Patrick's Day theme) packet has had a total makeover! It's almost embarrassing to look at the items you create when you are a beginner, isn't it?! This one definitely needed a change, so if you have already purchased it you can just download it again for the new look. If you are interested in the packet, you can get it in my TpT store! Here is a sneak peek at some of the new pages: