Summer Scoops Bulletin Board

Yes, I realize I have been slacking on my blog posts.  While laziness has definitely played a part in this, I have also felt minimal motivation.  I began this blog mostly for myself - something for me to enjoy, hoping that others will gain inspiration from my enjoyment.  I don't want it to become simply work.  Today, I feel like that motivation has slightly returned!  :)

About two weeks ago I put up a bulletin board to display my students' writings about their summers.  The bulletin board was my welcome board at the beginning of the year, which I turned into the students' summer reflections. You can see both below!

You may notice I have a mere 7 students this year in my class :).

I had the students write their reflections on ice cream scoops.  This idea worked well as the students wanted to write more so that they could fill more scoops!  What a great motivation to keep them writing! :)  While it might be a little late to do this project in your classroom now, it could be a great one for the end of the year!  Leave a comment if you would like the template for the scoops!

September Read Alouds

 The weather is getting cooler, I no longer have time for cooking 'exciting' meals, and I wake up with the sun once again - Ah, yes, it is September already! I have a wonderful new set of Grade 2's, eager to learn...(well, mostly) and a freshly decorated classroom ready for full use!  While I kind of disappeared for a while in August, I am back ready more than ever to blog! :)  By the end of this week I hope to have pictures up of my Safari Themed classroom.  While it may be too late to post these pictures for any of those who were itching for helpful ideas, you never know what you could add to your classroom in later weeks :).

As for today, I want to blog about the children's books that I have decided to use in my classroom for the beginning of this school year.  I found it difficult to know which books to chose, but after much research I think the ones I chose are working well.  While the first day book may no longer apply to you, the others will still work well for the month of September.

First Day

Back to School Rules by Laurie Friedman

This book is an excellent choice for the first day of school as it is a fun hook to talking about the classroom and school rules with the students.  Talking about rules can be 'a real drag' on the first day of school, so I am always looking for ways to spice it up a bit.  It was a fun way to start the talk and thinking about ways for a good student to act!

First Week

How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague

I like to make a point of talking about the summer vacation with my students the first week (As I am sure many of you do)  As my students are writing journal entries about their summer vacations, I plan on reading this book to the class before the students share their journal entries with the class.  If nothing else, it is simply a great book for a laugh, and to get the students' imaginations rolling.

My Mouth is a Volcano by Julia Cook

I have some wonderful, imaginative, and excitable talkers in my class this year.  This book is a great way to help students understand the importance of not speaking out when you are not supposed to.  As an activity to go with it, I found a great idea at Thank God It's First Grade .  

Beyond First Week

Recess Queen by Alexis O'Neill

Recess is a time where bullying and mistreating others can happen easier than in the classroom.  To remind students the importance of treating each other with respect, this book is a great one to read.  It is not only good to to read at the beginning of school year, but any time it seems that there is some bullying during recess time.  Post-reading I would chose to do a type of group activity as opposed to a writing assignment, as I feel this would be most effective for such a book.  There are some great ideas found here for discussion and group activities.

You Are Special by Max Lucado

This is another book that is great to read both at the beginning of the year and if your class struggles with bullying or self-confidence.  This book can also be found on Youtube:  You Are Special by Max Lucado

Hope these helped you with some ideas and here's to a smooth, sailing year ahead! ;)

Language Arts Organization

Today is becoming an extremely productive day.  I guess that's what happens when my car is out of commission and it's pouring outside.  While I have not finished tackling one of my 'Summer To Dos' I decided to revamp my Language Arts binder today.  It is pretty simple and I thought I would share it with you to give some ideas in the sections of organizing it.  While these sections completely relate to what I teach for Language Arts, if you adjust them to your own program, they could work just as well!  Do keep in mind that these are only the worksheets and such used in the programs, whereas textbooks/workbooks are not included.

 Before I begin, I must warn you that my pictures are not spectacular.  Along with my non-functional car, I have a non-functional camera and therefore was forced to use my phone.  It does the trick though, and will give you the perfect idea as to how to create your own organized Language Arts binder.  Since this is pretty self-explanatory, this will mostly be a picture blogpost :)

                                                          

( For public speaking competitions or reading records where students try to read enough pages to win a prize)

I especially like the Holidays section, as I always find I am wondering where my Thanksgiving or Christmas sheets and activities are.  Eventually, I would like to make a binder specific to Holiday activities.  

