Classroom Organization and Sparking Student Motivation

Hey there!

I just wanted to stop in and share a few organizational tips for my Kristen's and Elizabeth's linky party!

I know I am beyond fashionably late to this party, but I still wanted to join!

My room isn't as organized as I'd like, it's a work in progress, but here is what I have done so far!

On the left is all of the books that I've flagged to be used in lessons (not for the classroom library) and I have them sorted by skill or subject.  I got these magazine holders from IKEA and they are super cheap.  I have had them for about 7 years.  They've moved several times with me and have really helped me stay organized!  For the plain white ones, they are $1.99 for 5!!!  I have used the plain white ones for book boxes for my students in the past, but they do get worn out!  You can see I have a white one mixed in, which really annoys me, but since I am a bookaholic, I've had to keep adding boxes to fit all of my books!  

I do have them organized by subject.  On the top shelf, the burgundy are for writing lessons (separated by genre) and grammar in the silver.  The second shelf is all books for reading comprehension skills, and they are separated by skill.  The bottom row and then over to the shelf on the right is math, science, and social studies!  Because I'm OCD, I have labeled them with the small sized post it notes so that I can change them and move them around as needed...I don't want to write on the boxes but I might should consider making typed labels and use velcro.  :O)

Next to the social studies texts on the middle shelf are teacher resource books that I've bought or have been given to me by my school or county.  

I love using the plastic drawers for the papers that cover my desk.  I'm still working on organizing all of THAT because the paperwork we have to do can be so random!  I have some of the drawers already labeled and it has really helped me keep track of paperwork.  I also label all of my binders, but I know they are not all cohesive like so many bloggers have made their binders.  But it's ok!  It's a work in progress!  (Stacia gave me that cute owl basket!  I love it!  It adds character to my shelf!)

Now, the top of the shelves is a whole other dilemma.  But, I already know what I am going to do, and now that it's summer, I'll be working on it.  I'm going to make a teacher toolbox!!  Yay!  I'm very excited about it!  I have seen it all over bloggy land so I can't wait to make mine!!

Here is how I have organized the shelves over my sink.  We get tons of notebook paper for the supply list, but I mostly use journals so we don't use a lot of the paper.  I've given away a ton, and this is how much I still have left after this year.  I'm not sure where I'll put the new paper that comes in at the beginning of next year.  Sigh.

Here's a picture that shows the inside of my metal cabinets and how I store random things:

I love plastic storage containers!  I like the clear ones (inside cabinets) so I can see what's in there, but I also like to label them so I'm not constantly having to pull them out.  This cabinet can still use some work, though. I need to declutter.

And finally, the bane of my existence right now:

My classroom library.  I bought these containers 3 years ago at Target.  Now, of course, they have nothing like them, so I am going to be forced to buy all new storage.  Ugh.  I LOVE the little green totes because they are super sturdy, but I can't find them anywhere.  The pink and blue ones are fabric and they are not as durable, although I love the way they look and that there can be two rows of books in them.  So, my project for the summer is to figure out how I am going to reorganize this.  I love books so much and now I have too many for these containers.  It's a problem.  ;O)

Once I get new containers, I'm going to use Kristen's labels for my library and use velcro!  (Which are free at Teacher's Notebook, by the way!)

So, I'm not sure if this is helpful at all, but this is how it works for me right now!

Also, I'm going to link up with Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching to share a quick picture of items I bought at the Dollar Tree that I can't wait to use next year as rewards for good work and good behavior!

I love the little cones that I can put on their desk when I catch them doing something good and the pencil flags are so cute!  They can put them on their pencil when they earn them!  I think these are so cute!!

Make sure to head over to these super ladies' blogs and see some of the other ideas linked up!

Amanda

End of the Year Gift for Students {Tried It Tuesday Tricks of the Trade}

Hey there!

I am here to share what I gave to my students today for their end of the year gifts!

I used the words that came off of their gold coins seen below (which I blogged about HERE) and typed them into Wordle.  Voila!  Instant gift!

The more times you type a word in Wordle, the bigger it is, which is why her name is the biggest (I typed that three times), then 4th grade (I typed that two times), and then all of the other words I typed in once.  I'd probably do it differently next year but this worked for this year!  I just got the frame at Dollar Tree.  Still, not my favorite frame but it will have to do!

Of course, since my classroom theme is owls, I had to do this:

a candy treat bag!!!

My students really loved the picture framed Wordles and the treats!  I was surprised that they liked the pictures so much, honestly, but I got tons of hugs this morning when they came in and saw it!  Let's just hope they all made it home today without breaking!!

Our thoughts and prayers are still with all of those in Oklahoma who were affected by the tornado.  It's just so scary and so sad!  My heart breaks for all of those families!

