Teacher Week: Sanity Savers

It's Thursday already?!

When it comes to my classroom (and life in general!), I am often an overly-organized person. So having certain systems in place is key to my sanity! Here are three that I can't live without:

1. Washroom Cones

First of all, yes, there are only two cones. One boy cone and one girl cone (this works best for my classroom as, otherwise, there will be monkey business in the bathrooms!).

If a student has to use the washroom at any point during the school day (aside from snack, lunch, and recesses), they take the appropriate cone--male if the student is a boy, and female if the student is a girl--and place it at their spot on their table. This way, whether I am teaching a lesson, working with a small group, etc., I and the other students are never interrupted. Using the bright orange cone helps me to see who is in the room and who is out in a single glance. 

How they're made: All I did was buy two small pylons from Walmart (I found them in the sports section around soccer equipment). Then, I just printed a male and female washroom symbol off the computer and mod-podged the images to the cones. That's it! 

Yes, some stinkers will use the cones at the beginning of the year just because it's such great fun, but I find it only takes a few days for the novelty to wear off and they will use them only when necessary :P

2. Anchor Chart Solution

I like to "collect" specific anchor charts we make throughout the year and display them as a class big book in our reading centre for my students to read and refer to whenever they want. But wayyyyy back when I just COULD NOT figure out how to secure several anchor charts at one time AND allow students to easily flip through them without the use of a power drill! 

In the above pic I was using push pins to secure the anchor charts along the top. NOT good to have push pins constantly flinging out around your first grade classroom!

But then I remembered my love of  Command hooks. 

So off to Walmart I went and constructed this:

It's not exactly attractive but it works and I LOVE it!

How it's made: I stuck two Command hooks on the metal frame of my bulletin board and hung a $3.00 rod between the two:

Then I put my charts on binder rings and slid them on the rod. 

(I now also "fortify" my anchor charts around the holes by putting a piece of tape or two just above the hole to prevent the binder clips from ripping the paper...if you look closely enough you can see the tape in the picture below)

3. Literacy Centre Rotation Board

Click the pic below to download an *editable* file (directions included)!

So I made this *life-saving* SmartBoard file to help us rotate through our centres:

To rotate through centres, my Teacher's Assistant (which is one of my classroom jobs) moves the black bar down to the next activity each time I ring the bell. I typically ring the bell every 10 minutes or so. This works out really well for me because during this time I am pulling groups for guided reading. This way, when my Assistant rotates the centre board for me, the kiddies automatically clean up and quietly move on to their next centre *without me having to draw my attention away from my reading group once.* Love it. (This is one of the routines that takes LOTS of practice at the beginning of the school year to get everything running smoothly).

So anyways, each picture corresponds with one of our 7 centres (from year to year I might have less centres depending on how many kiddies are in my class, since I like to keep centre groups at no more than 3-4 kids). To help my little darlings remember where each centre is located around our room, specifically at the beginning of the year, I have picture and word labels at each centre:

(Sorry about the horrible image quality, I need to stop taking pictures with my phone!!!)

So above you can see the little label stuck above my Word Work 2 centre (the number beside the label is for my Math Tubs). 

Here's another example of the label at my Listening Centre (see the black arrow):

Because the kiddies are walking around the room for my Write the Room centre, this label is just on a basket on the back counter where kiddies can grab their clipboard, worksheet, and pencil:

If you would like to download ALL of my labels for FREE, just click the image below!

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Okay...maybe one more freebie 😉👇

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I feel like I have way more sanity savers to share but my brain is still on Summer vacation! So maybe I will be back one day with another post of my favourite tips and tricks...if I ever remember them ;)

Until then, head on back to Blog Hoppin' to read about some other brilliant Sanity Savers other teachers can't live without!

Our Probability Unit: worksheets, activities, lessons, and assessment

Hi all! If you follow me on Instagram then you probably saw what I posted this morning:

So needless to say I won't be in the classroom today and, according to the doctor (but not me yet!), for the rest of the week. But I will still share what my firsties will be up to anyways :)

Last week I introduced a new math unit on probability. We began by discussing some new math words that we will be using frequently throughout this short little unit: likely, unlikely, certain, and impossible. 

