Behavior Expectations: My Only Summer Craft :(

This is going to be a short and sweet blog post because tomorrow is the first day of teacher workshops for the new school year and I have to start winding down and going to bed at a decent hour.  But I wanted to share one of the only craft projects I did for my classroom this summer (which I did today). 

I have been feeling like a grinch because I have had little enthusiasm to decorate my room.  I want it to look pretty, but really wish my fairy godmother of the classroom would come and wave a magic wand.  Then my room would be the prettiest in the land.  OK, enough wishful thinking.

I wanted to frame my expectations (ok, not really mine; borrowed from another school I used to teach at a few years back) and put them on the wall.  I went to my local craft store, but the $1 frames were to small and the others too expensive.  I thought about misscalcul8's blog and this picture.  I thought that I could get some scrapbook paper and laminate it.  I had found cute clothes pins at the craft store, so it seemed simple enough. 

Well, half way through picking out scrapbook paper, I decided that I wanted something sturdier.  I went back to get some foam board and found packages of 8"x10" foam board.  Problem solved!  I bought the foam board and the scrapbook paper and headed home to make something pretty for my classroom.

This is what I created.  Scrapbook paper and foam board are now my new best friends.  I am very excited and think that they will look great in the classroom.  Plus, they will be a visual reminder to the students. 

If you want to know more about the behavior expectations, here is a link to the parent handbook from my previous employer.  I don't use them exactly the way they are prescribed in this handbook. 

QR Codes Rock!!

I recently purchased a task card activity from Teachers Pay Teachers that used QR codes as a way for  the students to check their answers.  I have always been intrigued by the use of a QR code in the classroom, so I decided to stop wondering and give it a try.  Perhaps foolishly, I decided to try it during an observation with my principal.  However, my principal enjoyed seeing the technology and discussed other applications for the QR codes within the classroom that would be beneficial for students, teachers, and parents.  I appreciated the feedback and brainstorming from him and decided to see how hard it was to make a worksheet with QR codes on it.

Well, it was a cinch and if you haven't tried them, you have to try them!  I made the simple worksheet that you can download below this paragraph.  I used it for Lesson 82 of the Saxon Algebra I (2007), so all of my fellow Saxon users feel free to take it and use it!  Just one caution, the problems are the examples from the book's lesson.  I dd that intentionally, so that I could have students who were truly stuck and not sure what they did wrong check their work to the books work if I was busy helping others.  I never had to do that though because they helped each other so well.



To make this, I Googled "How to make a QR code" and found several websites that would let you make a QR code.  I used the website http://www.qrstuff.com/ to make the codes and then download them for free.  Then, I copied and pasted them onto the worksheet.  I am a novice to doing this though, so my formatting is simplistic.

The students used their cell phones with a QR reader/scanner to check their answers.  I found that the students really liked being able to check the answer as soon as they finished the problem, so with some simple ground rules, I had no problems with cell phones being used for other purposes.

I am really excited about the possibilities that I can do with the QR codes.  Next time, I would like to have a "Need help?" section at the top with a QR code attached to a You Tube video or another source for students who are stuck or just need reassurance and I am busy with another student.  I am feeling like this could be a really good thing for my students and how I teach.  

Classroom Tour

Welcome to my classroom!  I am super excited to show it off to the world this year.  I have been working and planning all summer and when it all came together the way I wanted it, I was just overjoyed.  There are a lot of Pinterest ideas at work here and I am so thankful to everyone who shares on blogs and Pinterest.  I have been so inspired!  Here are just a few pictures of my room.

This is looking at my classroom from the door.  My classroom is small compared to most of the classrooms that I see in blogs, but it is my little corner of the world and it works just fine.  My curtains are world maps in bright primary colors, so that is the inspiration for the color pallet in my classroom.  The bowls are trash bowls that go on each table when we are making things.  One person from each table will empty it into the trash when we are finished.  There are also sturdy plastic plates that I found 4 for $1 at the dollar store that will work great for dry erase boards.  The drawers hold small group role cards, "stoplight" cards to do self evaluations, calculators, rags to erase dry erase boards, post it notes, and anything else I decide to add to them.  I found great little frames at IKEA after seeing them on Pinterest to be my table numbers.

I do have a goal to write down the objectives each day for students.  Another Pinterest inspired project lead me to buy wood frames at the dollar store.  I bought the wood frames thinking that they would work with the woodwork that I had in my classroom.  After deciding I didn't like the wood frames, I bought a can of spray paint and  made the frames black.  Not a horrible mistake, just could have saved time painting.