Oh yeah!  And I'm linking this up with two wonderful ladies!!

Holly for:

And I'm way late for Jessica and Becky's party for:

Tomorrow is our last day of school.  I will miss this group of kids a ton!!  I'm gonna be sad tomorrow but I hope that YOU have a wonderful day!

Amanda

Cloud Dance Science Mentor Text

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

We are very excited to be hosting our mentor text linky focusing on science this week! Please link up your favorite science texts with us! :)

This week I want to share a beautiful book with you- Cloud Dance by Thomas Locker

The illustrations in this book will make you fall in love with it. They are INCREDIBLE! And the students LOVE them! 

Teaching about weather is always exciting and engaging for students because they experience it every day. They see it, hear it, feel it, live it. So when we talk about clouds, they have a lot of schema. They know that dark clouds mean rain or a storm and they know that very little clouds means they are in for a sunny day. So how do you take clouds a step further and discuss the different kinds and types? 

When I started teaching about clouds last year, I found this book. It became the perfect way to introduce and review my unit on clouds. The language that Locker uses is fabulous. He weaves a poem through all types of clouds. And his beautiful paintings say the rest. 

My students love this book! It quickly became a class favorite! :)

I created a unit to use with this book so that I could integrate my science into language arts. Click on the images below to see the unit. 

What science books do you love to teach about weather? 

Don't forget to link up!

(If you have never linked up before you can check HERE for more information.)

I'm so looking forward to see your science books!!!!  :)

Have a great Sunday!  :)

Stacia

Student Motivation, Career Day, Ecosystem Dioramas, and more... {Five for Friday Flashback!}

Here we are again.  Another week gone by.  I still can't believe we're halfway into May.  Wow.

Anywho, we are here to link up with the lovely ladies, Kacey and Amanda for:

  

We are working on our ecosystem shoebox dioramas.  Here they are working:

This is what my back table looks like:

I don't handle chaos and disorganization very well.  So this sight makes my stomach hurt.  A lot.  So, I'm not going to look at it.  And I'll be glad when I can clean it up.  But, we haven't finished our dioramas yet.  Those pictures will come next week when we are finished.  But this mess....blech....!  ;0)

We had our class party outside today.  It had started sprinkling but then the sun came out in all it's blazing glory.  The kids didn't care, though, and I think they had fun.  We did a relay party.  Here's two...the first is  waiter relay...the second, the penny on the shoe.  The first one they had to weave through cones holding a Frisbee with a water bottle.  The penny one they had to walk with a penny on their shoe and try to get it in a bucket without touching it.  That one was hard.  :O)

We had several more, but I started playing and forgot to take pictures!  Oops!

My roommom painted this ceiling tile and I had the kids sign in each feather.  They were so excited to see it up on the ceiling!!

So, the first one it's on the floor.  The second picture it's up in the ceiling.  No, I'm not laying on the nasty floor.  Didn't you see #1?????  

**Updated after a few questions- We buy the tile.  It's not the school's tile.  Then the custodian (LOVE HIM) comes in and pulls the school's tile out and replaces it with the painted one.  Then he takes the white one away and stores it.  That way, if I move rooms, the tile always goes with me, because it's mine.  :O)

We had Career Day on Tuesday.  We had several different careers represented.   A favorite was computer programming.  They even shared a site call Scratch that teaches kids how to computer program!  

Here's my daughter dressed up as her future career choice:

She wants to be a teacher.  Hmmmmm, I wonder where she got that from??  ;O)

And, finally, I finished the Motivation Bracelets that I blogged about HERE. (I am linking this up with sweet Joanne from Head Over Heels for Teaching since many didn't get to see them).  The short story is, I needed to thank some of my students for doing their best on assignment that most of the class didn't even try on.  I had seen an awesome pin on Pinterest from this blogpost from KindergartenWorks and then used that as inspiration for these bracelets (you really should check out this post- it has freebies and tips about this too!).  I was surprised at how excited the class was to receive these bracelets, but whatever works at this point in the year, I'm all for it!!

I promised I'd make more as a freebie, so here ya go!  Just click the pic!

 

Have a wonderful weekend!
Amanda

Math Manipulatives Storage and Organization

Happy Wednesday, Y'all!

Okay, we are linking up with our BBB Jivey to share our storage/organization  ideas for math manipulatives. It's part of her Workshop Wednesday Linky.

