End of School Countdown Day 9 - Classroom Management

This isn't the most revolutionary idea for classroom management, but it's a cute one.  I got this idea from my mentor teacher during student teaching and have been using it ever since. It's a "May Bag". Do you all use this or have ever seen it? I love it, but to be honest things very rarely get put into the May Bag these days. When I taught 2nd grade it got a lot more use because it would be filled with random legos,  action figures, etc.

The idea is relatively simple and we have all encountered it. A kid brings something to school and even despite a friendly warning/reminder, they continue to play with it. The mighty May Bag now enters into the equation.  Once a toy goes in there, it stays until May (dun dun dun!!).  The last day of school I go through the May Bag and it is always pretty funny because the kids either had completely forgotten about their item or no one even knows who it belongs to.  I had to make a rule that if there is any arguing over an item and its owner, then it gets "put away until next year" (aka usually thrown away).

Here's your very own May Bag sign for your classroom. Make sure you choose a jazzy, flashy bag - the more attention getting the better! ;)  Click the picture below for the link to download. Enjoy!

Student Valentines

Don't you just love Valentine's Day?

I always struggle every year on what to make for my students. I want to do something cute, but don't want to spend a lot of money and definitely not a lot of time because let's face it; they just want to eat candy, they don't really care about cutesy stuff at that point.

I wanted to do something different since I didn't want to add to the candy chaos that will not doubt ensue come February 14th.  I was browsing around Target when it hit me! Enter: Angie's Popcorn.

Target sells these little snack packs that make perfect Valentines for teachers or parents that don't want to doll out high fructose corn syrup to their cute little nuggets.

I don't think I will be a huge fan of the "vanilla cupcake" flavor, but it's a good thing they aren't for me. :) It was either this or the Tutti Fruity flavor.

Instead of using the pre written on method of personalizing my bags, I decided to go a more crafty route.

I created printable labels (see below for the freebie) that I just tied on to the bags. I think this project took me about an hour (or at least two episodes of Pioneer Woman, however you choose to view time).

I printed the labels on printer paper, but I would've used card stock if I had some handy. I used my paper trimmer to cut the hearts out.

I just hole-punched two holes into the top of the single serving bags and the papers careful not to break the seal.

I then used baker's twine (I found mine at Target in the dollar section) to tie the paper onto each bag.

I love how they turned out; super cute and easy! I decided to put the label on the back just because I thought the front of the popcorn bag was really cute and I wanted it to be displayed and not covered.

OK so now repeat these steps one billion times, haha!

Click the picture below to download the labels if you are interested in creating these for your students.

Don't forget to add a little note on your loot if you don't want your husband to eat it, haha!

I hope you all are able to use this! Enjoy!

Birthday Board Revisited

Remember this post about my 6th graders' birthday board dilemma? I realized that I never took a picture of the final product!  Sometimes I think I should quit my job just to blog but then I wouldn't have an income so that could be an issue.

I was trying to recreate this board that I saw from Pinterest from Erica Bohrer's First Grade, but wanted to include the whole grade level since our 6th graders switch classrooms. That way it could also function as a year round bulletin board and what teacher doesn't want that??

Here is the end result!

I grouped all the students in the grade level according to their birthday months and took a group picture with them holding these number signs.

I then stapled up my special birthday plates that I made earlier during the summer and printed off the months in different colored card stock.

The border is just different ribbons stapled in a random criss-cross pattern done by one of our wonderful volunteer parents last year. It was too creative and adorable to take down!

I backed all of the pictures with cute scrapbooking paper.  I feel so horrible putting these black circles all over my students' adorable faces!

This board makes me smile every time I walk by it, not to mention the students love to see their pictures up on the board. They are always letting me know if someone's birthday is coming up which is helpful since I have the worst memory. :)

I hope some of you can use this idea for your own hallways!

Group Presentations

I love project based learning. I will often assign my students expert group presentation assignments that the students get to choose what they want to present based on a list of choices.

Right now in 6th Grade, we are doing natural disasters so the students were allowed to choose a natural disaster to present on. They were given questions that they needed to research and had to create a presentation that included at least one type of technology.  They could choose the form of presentation that they wanted to do, but most usually choose power point.

I love these assignments because it allows for so many opportunities to research, summarize information, presentation skills, non-fiction comprehension, collaborative team work, and much much more.

I used someone's packet and adapted it to fit my needs and now I don't remember who created the original packet! If you did or know who did let me know!

Click the picture below to download the natural disasters presentation guidelines:

While the students are presenting, I always think it is important to have the other students be doing something. Not only does it keep them busy so they won't be tempted to get squirrely during others' presentations, but also helps me to see if they were listening and learned something from these. This is just an example of one I would use, but the nice thing is that you can adjust it to the presentations that the kids are making. I also like that it gives them a chance to write an affirmation down for each group. We talk about how just writing down "good presentation" or "you did a good job" isn't an acceptable affirmation and that we should strive to write down specific things that the group did well based on what we know good presenters do (eye contact, clear speaking, didn't read straight from the slide, etc).

Click the picture below to download the "what the other students are doing during presentations" page (haha, I can never think of a good title for these!):

Do you do expert group presentations in your class? What do you have the other students do while their classmates are presenting?

Rivers and Lakes Freebies

Happy Saturday!
Here's a few science freebies for you all! We are wrapping up our Rivers, Lakes, and Oceans unit and I thought I would share some foldables and graphic organizers that I have made.