 Throughout the year, I also chose to make notes on specific worksheets or activities I used.  These notes were just made on post-it notes (as seen below) and simply stated what worked and what didn't work, what could be improved, and what to keep in mind.  I plan on updating this and to keep adding to it!

                                                    
                                      These simple stickys are great, quick reminders!!



Happy Organizing!! :)

Summer To Do

Ah summer... how I love thee.

While many fellow teachers of mine choose to have a summer job, go on extravagant trips, or take an AQ course, I chose to stay at home and simply relax.  For some reason...this isn't working out for me as well as I planned.  It's only been the second week of summer, and already I feel swamped with unpacking/cleaning our new apartment, sorting through mounds of teaching materials from the year (picture below), and catching up on appointments that were missed throughout the busy school year.  Suddenly, I realized, I only have four more weeks until I go on my personal 'extravagant' trip (to BC!).  And then, guess what!  It is basically time to go back to work.. ah, the summer is short.  Low and behold, I still have a Summer To Do List for teaching for these next four weeks.  Just some things I hope to get done before I begin a new year of teaching.  While these items are not detrimental for starting a new year of teaching, they are simply helpful ideas for organization.  Perhaps this will help me keep on track a little bit more this year...and perhaps it could help you too!

This weeks project

Summer To-Do List:

1. Pre-planned Supply Lessons

All throughout the year it was my plan to make supply lessons.  While I am thankful to say I had no days where I had to call in the morning sick, If I had, I would have been scrambling and stressing trying to come up with a supply plan.  It is just not worth that extra stress.  This summer, I plan on making these supply lessons for at least 3 days of classes.  While, of course they will have to be adjusted according to the time of year and what the students are currently learning, some good basic plans will still save so much time!

2.  A basket of children's books ready to read with lesson plans/activities.

Whether it be for creative writing, journal entries, a tie to a math or science lesson, or a start to an art project - books are your best friend (Especially in Grade 2!)  I already have a basket of books, separated into seasons and topics (Wait for future blog post to see how this was done!), which was very helpful for me throughout the year, to quickly pick up a book when I had the time to read one to the students.  The pre-made lessons/activities to go with it, would just be so much more helpful!  I plan on starting this soon, and will blog my ideas throughout.  Below is a picture of my current basket of books, which I also hope to fix up quite a bit!  (As you can see, the basket is a little small... :)

Basket of books (Could use some updating...:)

3.  Planned Bulletin Boards ideas

Most times, I've considered pinning an idea on Pinterest to be a planned bulletin board idea.  However, I want to take some time this summer to take those ideas (with my own creative spins) and actually get them ready to simply place on the bulletin board for when the time is right.  Bulletin boards can be an added stress during a busy time of report cards or grading.  I would love for that stress to be diminished, just a little.

4.  Organized Binder of Ideas

Not much to add here.  I hope to make an organized binder for Language Arts and Math.  While of course, the curriculum binders are already set, there are many times when some extra activities are needed for further learning.  This binder will be great to have throughout the year to also add any new ideas I come up with.


These four things will definitely keep my next four weeks busy. I plan to blog about each of them as I work through them.  This is my first step into getting over my procrastination.  Wish me luck, and maybe even join me! :)

Marbles Management Break Down

(Before reading this post, you may want to look back on a past post from January: Classroom Management with Marbles )

A while ago I posted about how I began to use marbles in my classroom for management reasons and how at the beginning I believed it to be an easy strategy to keep up with and to be motivating for my students. Today, I want to re-cap on how it went for the rest of the year.  While it is a great management strategy, I don't believe I used it in the right way.  However, I do believe there are ways to use it efficiently.  I truly believe I had a great start with it, yet as things got busy it went down hill.

The following is what I did wrong:

1. I was inconsistent.  Sometimes I chose to give the students marbles when they had a really good morning or afternoon, other times I would forget.  Sometimes I gave marbles when I saw a student doing a kind act to another, whereas most times, I forgot.

2.  My goals were set too high.  I often found reasons to take away marbles rather than add marbles and when I did add marbles it was too little.  While the students were close to filling the jar, it never actually got full.  This was partly due to me forgetting it as well.