Now before I show you how I organize mine, I want to say that I don't really like it that much because it is not cutesy enough, but it is functional and easy. So, I guess for now that's okay.....maybe this summer I will "cutesy" them up.   :)

I try to keep all of my math supplies on one bookcase in my classroom. So I can refer to it as my  math bookcase. On the bookcase I have the manipulatives organized into individual containers. They are all labeled so that I can (or the students can) find them quickly. I also love that I can grab one of my little containers and have it ready to go for a lesson. Alright, I have to be honest and say that not ALL of my math manipulatives fit on this shelf but the ones I use the most are...the other ones are in a cabinet in the closet.  :)

So here are a few photos:

So ideally I want all of my boxes to match and coordinate with my classroom theme, but.......that's what the summer is for!  :)  

I would LOVE to hear how you store your math manipulatives!

Have a great evening!

Stacia  :)

Motivation Bracelets- Rewards!!

Are you there yet in the year?

The place where you are practically on your knees, begging the students to just make it a few more days!!

"Just hang in there!"

"Once we get everything done, I promise we'll do some really fun stuff!!"

Yeah.  I'm there. Totally there.  On the knees and everything.

We have 6 more days.

Today we had Career Day.  Parents from the community came and spoke about their jobs.

The kids were expected (from administration, not me!!!) to take notes on each speaker (there were 4).  Then, they had to write 2 paragraphs about their favorite speaker.

I promise you, this did not go over well with my cuties.

At all.

So, when I start collecting their 2 paragraphs, I see that most had written about 3 sentences.  Incomplete sentences, that is.  They have given up.  They're done.  Toast.  Probably burnt toast.

So, I do my half hearted, "This really is unacceptable for an almost 5th grader to turn this in as 2 paragraphs, when it's not really even one!" but my heart's not in it because I don't really blame them.

So, instead, this pin popped into my head:

I knew when I pinned it this weekend that I wanted to make bracelets for them, but I wasn't sure if they'd really work for my 4th graders.  But, I tried it anyway, because, really, why not??  The worst they could do is say they didn't want it.

(You need to click on the picture above and go to KindergartenWorks and then click and go to THEIR freebie because it's great AND it tells you how to make the gluey stuff you need for the bracelets to stick!  How cool is that??)

So, I read all of their papers about Career Day and ended up picking about 10 kids that mostly followed directions to give the bracelet to.  I picked a lot because I wanted a lot to feel the thrill of it being successful. Now, seriously, when I did this this afternoon, I really wasn't sure how it was going to go.  I just knew I was aggravated that they had totally given up on school, yet I have three more assessments they are working on that they need to do well on.  So, at this point, I'll try anything!

So, I explain my reasoning behind these bracelets:

I told them that there were some students that did follow the directions for the Career Day writing, and since they did, they are my hero.  So, I was going to give them a superhero bracelet that they could show to their parents as proof that they were my hero today for doing the RIGHT THING!

So, what was their reaction?  They were on the edges of their seats.

I call the first name.  There's applause.

(I'm thinking...wow...really??  So I compliment them on being so supportive of one another and clapping for their fellow peers.)

I call more names.  More excited applause.

I tell them I have called all the names.  Disappointed faces.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker.

They totally took the bait.  So, I explained that I will be making more bracelets for other random heroes I find throughout the day, a math hero, a reading hero, an organized hero, a friendly hero, etc., etc.  And will give them out at any point in time.  They'll never know.  Because heroes are everywhere, right?

Now, for these bracelets, they were only paper.  I didn't have time to do all that I wanted to in such a quick turn around.  BUT, here's how I'm planning on doing it.

I will print them in color and laminate them.  Then cut them.  I will find a fun way to organize them.  I will hand them out at random (because it's fun that way).

What I did was staple it once I had wrapped it around their arm.  I told them that they could take it home, show their parents, then use it as a bookmark.  If I had laminated them, it would have been way better, but again...time was an issue today...

Here are my Writing Superheroes!!

I am going to make more bracelets when I have a spare moment and load them to TpT and share them with YOU so you can try them if you would like to!  I'll probably share it for a Friday freebie!  Be on the look out this week!  (**Updated- check this post HERE for the bracelets.)

I've thought about putting a parent signature on the back (printed) so they have to get it signed for those students that would NOT be motivated by this at first.  The reason being, some of the students in Stacia's class didn't feel the bracelet was enough to motivate them.  But, I think that if they had to show their parents that they earned something GOOD then maybe it would eventually lead them to WANT the bracelet because their parents would be excited they are NOT IN TROUBLE ALL THE TIME!  But I don't know.  It just depends on how the parents would react (or wouldn't).  What do you think??

I'm linking this up with two of my sweet blogging peeps:

Holly for Tried it Tuesday because I tried it today.

And Joanne for:

for Sparking Student Motivation, even if it's not Saturday!

So, what do you think?  How do you like our bracelets?  Will YOU try it??  (I mean....after I get my act together and finish making them for you?)

Amanda