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!

ROCK Your First Year of Teaching!

Hi everyone! I'm linking up with Teaching With Crayons & Curls and My Mommy Reads for a great collaboration of tips for new teachers. I've actually been wanting to write a post on this topic for a while now so I'm excited to share some of my thoughts and ideas through this link-up!

Now I'm practically a new teacher still myself as I have only been at this for 3 years. But on the other hand, I feel like I have a very current perspective on this topic and there are many things I know now that I really wish I knew back when I first started. So without further adieu, here are my tips at-a-glance:

Now let's dig in a bit deeper...

1. Find a mentor.

This was one of the greatest assets to me as a new teacher. I was actually extremely blessed with an entire school filled with incredibly friendly and supportive staff, but one individual in particular was my go-to for support and advice. It was invaluable to have someone there to just bounce ideas off, ask quick questions here and there, but also to really dig in to planning, learning programs, seeking advice when it comes to student parents, etc. etc. etc. Seriously. Find a mentor...they may just become a fabulous new teacher friend for life!

2. Develop a solid behaviour plan & be consistent.

In my first year I *thought* I had a solid behaviour plan (don't even get me started on the dreaded clip chart) but I was not nearly as consistent as I needed to be in order for my program to be successful. I've tried many but my current preferred behaviour plan is 1, 2, 3, Magic! Find whatever plan works with you, your teaching style, and your students, and BE CONSISTENT. Inconsistency will cause any plan to fail, no matter how "fool-proof." Set clear expectations and stick to them. It sounds easy enough...this was actually something I "already knew" when I first started teaching. But I admittedly wasn't as strict with my plan as I needed to be at the beginning and it showed later. 

Clear expectations. Consistency. No exceptions.

3. Be silly with your students.

This is a big one for me and my Type A, slightly OCD personality. Now I don't mean be silly and inappropriate and fool around all the time. I mean that once you have established a solid behaviour plan and have a defined teacher-student role, have FUN with your kids! Be silly with them! The first time I did this was a snow day (for us that means school is still open but buses don't run...so I had just a handful of kids in class). Because I didn't feel the pressure of curriculum, I was able to relax and have fun with my students. And the great thing was they didn't act out and chaos did not ensue like I had always envisioned it would if I ever let my "teacher" guard down. They didn't suddenly forget or chose to neglect our class rules and expectations. They enjoyed seeing a more playful side of me that they could actually relate to and I truly believe they respected me more for it. So go ahead, relax, and enjoy your time with your students!

1. Work every night & weekend...done is better than perfect.

Oh my. I fell into this trap and ran myself to the ground. To this day I have to consciously remind myself of this. If you don't learn to accept anything else as a teacher, this is the one thing you need to remember: 

You will never be completely done. And that's okay. 

Teachers always find something to do, make, create, mark, prep, etc. and the work is never completely done. There's always something to do! But in my first year, I wish I had convinced myself to simply do what my students needed in order to learn. I wish I didn't worry about how cute or colourful the activities were. I wish I didn't spend hours re-vamping anchor charts and trying to reinvent the wheel for every single lesson and activity. It doesn't make you a bad teacher if you don't work every night and weekend. In fact, it will make you a better teacher if you take care of yourself. So remind yourself that having the work done, is better than spending a ridiculous amount of time making it perfect. Enjoy your life!!! You deserve it.

2. Implement everything you learn at every P.D. session.

Aaahh. Another biggie. In my first year, one way to make me feel like an absolutely horrible teacher was to send me to PD. But that's only because I was taking PD way too seriously. YES it is incredibly important to continually learn and grow in this profession, but you will drive yourself mad if you try to implement every single thing you learn at every single PD session. I would just get started doing something one way in my classroom, go to a PD session, and then start doing it another way based on what I had learned. So it never had a chance to actually work and work well. The biggest thing I learned about professional development in my first year is the importance of listening, learning, but then selecting what strategies, programs, and resources you feel would benefit you and your students the most. If you focus on just one or two aspects of improvement at one time, you are far more likely to grow and develop successfully than if you try to juggle a handful of new strategies half-heartedly. Your time is way too valuable for that! 

Comparison is the thief of joy.

There is a fine line between admiring and learning from another teacher's lessons/style/classroom/etc., and comparing yourself to that teacher. It is SO easy to compare yourself to other teachers and feel like you are not doing enough, especially in this profession and in this day in age. Fabulous teacher-bloggers and social media (like Instagram in particular) often only show us very small and seemingly perfect snippets of an individual's life. A teacher's feed could display just a handful of images of cute activities, but suddenly we feel completely inadequate in our own abilities. Stop that NOW! First of all, everyone is at a different stage...don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle. Secondly, we all have strength and we all have weaknesses. Don't let someone's strength let you forget your own. Learn from others, but don't compare. Never stop growing but never forget your own fabulousness ;)

For more great advice, head back to read what other teacher-bloggers have to say!

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!