What I learned?  Well, while the importance of consistency can be so obvious, it is harder to accomplish than one would think.  So this is some advice I give to anyone thinking of starting this management strategy:

1.  Only use the marble jar for one reason.  Whether it be for when the students cooperate in class and show hard work, or whether you use it for acts of kindness.  Do not set your goals so high to use it for numerous reasons, or it will become forgotten, and inconsistent.

2.  Set goals in the morning for the marble jar, letting the students know the goal.  For example, you could tell students that if they show hard, quiet work all the way until recess they will get a big marble, or 5 marbles in their marble jar.  Or, if you are doing it for acts of kindness, you could tell students that if you see 5 special acts of kindness during the day, you will add 5 marbles to the jar.  This way, you are reminding yourself to add marbles, and you are reminding your students about the marble jar.

3.  Make the goals achievable so that the students WILL get that promised class party or treat if they fill the jar.  If they fill the jar once and get their prize, they may be even more keen to do it again.

Trial and error... the best way to eventually run the perfect classroom :)

10 Musts to Have in Your Classroom.

My lack of blogging has been due largely to moving and loosing my camera cord. Therefore, leaving me with no pictures to post.  To try to explain art projects or bulletin boards without pictures would simply be pointless.  So, while I have a blog post today, I have no pictures and therefore must blog about something different than my 'great' lessons ;).

I want to talk about the things you absolutely need to have in the classroom at all times.  Okay, maybe not NEED, but will definitely help take away some stress in a day of teaching :).  Whether it be for emergency lessons, quick management strategies, a simple fill in, or just to make a teacher's job a tiny bit easier.

 Over my past year of teaching I have realized the importance of keeping certain things in my classroom at all times - I failed to do this most of the time and learned greatly from it.  There were numerous times when I needed something and didn't have it.  I'm going to skip the obvious ones (ie. tape, stapler, hole puncher, pens, etc.) because I am pretty sure we all know those.  I want to tell you about the ones that are not always thought of right away, yet can really make your days go that much smoother.  While some may seem obvious to you, as a new teacher, they weren't to me at the beginning of the year.

1. Jelly Beans.  

Jelly beans are KEY.  Whether it be for a math lesson, a review game, a reward, or just a regular Fun Friday afternoon, jelly beans are a must.

2.  Dice. 

 Primarily for Math...no need to explain much here.  (If you need some ideas for math games with dice, comment and I will blog them!)  Cards could also be added to this!

3.  Labels.  

At the beginning of the year, fellow teachers told me the importance of making labels - labels for each student's name (big and small), labels for each subject/book, and labels for your name.  While I saw the importance of making these for the students books and duotangs, I did not see these as important for much else so I ended up stuffing them some where quick when I was finished labelling the books at the beginning of the year.  Well little did I know how often they would become useful throughout the year.  Whether it was for the students' snacks on field trips, new notebooks when students' finished theirs, costumes for the school play, labelling projects, etc. etc., I needed htem all year long.  The amount of annoyance it is to run out of labels is underestimated.  Next year, I plan on making double the amount I did this year so I am sure not to run out.  

4.  Bandages.

This might be an obvious one.  Honestly, for some reason I just never had them in my classroom this year.  When students have a tiny hang nail or cut that they 'desperately' need a bandage for, it would just be so much easier to be able to give them one rather than having to send them to the office and wasting all that precious work time.  

5.  A box of random toys, prizes, etc.  

This could help with many of the same ways that the jelly beans could.  My school has a prize bin in the office for any reason a teacher chooses to send them there.  However, I think it is so nice to be able to have such a box in your own classroom as well.  I definitely have used the prize bin in the office, but I also would .like to seriously start one in my own classroom for more management plans.  (Perhaps to be blogged about in the future...)

6.  Birthday gifts.

This year for every student's birthday I gave a birthday pin and a sheet of stickers.  I also printed off a sign that said 'Happy Birthday _____!' and hung it up in front of the classroom for the day.  I chose to buy all of the gifts ahead of time, which worked really well for those days that I remembered it was a student's birthday 5 minutes before class started... guilty.  However, I chose to leave the sign printing until the last minute... every time - well how much easier it would have been had I printed them all at the beginning of the year and simply pulled them out the day of?!  

