Classroom Organization

So I was hoping to accomplish more toward my classroom organization for next year, but I've at least got a start and a plan that I'd like to share.

This is a project I've been working on all year-- making my classroom library more accessible for students.  I've managed to label containers for about half of my books so far, but I want to get to a point where I can have all of the books in a sorted container. It makes it a lot easier for students if they know the series, author, or genre that they're looking for. So far I have a Captain Underpants, Junie B. Jones, and Fly Guy series containers, non-fiction animals, and Roald Dahl.

My goal for the summer is to also sort the books by F&P level so that my readers can find books that are just right for them.

I found this website on pinterest of course, but it's helped me to do just that. It is: Booksource's Classroom Organizer. At this FREE website, you can use the ISBN numbers to add books your virtual library where you can add F&P levels AND you can add your students' names to have them actually check out the books from your library! The students have a log in and everything! I am definitely doing this next year because it also is a great way for me to know which of my books have been checked out of my library. I definitely recommend the site and I will keep working on my library through the summer!

I have managed to start doing some serious organizing of my resources. I bought some storage containers and labeled them for the school months and have started to move things from out of my filing cabinet and into this much more accessible storage system. I'm very happy with it so far. I know it may take up a little more room than a filing cabinet, but to me it's worth it because I can also store items that don't fit easily into a filing cabinet--AND I can store books! It's great!

I got this list from Mrs. Freshwater's Class, but if you want actually go to the link, she has little cards she made up for you to label the containers if you are interested. I am using her theme ideas as a template for my containers as well.

August/September: back to school, apples

October: Halloween, Open House, Scarecrows, Monster, etc.

November: Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, 50th Day

December: Gingerbread, Holidays, Winter, Snowman

January: New Year’s, Polar Bear, MLK, Penguins, Chinese New Year

February: Dental Health, Groundhog’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Black History

March: Dr. Seuss, St. Patrick’s Day

April: Easter, Earth Day

May: Cinco De Mayo, Mother’s Day, Butterflies

The little black and green container I am using to store different kinds of paper-- copy, construction, pastels, teacher paper, AND I have one drawer with emergency sub plans.

I also started using this idea to store in some of my bigger plastic storage containers that I wasn't using at my house. I'm not done with that yet, but I've really enjoyed organizing so far!

I hope this gives you some ideas. I'm just getting more and more excited for next year already! :)

End of the Year

So in case you were wondering, there are 8 days of school left!

Here's an idea that I got from pinterest-- when there are about 10-15 days left of school you hang up that number of balloons.  I changed it a bit to work with my classroom. In each balloon, I have a slip of paper with an activity or privilege that the students will get to do the next day.  For my kiddos who are a bit of a handful now that the end of the year is upon us, I've worked it into my classroom management. I have my students sitting in "teams" (with a few islands) that have cups on their desks for beads. After each instructional time (math, math groups, reading, reading groups, and science/social studies), they can earn beads for their team. Usually the class is working toward having lunch outside for the entire class, but now we're working towards popping those balloons at the end of the day.

And the balloons are filled with really simple ideas like: 5 extra minutes of recess time, Mrs. Kietzman brings a snack, dance party time, 10 minutes of free time on computers, reading lesson outside, etc. If you need ideas you can comment and I'll send you my full list.

Another thing we're working on now that it's the end of the year is our memory books. Not all of my students will be getting yearbooks and even for those who are, this is a fun way for them to record their favorite parts about 4th grade, their best friend, their favorite school event, etc.

It's a really cute booklet and it has a chance for students to do a lot of writing and drawing about their favorites for the year.

Here's a link to the website:  School Memories Book

All you need to do is sign up for the website, but it's free and this packet is free as well as a lot of other resources on the site.

One more thing I'd like to share is a good search engine for kids to use called Kid Rex What I like about it is that it's created by Google, but makes searching Google sites appropriate for kids. Right now I have students researching countries for our upcoming cultural fair and this site helps take away the worry that comes with having students use the computer for research.

That's all for now! I'm hoping the next post will be a lot about my upcoming plans for classroom organization. I am very inspired right now and will probably be working on creating some of those things this week! Get ready for more pictures and info!