The plaid strip on the right is my calendar.  I found it at an estate sale years ago.  The black box slides down the row and highlights the date.  I really like that it takes up hardly any space in my classroom.  The students like changing the date.   

Here are my supply boxes for each table group.  Each box contains markers, colored pencils, scissors, glue sticks, tape, and a mini hole puncher.  In years past, I just used the three drawer box on top for markers, crayons, and colored pencils.  I am keeping that box around for the days we need crayons or a brown colored pencil is suddenly missing from the supply box.

I am keeping scrap paper, graph paper, and loose leaf paper in the stackable trays.

The table to the left hold my absent work folders, no homework binder, rulers, three hole punch, stapler, and my extra copy files.

The cabinet on the left has art supplies.  The magnetic body parts are to make silly faces. 

This is my favorite new thing in my classroom.  I read in a blog, and I didn't pin the picture, about how a teacher organized her units into plastic, modular, stackable drawers.  I liked the idea, but I just didn't quite know if the modular drawers would work for me.  Thanks to some awesome deals this summer, I was able to afford three of these rainbow drawers.  I have been organizing games and activities into them.  They work so well.  Everything is organized by topic and my file cabinet has room again! :)

The crates to the right will hold corrected work and anything that the kids will leave overnight to work on the next day.

This picture just shows some of the things that I have blogged about this summer.  My homework question board and small group role assignment boards are hanging.  Also, my NOISE sign is there too.

I teach Social Studies too and the world map is going to be for my Geography class.  We are going to play "Where in the world is (insert student name here)".  The students will write clues to where they are and others will guess.

The last picture is of the front of my room as you look from my desk.  I realized that I took this picture before I put the books in the bookcase.  Opps!

Well, there it is!  My pride and joy right now.  I am ready for Tuesday and the kiddos coming back.  I am excited for them to spend time in the space and for me to see if all the planning created the environment that I wanted!

Word Wall

My word wall started with this picture posted on Pinterest (http://www.ashleigh-educationjourney.com/2013/06/five-for-friday.html) and in the description another pinner had written "units instead of letters".  Well, that got me thinking.  I teach two subjects with two different sections of each.  I started to think, what about classes instead of units?  From there, my word wall was born for this year. 

So here it is!  My word wall stated by putting the names of the classes I have in circle frames that I figured out how to make myself on my computer.  I made two circles for each of the classes that I teach just to give more room for more vocabulary words.  I glued the subjects onto coordinating card stock, cut them out and laminated them.  I them bought coordinating ribbon and attached Velcro down the center (or as close as I could get).

The next thing I did was went through all of the free clip art that I had downloaded and found these cut frames from Debbie Burton @ K is for Kinderrific (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/K-Is-For-Kinderrific) in the colors that I had made my circles.  I printed them in the size that I wanted, glued them to card stock, and laminated.  The final step was to put Velcro down the middle of the cards, so I can stick them onto the ribbons.  I need to make a few more though! :)
    

The last thing that I did was took a dry erase marker and wrote the vocabulary word on the frame.

I know that traditionally, a word wall grows as more and more vocabulary is added to it.  Due to space issues, I can't do that.  I wanted to be able to put up key vocabulary words for the unit and then erase the words and put up the next units words.  This feels like it will be fast and easy for me.  So, I think that I will be able to manage it.

This is just a close up of the cards with the vocabulary words on them.

A Couple Quick Summer Projects

Well, I have a goal next year to use interactive notebooks in my math classroom.  This is an idea that I toyed with for several years, but never fully committed (sigh).  I decided, after reading a lot of blogs and gathering lots of ideas, that I was going to make interactive notebooks a reality this year in Math.  So I am hoping that by going public with my goal, I will make it a reality.  I will also be blogging about what we put in them when the school year gets going. 

I really liked Sarah's idea at Everyone's a Genius (http://everybodyisageniusblog.blogspot.com/) for the front cover theme to be "Numbers about Me".  My sample covers are pictured below.  I wanted the covers to be very different from each other to show that there isn't a "right" way to make the cover.  I just want them to be creative and find how numbers are a part of their life.

My Example for 7th Grade INB Cover

My Example for 8th Grade INB Cover

The other project has many different forms and it is common on Pinterest.  It is using the word "NOISE" to help students monitor their noise level in the classroom.  I like the idea, even in the middle school classroom, but I had to put my twist on it.  First off, I don't have a lot of extra wall space in my classroom.  Hanging something vertically would be better for me, so I hung the letters vertically on a ribbon.  My other concern is that I will set the letters down and not remember where I put them.  To avoid that problem, I thought that I could just fold back the letter and use a clothespin to hold it all in place.  Now, I'm crossing my fingers that it is an easy way to help students monitor their noise level during group work and a way to help me stop giving too many chances and not issuing a consequence.