7. Empty jars.

Empty jars are needed more than one would think.  While I used them mainly for science experiments, they were also useful for things like my marble jar (found here), picking names for an activity and storing items.  I am sure you could find many more uses for them as well.

8.  Students' names on magnets.

I started this at the beginning of the year and it was helpful for numerous reasons.  I simply wrote the student's names on colourful cardstock, cut it out and glued a magnet strip to it.  I used it for two main reasons. First of all, every day the students had to hand in their agendas. Once they handed in their agenda they had to put their name on the chalk board to show me that it was handed in.  If their name wasn't on the chalkboard, I knew I didn't have their agenda yet.  Secondly, I used it occasionally for students who were misbehaving or who needed to stay in for recess to finish work.  Rather than writing their names on the board  I could just put their magnet up to remind them.  While this isn't necessarily a must, it definitely makes your life that much easier.

9.  Stickers, stickers, stickers!

Do not underestimate the importance of stickers.

10.  EXTRAS... of everything!!

Whether it be duotangs, pencils, erasers, notebooks, paper... Always have more than enough.  This year I failed on this with pencils and duotangs.  Two very key things in order to make your student's work go smoothly.  

These are just my top 10 things - while there are definitely plenty more.  If you have any more to add, please do comment!!

Summer is two weeks away for me.  In this spirit, stay tuned for a blog post about Summer To Do's as you spend a bit of time preparing for the next year! :)

Constellations

Space and planets is turning out to be my favourite Science unit so far.  For some reason, it seems that kids just have such an excitement to learn about the Solar System.  Last week we studied constellations.  To end off the week I had the students pick one of their favourite constellations for a small project.  I decided to buy a writing template and constellation information on TPT (Not something I do often - usually only when I plan a lesson last minute and are really in need for some ideas for help!).  Here's the link: Crazy About Constellations.   In the booklet, the idea was to make the constellations from golden stars on black paper.  I decided to add a little extra fun step with have the students drawing the stars with yellow and white crayons and then painting over them with black watercolour.

Here were some of  the results:

A perfect display for the hallway and a great way to end off a crazy week!

We've Got the Whole World...

Earth Day is coming up in a couple weeks and I decided to get a head start on a bulletin board.  I got this wonderful idea from The First Grade Parade Blog.  (Amazing blog, I must add!)

I simply got a painted hand print of each of my students' for the 'world', and printed off some of the words and used others letters for some.  I then added a few sentences of things that we can do to help our earth.  I am now providing students pieces of paper to write down their own ideas to add.

If you still need a quick, easy bulletin board before Earth Day, I would highly recommend something like this!

Easter Egg Math Facts

Since my school has a two week long March Break, I only have four days with my students before Easter.  Being so short, there's not much time to make decorating the classroom worth it or to even do much Easter activities.  But I thought of one quick and easy idea that will be great for the students who finish their Math work early this next week.

I decided to buy some plastic eggs, take a permanent marker, and write down some math facts.  On the top part of each egg I wrote down the multiplication statement and at the bottom, the answer (obviously mixing up the colours).  Putting them in two baskets, all the students have to do is match the right top with the right bottom.  This is great not only to keep students busy and practising their multiplication facts, but also for me to check after for assessment.

Problem is - I bought a bag of 40 eggs.  What to do with the rest?  

Some ideas I have... 

- Write a different journal topic in each egg, and when the students are finished their work they have to pick an egg and write a journal entry.

- Put a little treat in each egg to give to the students for Easter break.

Any other ideas?? :)

A Cup of Hot Chocolate...

Looking on people's facebook statuses, talking to the server at Starbucks, and having a phone call from my Mom, I feel that all I have heard today were complaints about the cold, cold weather.  And, I just chimed right in. After all...as I said to the man at Starbucks 'it's spring for Pete's sake!'.  So while, I originally thought I was going to be pretty late with posting this bulletin board, thinking that by this point it's bound to be warm and springy outside, I'd say it still fits the weather right now.

A Cup of Hot Cocoa and a Good Book!

I taught the students about the 5 Ws and had them write book reports on one of their favourite books.  I then had them write good copies of these book reports onto marshmallows in order to fit the theme of the bulletin board!