Before school one day, I printed and cut out a whole bunch of simple scenarios. At the beginning of each lesson over the next few days we discussed and sorted the scenarios according to their likelihood:

The "impossible" scenarios were by far the biggest hit with my firsties :P

To practice our understanding of these 4 new math words, we created our own probability flip books that featured events that were likely to occur, unlikely, certain, and impossible:

This flip book is part of my Probability Pack

To make these books all I did was print off the first page for each student and staple it with 3 other blank pages (you can use as many or as little blank pages as you'd like depending on how many scenarios you want your kiddies to come up with). Then the students cut along the 3 dotted lined to make their flip books. 

Today, the kids are going to learn about spinners. I created a SMARTboard file for the supply teacher to use while introducing this concept. It simply features a spinner with 3 different-sized sections (similar to the one on the paper below) with several questions to discuss about likelihood. The kids then get to make their own spinners!

This activity is also part of my Probability Pack

The kids will: 1. Decorate each spinner section 2. Create a spinner using a paperclip and brad 3. choose three sections of their spinner and copy the pattern into each of the three blank boxes 4. Answer the questions 5. Spin their spinner 10 times and record the results on a graph (second page not pictured)

Although I won't be there, the kids will continue learning about probability throughout the week and will work through the rest of the practice pages in my Probability Pack. Here's an overview of what else they will be doing (and exactly what else is included in the pack if you're interested!):

I also have a random FREEBIE for you!👇 

And even if you're not into sweet little Color Monster (😆) I'd love for you to join anyways because saving you time and sending you occasional (FREE) teacher treats is my favourite!!

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And before I go make some hot water with lemon and honey, I'd like to congratulate Jena who was the winner of my Student Awards giveaway! Congrats Jena :)

3D Solids, a Tower Challenge, & End of Year Awards GIVEAWAY!

Whether you're happy about it or not...Happy Monday, everyone! 

Since I didn't get a chance to blog at the end of last week, I'll share a short little snippet of what we were up to (plus stay tuned for a GIVEAWAY at the end!).

We began our 3D Geometry unit in math by recalling what we already know about 3D solids and by looking at various solid manipulatives to help us fill in this anchor chart:

At the end of the week, we had a bit of time left after a short lesson so we had a "just for fun" (but not really!!) challenge: which table group can build the tallest free-standing structure. 

The kids thought this was great because they got to "play" with snap cubes and build an awesome tower. But throughout the process, we talked about what features make a sturdy tower, based on what we had learned about 3D solids thus far (not to mention it ties in perfectly with our Materials, Objects, & Structures unit in science!).

FLASHBACK! Earlier in the week we sat in a circle at the carpet with about eight 3D solids. The goal was to build the tallest possible tower so we had to figure out which 3D solids would work well for stacking and which ones would not. i.e. a cube works well because it has flat faces, but a sphere would not because it is round. And a cone can stack but it has to be on the top. etc. Anyways, we ended up deciding that the biggest (and flattest) solids worked best on the bottom of the tower because a wider base made our tower more sturdy. The kids obviously transferred what they had learned to this challenge because I kept hearing things like, "we need a more solid base!" Too stinkin' cute.

After the towers were built, we of course performed "the earthquake test" (aka "the table shaking test") to see if each tower was free-standing and sturdy, and then we measured to see which tower was ultimately the tallest. 

All towers passed the earthquake test and we had a tie between two groups for the tallest tower.

But we didn't focus so much on who won the challenge; We examined each tower and discussed why it worked well and if any improvements could be made. ...Anyways, gotta love it when spontaneous activities work out! #teacherimprov #success ;)

And of course I can't let you go without a FREEBIE!👇 

(plus many more where that came from 😉)

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NOW I'm excited to share that I spent all last week working on a new pack that is *finally* complete...and better yet, you can enter today for a chance to WIN THIS PACK! 

It includes 44 certificates and 43 medals that are a perfect addition to an end-of-year gift for your kiddies. But I also created them with the intention of using throughout the school year since many of the awards are meant to encourage students, give recognition to hard workers, and build a positive and supportive classroom community.

I have also included some "teacher suggestions" along with detailed instructions:

 

At the end of the year you can choose the awards yourself or even have your students vote on who should receive which award. Either way, your kids will grin from ear to ear when they receive these fun and colourful (and EASY!) certificates and medals. 

To get a detailed look at exactly what's included, click HERE.

So without further adieu, here's how you can enter to win this entire pack!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be announced next Friday, April 10th. Thanks for entering and GOOD LUCK!