I wish I had pictures of these in action, but trust me they are worth a free download. ;) 

Erosion Foldable
River Systems Foldable
River Stages Chart
Rivers and Lakes Quiz

Enjoy and leave some love if you download!

Monday Made It!

Hey y'all!
Yay for Monday Made It! I have been working on some stuff for school and hopefully one of you all can use it! These were made in mind for other middle school teachers like me who have agenda boards for their students. Since I am teaching science and social studies only (I know, right?! I am pretty much the luckiest teacher for next year), I will have some days of the week dedicated to science and some days dedicated to social studies. Once I get into my room, I will take a picture of the finished vision!
Are you impatient to see? Me too! Here is what it could look like, just you know, ignore the dining room table and pretend it's a sectioned off white board.

WARNING: I was having some technical difficulties, I am not sure if you will be able to notice...

You could do this...

Or this...

Or this...

WARNING: Technical difficulties are over.

Just cut 'em out, laminate those suckers, and stick a magnet on the back. Voila, a nifty agenda board! 

Here's the varieties:

Science Agenda Board Sign

Social Studies Agenda Board Sign

Math Agenda Board Sign

Writing Agenda Board Sign

Reading Agenda Board Sign

I know it's nothing compared to come beautiful masterpieces that I have seen other bloggers create, but hopefully someone can use them! :)

Click {HERE} to download.

Have a wonderful Monday and don't forget to link up Tara's Monday Made It!

Monday Made It

I saw this on Pinterest and knew that I had to replicate it!  It's from Erica Bohrer's First Grade.

Even though I teach 6th grade, my kiddos still get down right giddy on their birthdays and love it when others acknowledge their birthdays. Who doesn't?? We have a huge bulletin board outside in the hallway. My team and I realized that if we put this out there, not only will this be a reminder of whose birthday it is, but it will also be a year round bulletin board! Woohoo!

I have also seen this idea to put letters on decorative party plates as letters and thought that it would be perfect here.

Got out my handy dandy Silhouette machine and went to work!

After they were cut out, I just took a basic glue stick and glued on the letters to the plates. I had two different patterns and was going to alternate the pattern, but I thought the multi-colored one would be too busy so I just stuck with the yellow.

I made a PDF for ya'll because I love ya. These are for you to use for the kiddos to hold up when their pictures are getting taken.  Click the picture below for the download.

I will take a picture in August when the bulletin board is all set up and ready to go. I haven't decided what to do with the new kids that come in throughout the year. Any ideas?

Don't forget to link up with Tara at 4th Grad Frolics with her weekly Monday Made It!

Red Ribbon Week

Happy Monday!
Just a quick little post today. We have a whole lot going on this week! It's Red Ribbon Week. I had seen this bulletin board idea on Pinterest {SOURCE} and knew instantly that this is exactly what I wanted to do on our bulletin board in our classrooms.
I asked our crafty classroom mom helper (who is amazing!) to duplicate it and it is AWESOME!

The "songs" on the iPod are the different days for the week and the theme of the week "Follow Your Dreams, Stay Clean" is the highlighted yellow.  Is it bad that I want to leave it up all year?

I wanted to share a freebie with y'all to start off the week right! I love Scholastic book club orders and I have made a little somethin' somethin' for your classroom to track when the orders are due.  I have downloaded it onto Vistaprint as a small car magnet, but you could also print and laminate it/put it in a plastic sleeve. Use a dry erase marker to tick down the days. Click the picture to download the PDF. 

Enjoy! Leave some comment love if you download please!

Classroom Job Signs

Happy Wednesday!
A few weeks ago I posted about my classroom job bulletin board {HERE}.  I am posting those here so that you all can use them in your classroom.

I used the font Coffeeshoppe Espresso by Sweet Shoppe Designs. If you don't have that font it won't come through the same. Of course you can use any cute font that you like. There are some blank templates at the end so that you can add your own. I tried to think of all the different jobs I have seen in the past, but I am sure I am missing some. Enjoy!

Freebie:  Classroom Jobs ~ PowerPoint

Watery Coins Experiment

Good evening!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I am hoping to catch up on some grading that I have to get done ~ I am falling sooo behind! My blogging habit probably doesn't help that too much, but it's just way more enticing than grading.

This week, I did a little prediction experiment with my sixth graders. We are going through the Scientific Process and this was an excellent experiment about making predictions and also reviewing different variables.  The science lab was occupado, but no worries, we had a floor so we still had room to be scientists!

P.S. My students look slightly creepy with blacked out faces!

 

The students make predictions as to how many water drops can fit on each coin before hand. The materials they will need are: a vessel for water, paper towels, droppers, a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. They put drops of water on each coin, counting the drops, until it overflows. The students fill out the form as they go and then average their data at the end.  Click the picture to download the PDF.

I hope you can use this experiment in your classroom! The kids had so much fun doing this and they were all very surprised how off their predictions were. Have a great weekend!

Parent Handouts

  It's Wednesday! Time to pass along any handouts for parents you might have for us all to enjoy! Be sure to link up with TBA's Open House Week.

My stuff is not as awesome as some things I have seen, but hopefully you can use some. Click on the image to download the file.

Supply List:

Student Information Form:

  

Movie Permission Form for the whole year:

 

Curriculum Night Power Point (Sweet Shoppe Designs for backgrounds and clip art):

This bad boy will take a while to download!

Don't forget to link up and share your back to school Parent Handouts!