My mug could have been a bit bigger,,,but hey..it gets the point across :).  The rest was pretty simple as I used the background, border, and snow bottom from my last bulletin board on the Lost Snowmen.  

I got the main idea and the marshmallow template from Mrs. Lirette's Learning Blog .  While you might think it's a bit late to use in your own classroom, I would say it's perfect when thinking of those chilly, rainy April days! :)

"Ghetto" Pulleys

While I've mostly blogged about my art classes and bulletin board displays, today I have a different subject to blog about - Science.  I never thought I would be teaching science - It is not my strongest subject in any way.  However, I have had a ton of fun teaching science to Grade 2!  Our first unit was on Animals.  While students love animals, and love learning about them, I found this unit hard in the fact that there wasn't much for experiments.  Science is one subject that you can truly do hands on learning, but I found that to be more tough with studying animals.  (If anyone has any ideas for me, please message me!!)  We then had a unit on Matter and Materials.  This unit was great, in the fact that we had an experiment almost every science class!  Learning about solids, liquids, and gases always have engaging activities to do with the students.

Now, we are learning about Simple Machines.  So far we have worked with pushing and pulling forces and inclined planes.  Just recently we worked with pulleys.  Being the procrastinator I am, the night before the lesson I looked everywhere for a good pulley activity...I thought it would be no problem!  Nope, not true.   Everywhere I looked, making a pulley required wooden spools.  Unfortunately, I don't just have wooden spools hanging around...and I especially can't find one the night before the lesson :).   So I decided to make my own pulleys out of some stuff I had in our apartment:  toilet paper rolls, a pizza box, and a glue gun.

They turned out like this:

Here's how I made it:

I took a toilet paper roll and cut it in half.  I then cut out two circles from the pizza box, and with a glue gun I glued them together.  The students simply had to stick a pencil through the middle, put some yarn around the pulley, tie a load to the yarn...and voila!  A pulley!  Mind you, it wasn't the strongest pulley ever, but it did the trick to show the students what a pulley is.  And they had fun with it anyways!

Now, here's hoping for a snowy day tomorrow - too snowy for school perhaps?  Ah...one can only dream.

A Snowy Day

As much as I dislike winter, I do love how the classroom looks with winter decorations!  For the past week I have been having my students make snowflakes after they finish their agendas, or if they finish their work a bit early.  Some even ask to stay in during recess to make them.  I'll admit, it is for a selfish reason.  I just love the way they look all over the classroom!  

I also needed one more 'wintery' bulletin board.  I saw lots of great ideas on Pinterest about how no two snowflakes are alike, but I decided simply to do a writing assignment about a snowy day.  I just love the way the colours look on this bulletin board!  It isn't the most exciting bulletin board, but I still really like the way it turned out!

I found my snowflake templates here.  I had to help most students fold the paper, but they turned out so nice so I didn't mind!  Some students also chose to make their own designs.  The writing piece is simply about their favourite activities to do on a snowy day.  Our focus is on detail and adjectives so they had to make sure to include those.  If you would like the template for the writing piece just comment!  :)

Well it's the weekend!!  Time for a date night of pizza and a movie with my wonderful hubby.  I am ready to relax!  Enjoy your weekend as well :)  

Classroom Management with Marbles Results

It's been two weeks since the Christmas break and already I feel that January is becoming a better month than my first few months of teaching.  I feel more focused, and more determined to make interactive and engaging lessons.  My New Year's resolutions of using my SMART board more and having more group work has been helping my lessons incredibly.  While it is more work at times, in the end it is so much more rewarding!  Now I just need to make a goal for getting marking done on time...haha.  

I posted about how I was going to use marbles for a new classroom management strategy here in November.  I said that I was going to try it within 2 weeks...well it's been about 2 months..and I am finally starting it :).  As for results... it is going well.  I find it is an easy strategy to keep up with (I found this hard when I used the stop light strategy at the beginning of the year).  It also motivates the kids to be more attentive when specific instructions are given.  Most of all, they are excited about it.  

If your interested in trying it in your classroom these are the rules that I gave to my students:

1.  To get marbles, it is a group effort.  Some examples of how students can get marbles is showing me that they are ready for a lesson quickly, staying quiet when you are supposed to, acts of kindness, etc.

