Are you ready for some back to school madness? I am teaming up with some AMAZING bloggers to give you some of our top back to school tips so you can start the year off right. Oh, and make sure you keep reading – you MIGHT find a chance to win yourself a $100 TPT gift card. How it works: Each blogger is writing a tip that they think is GREAT for back to school. Make sure you head to each blog to read all of the tips! Here, we are going to talk about Student connections With building student connections, I truly believe that you need to have a talk about FAMILY. No, I am not talking about your family or your students’ family. I am talking ... Read More
Preparing for New Students
It is inevitable that all of us will be getting new students throughout the year. Do you just wait for this to happen or do you have a plan? For a continued smooth sailing year, it is best to have a plan! Make New Student Bags One of the best ideas that I saw on Pinterest years ago was to make "new student bags." Right now you are probably busy making copies and getting things ready for each student. Do yourself a favor and make a few more. Our school was a revolving door. Students seemed to come and go weekly! Apart from the extra few I would get the first few days of school, I could always count on getting about 3-4 new students by the end of ... Read More
Take Home Folders
How do you organize everything you send home at the end of the day? I am going to share my FAVORITE method: using take home folders. What are take home folders? Take home folders are where I housed everything. This is where the parents knew they would find anything I send home, including behavior calendars, AND where they knew to send anything to me such as a note. In it, I had a space where it was any paperwork that needed to be returned to school (such as forms or picture money). I also had a space for papers that were meant to stay at home like school info and such. What all do you need for this? A 3 prong folder I buy mine for ... Read More
Flexible Seating – Is it for you?
It's all the rage these days: Flexible seating. What is flexible seating? Flexible seating is where you give multiple options for your students and where they want to be seated. Some might choose to sit at a desk, others might choose to sit on a couch if you have one, others might even choose to sit on a bean bag. There are no more assigned seats and it is supposed to give you classroom a new level of comfort. The whole basis behind this is, kids probably don't want to sit in a hard chair at a desk all day. With flexible seating, you are eliminating that and giving your students options. What do you use for flexible seating? Stools ... Read More
The Classroom Management Guidebook
Happy Classroom Management Monday friends!!! This Monday I am so excited to share with you something I have been working very hard on. I have created a Classroom Management Guidebook just for you. As much as it pains me to say it, the new school year is inching closer. While I know you are probably soaking up every bit of relaxation you can get, it is important to start thinking about some sort of plan for next year. I used to fly by the seat of my pants when I first started teaching and for the most part, it worked okay for me. That was until I got a class of students who REALLY needed some structure. That ended up being the worst year I have ... Read More
Time Management
What do you use for time management in your classroom? Do you rely on just what is written in your lesson plans? Or maybe you just go with the flow of the day. I have a confession... When I first started teaching, I was awful at time management. I never seemed to get ANYTHING done in time. Or there were things I didn't even get to because we were so busy with other stuff. When every one was done, we would finally move onto the next thing. I rarely got everything done and I was always playing catch-up. It was awful! I asked for help with my time management After hearing about the other teachers getting everything done, I went to my instructional ... Read More