Ideas, not yet creations

Since I am off to Ireland on Friday and working on packing for our move to our new house, this post is more of a list of things that I hope to make as soon as I get back from my trip or maybe just before I go (some of them will be easier to make than others).

Reading Groups

First here is a blog with some wonderful ideas for word work using a modified daily 5 (she does the daily 3 for 5th grade). I'm interested in using the daily 5 in my classroom next year. I'm not sure how to modify it for 4th grade yet, but this daily 3 blog may led to more ideas. I was particularly interested in the word work post.

I haven't heard of all of these options, but I will do more reading to find out!  That is the first project I plan to accomplish right before or right after my trip!

Grammar

Now this is something that I would think I can handle making before we go. One area that I really want to hit a lot harder next year is grammar. I plan on changing the sticks to match spelling words for students as well as high-frequency words-- as the end of the year I am hoping to even add adverbs and proper nouns! 

Math

I am planning on creating these early in the year next year because my kiddos certainly needed a refresher before they were ready to move on to the big money problems.  I think this could be great for many age groups (maybe not 5th and 6th), but a good review and practice.

I will probably need to adapt quite a bit of these activities to be school/age appropriate (some are religious). The original source is from here. 

I hope this gets some of your idea gears turning! Hopefully I will be feverishly working-- it's just hard to get going knowing that I will be leaving for Ireland in 3 days! I'll post when I get home; perhaps even with some pictures from Ireland :)

Bus-y Frank-ie!

I normally don't have time--or enough things created-- to post twice in one week, but I've really kicked it into high gear!  I think I'm probably working extra hard because next week I know that I will be busy packing to go visit my sister and new nephew in Ireland :) I'll be gone for a week, but will surely have more posts when I get back!

In addition to pinning like crazy on pinterest--you should probably be following me :D, I have also been making lots of things!

Indoor Recess

 Many of my indoor recess games didn't survive the year--including my Bopit! (I know! I thought those things were indestructible!)-- so I decided to try to prepare more things for this coming year's recess!

I made this Musical Twister game in college using fabric, felt, markers and a hot glue gun! I originally had a different spinner, but it wasn't heavy duty enough. That's why I've made new spinners! I'm hoping cardboard should be sturdy enough... time will tell!

My original storage box was an unused pizza box that I decorated, but I may need to upgrade to something plastic--we'll see what I come up with!

I'm glad I was able to touch up the marker and make new spinners because the kids LOVED playing musical twister last year :)

 Homework

I saw this idea on pinterest-- to have students fill out a chart when they do not turn in homework.  Here are some pictures of what I've come up with and here is a link if you want to have a copy for your classroom. Just click here.

I am still debating if I want to do weekly packets for students or have homework sent home each night. I tried both last year, but ended up doing weekly packets because students seemed to turn it in more regularly...

Any suggestions?

Classroom Library

As I hinted in the last post, I have started working on creating labels for my classroom library. I know that's not really that exciting, but I found a good template for typing out labels for a library or for addresses or whatever! You can download it here!

It a FREE download (you just have to sign up and yadda yadda, but no charge!). It is a very slick program with an easy download that you can keep forever on your computer!

Let's Get Busy!

Bling side!

I have been very busy lately! In addition to preparing to move to our new home in Shawnee, KS, I am trying to keep up with all my goals and planning for next school year! Here are some examples of what I've come up with so far.. 

Tame side :)

I recently acquired a bunch of plywood that I am going to have my dad saw in half so that I can make clipboards for my class next year-- pictures to come once I've made those too!


This may have been a bit early, but I figured I'll need some kind of cute container to store all of my new homemade clipboards in!


I didn't have many fun paint colors..... but I did have glitter!!


Science


This isn't totally done (I couldn't find any brads!), but I want to do more space science this year so I wanted to create a visual way for students to see that the Earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the Earth. It also says the distance between on the white part in between. I'll attach brads when I get some and then it will be complete! All it took was some crayons, paper plates and brads :)

Things to come

I bought a bunch of really cute labels so I can label the books in my library--once I type up a format on word I'll share it so anyone else labeling books for their library can already have the template!

I'm planning on making more things tomorrow to post so this one may be a little short, but I'll have more things soon!

Resource Alert!!

There isn't a picture I can link to put it on pinterest, but this is a site with lots of BLANK school templates for newsletters, borders, school menus, lots of things! And FREE! Just click here

The Start of the Summer!

While I was planning on doing more things for school, Mr. Kietzman and I are buying a house this week! I still thought I should share some of the things I've been working on.

This is a game that I created a while ago to help students work on prefixes and suffixes. They toss a bead or coin into the muffin tin and whatever it lands in, the student then says a word that contains that prefix or suffix and then the meaning of the word (using the definition of that prefix/suffix). There are also 2 "free spaces"--the prefixes spot allows them to choose any prefix and suffixes spot allows them to choose any suffix.

It is very easy to make and the kids really enjoyed playing it this year-- it was also great for me to assess which ones were a real challenge for students.

Another things I've been busy focusing on is creating file folder games for students to work on skills. I found this game on the My Second Grade Journal This fraction game has cards for identifying fractions, but I am going to create my own cards for more advanced levels of fraction practice.

Click here to download Pizza, Pizza.

I'm happy to say that I am making some progress on organizing my resources (homework, units, paperwork, lessons, etc.) I've started making binders for each subject and then subdividing it within.  So far I have math and science done. I'm hoping to get to reading and social studies this week!

I recommend organizing resources because it's already made a big difference in helping me find things! With this and my filing cabinets, I feel unstoppable!

Now I just need to get to cutting out the laminated card resources for my reading groups...

Here's a bunch of links for the things I've found:

This is making inferences with comics: here

Matching character emotions with situations: here

I have who has math cards: here

I hope you enjoy checking out the resources!

And of course, just for fun, here's a picture of my helper for the day. My sleepy 2-year old Jack Russell mix Riley.

Have a wonderful day!