2.  Marbles are taken away when students do not listen, are not showing me they are ready for a class, are extra loud in the cubbies, etc.

3.  There is absolutely no blaming allowed.  If a student blames another student, all of the marbles are taken out of the jar and we have to start over.

4.  By March Break if all the marbles are in the jar we get to have an afternoon class party.   I plan on playing a class game, have some treats for the students, and maybe watching a short video.  

If you have any other tips for this classroom strategy, let me know!

Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

Back in November, I briefly mentioned a conference I had attended.  I mentioned that a lot of things stuck out for me from that conference and that I might blog about it at another time.  Welll...it's January, and it's about time eh?  :)  I decided to take much of these holidays to organize our small apartment and some of my teaching materials.  While doing so, I found my notes from that conference again.  Some of which I have remembered and tried to incorporate in my classroom, and some of which I completely forgot about, yet are great strategies to use.  It's January, so a good time for a new start in my classroom anyways!

One workshop I attended was called 'Teaching the Learning Brain'.  The leader (whom I completely forget the name) mostly discussed the motivation of children in school.  There are two ways of motivating children - extrinsically or intrinsically.  Extrinsic being giving the child an outward reward for behaviour or work, and intrinsic being giving the child an inward desire to finish work.  I'm sure we would all agree that it would be nice to be able to use intrinsic motivation for our students.  The problem is, extrinsic motivation is so much easier!  However, it is also short-term and only generally motivates students in the moment.

I have a few students who struggle to get to work.  Specifically, I have one who will sit and stare at his work for entire periods no matter how much prompting and help I give him.  Many times I resort to using a prize bin if the student finishes a certain number of pages.  This usually works.  However, I realize that it is not helping this student have a long-term motivation for such work.  I want to try to get a way from this prize bin and start using more intrinsic motivation.  

Now, with behaviour, routine tasks and classroom management, I see the importance of extrinsic motivation (For example, a marble jar, which I have brought up that I will be starting soon.)  However, when it comes to doing work I want my students to want to do their work!  In the conference we were reminded that intrinsic motivation cannot be generated but only fostered.  Intrinsic motivation must come from inside of the child, a real personal want to do such work.  But, as teachers, we can help this want to come out!  These are some tips we received on how to foster such motivation and how I plan on using that in my classroom:

- Give students freedom and choice.   I plan on allowing students to choose between two topics for journal writing, and to give students the choice between two worksheets or even simply picking certain questions in Math.  

- Provide challenge and avoid boredom.  Having many students who excel in Grade 2, I have and will continue to do so, give such students more challenging questions and activities than others.  I believe this step is all about knowing your students and really assessing to see that the students are working at the correct level.  I also believe the importance of not overwhelming your students.  I have some students who I know, if I give work that they don't think they can do they will easily just give up.  Another important part of intrinsic motivation, is to not frustrate your students so that they also loose motivation because they don't think they can accomplish such work.

- Recognize meaning in learning.  I want to make my lessons more relate-able to students in their everyday lives.  This sounds obvious, but can easily be forgotten!

- Instructive Feedback while students are working.  I have and will continue to do this simply by walking around desks and checking their assignments while they are in the midst of working. 


One of my New Year's resolutions is to spend more time on making my lessons more engaging and exciting for my students.  I really want my students to get more excited about learning!  I plan on using my SMARTboard more, using more manipulatives, and more group work.  Let's hope I keep this one resolution! :)

Lost Snowmen

Winter is officially here!  Last night, Tim and I were caught in the first real snowfall I've seen yet this winter, as we were driving home from my in-laws Christmas celebrations.  It was a beautiful sight!  Winter is not my favourite season.  But if it has to be this cold, then why not add some snow to it?  It always makes me feel like the world is a different place - peaceful, calm, and cozy.

Before I left for the holidays I began to make my classroom also have that winter feeling to it.  I was inspired by this bulletin board:

Found at:  Just Add Clipart: A First Grade Teacher Blog

I adored this idea!  And so did my Grade 2's! :)  After designing my own bulletin board, this is how it turned out:

This is definitely one of my favourites yet!  It is so fun to see other kids in the school trying to guess who's snowman is whose.  There is still a lot of time to add this bulletin board for this winter.  Comment on this post if you are interested and would like the templates for the snowmen and the "Lost" clues sheet!  

I cannot believe it is already December 27 - Christmas has come and gone, the new year is almost here, and the holiday will soon be over...welll, let's not think about that quite yet!  I am enjoying the break a little too much :)

Simply Interactive

One more week until the holidays!  We finished our Christmas concert, and now have four more days of teaching and one field trip day.  I am looking forward to simply doing something different.  I love teaching, but I love time with my husband, family, and friends even more.  After being extremely busy for the past three and a half months, it will be nice to spend that long-awaited time needed with loved ones. 

In the meantime, I am finishing up our Christmas themes in the classroom.  The beginning of this week I put up a Christmas bulletin board.  It is my first interactive bulletin board for this year for my Grade 2's.  It is very simple, but still including activity from students.  We have been learning more and more about adjectives all throughout the past month or so, so I came up with the followng:

Now, I know there is not too much to it, but the fact that the students get to put up their own adjectives is exciting enough for them!  (Yes, there could definitely have been a bit more creativity done with this board, but it was the best I could do during this busy season!)  This is how it looked after the first morning of putting it up.  At this point the board is pretty much covered with different Christmas adjectives.  While at first they started with red, white, green, etc., students are now encouraged to think of more creative adjectives.  It is fun to see what they come up with!  Students are then encouraged to use these words in their writing as well.  

It's just a start into interactive bulletin boards for my classroom, but you have to start somewhere!  As for Christmas decorations, next year let's hope I am more on top of things so as to make my classroom a bit more exciting.  :)

Classroom Management with Marbles

Ohh.. classroom management.. I can't count the amount of times I have heard discussions about this in the past year and a half, yet still I am working on that in my classroom.  I have been blessed with mostly well-behaved students for my first year of teaching, yet I still find that this is one area I need to work on.  

Recently, I was able to attend a conference for teachers with a number of different workshops.  There were many things that stuck out to me, some of which I will possibly blog about at a later time.  I attended a workshop for Grade 2 teachers and at this workshop our many focus was on (of course) classroom management.  The one idea that really stuck out to me in this discussion was the idea of having a Marble Jar in the classroom to enforce good behaviour.  The idea is that there is a jar at the front of the classroom with a bag of marbles beside it.  Any time exceptionally good behaviour is noticed from the class as a whole, you can feel free to add marbles to the jar.  Any time the class is not listening or obeying instructions, marbles can be taken away.  Once the jar is filled the whole class will be allowed to have a party. (I personally would have a class game or community building activity we could do for an afternoon.)

I like this idea for two reasons.  One: it includes the class as a whole.  Therefore the class must work together in order to earn marbles.  This promotes community in the classroom and reminds the students that their actions impact others, not only themselves.  Two: it is a visual reminder at the front of the room.  

On Pinterest I also came across this visual printout to remind students how they can fill the jar:  

Adventures in Room 5

I love all of these ways in which the jar can be filled!

I hope to start this new classroom management strategy within the next two weeks.  I will update with the results!

A New Month

I am thankful tonight for a little extra time this evening to just take some time to relax.  Really, I am in need of it with this tiresome cold I am battling.  With a conference for the next two days, I don't have any classes to plan for (...Just lots of report cards to prepare of course :) so why not take the time to show one of my earlier projects?  

It is a new month and therefore time for a change of bulletin boards!  Before I do that however, I must share my favourite bulletin board from October.  Having 5 bulletin boards to change each month (two for my Art room and three for my Grade 2 classroom) it is tough to continue to think of creative ideas each month for all boards.  I've made it my goal therefore to come up with at least one especially thought out, creative bulletin board per month.  For October I came up with a 'Fall into a Good Book' Bulletin Board.  A fabulous idea, which I took from much searching for book report bulletin board ideas on Pinterest.  

I made the idea my own and this is what I came up with:

"Fall into a Good Book"

I simply printed letters off, along with a leaf template book report and added a fall coloured bordered and leaves.  The tree was also a nice touch, which the school had already. The leaf book reports were a hit with my students.  It was a great way to introduce book reports with a fun twist. 

For one of my next bulletin boards students are currently writing letters to Veterans for Remembrance Day. I am looking forward to seeing how these turn out!