Starting point: All letters showing

"E" is folded under and held back with clothespin

"S" is folded back.

Only "No" is showing so no talking is allowed

Some Small Group Organization...

I have never been able to find a way to quickly organize small groups and assign roles.  I have done the normal tricks of counting off and the closets birthday to _____ is the recorder.  Although it has worked fine, I just always felt like I could do a better job with it and still have a it be quick and easy.  So as I was looking through blogs and Pinterest, I found some things that I think will work well and tweaked it a bit to fit what I want.

Role Cards for Small Groups

The first thing that I found was was my group roles.  I really liked the roles that Ariane used at The Science Penguin (http://www.thesciencepenguin.com/2013/06/science-lab-teams-freebie.html) and she had a freebie to be printed and used.  I was all ready to take the made for me item when I realized that the clip art was a beaker.  I thought it didn't look like it fit in a math (and social studies) classroom.  Since I wanted roles that could be used for either of the classes that I taught, I had to do a little remixing.  Basically, I kept the roles that she had and some of her descriptions of the roles.  I changed up or added to all but the director.  I added in a spokesperson because that was a role that I really wanted.  I also added clip art that matched the role for my ELL kiddos to use as a clue about what they are to do.  I made a set of group role cards with the job descriptions for each table group in my classroom.  They will be laminated and hole punched to put on a ring for future reference. 

The next idea came from Science Gal (http://sciencegal-sciencegal.blogspot.jp/2012/09/setting-expectations-for-group-work.html).  She had a simple way to switch the roles in groups.  She assigned the students a color.  The roles were then kept in a pocket chart and a color square was put next to each role.  Whichever student was assigned that color, did that job.  So simple and easy to do!  I could easily assign roles even if it was at the last minute.  Loved it!

The last thing that I did was make badges for each group with the roles in them.  It will take me a while to learn which kids are assigned which color.  Wearing the badges will let me observe and see how kids handle the role much easier than constantly having to check who has which role.  I am going to present it to my middle school kiddos as something that happens in real life.  You get a job and you wear a badge that identifies you as having that job.  Also, I found the badge holders and clips at Walmart.  It was $1.88 for 12 of the badges or 12 of the clips.  So it wasn't too expensive to put together.  Hoping the kiddos take to them.  I think they will.

Role Badges that I made for each group.

I have gotten a few requests for the files to make these role cards.  They are on several files, so there are a lot of "Box" boxes.

Homework Question Board

Homework Question Board

Last year, I didn't like how I handled homework questions.  So, after thinking about what I have done in the past and how I could make it work with the Saxon program, I came up with this homework question board.

One of the nice things about Saxon is that they always have 30 questions of homework.  I found calendar numbers cheap at my local teacher store and laminated them.  I made a header that says simply "How do you solve number..." and then I found these cute mini clothespins at Michaels that had chalkboard fronts (in the $1.50 bins at the front of the store).  I used my white gel pen to write "Us Too!" on the chalkboard part.  There is an up close picture below.

"Us Too!" Clothespins up close.

Next year, I plan to have the students sit in groups.  After we correct the homework, I want them to work together to answer each others' homework questions.  If the entire group can't answer the question, then the group can come and flip the number over to the backside.  If another group has the same question they can add an "Us Too!" clothespin to the front of the number.  That will tell me that at least 8 people in the room needed help.  That is a question to make a note of and spend some time over the next few days or weeks.  Below is an example of what I think the board will look like in use.

Example of how it might look in action.

Absent Student Folders

Click "absent student folder" to go to the original post

I have been so inspired by the creativity that is out and how so many people make things so simple.  Over the summer months, I will be busy creating things for next fall.  I will post as much as I can over the next few months.

I loved this today when I saw it on Pinterest.  It is an absent student folder that is kept on the desk of the absent student and filled with the work completed that day.  At first, I thought it was a little primary for my middle school kiddos, but then I started thinking about the responsibility that the kiddos could have. 

So, this is what I decided to do.  I made 7 absent student folders.  I needed to make it more middle school looking, so I did a Google search for clip art of sick animals and found some great pictures.  I put the title of "Absent Folder" with the caption "Here is what we did while you were out..." underneath it.  I then took some scrapbook paper and glued my label to it.  I then laminated the whole folder.  What I love about this is that I (or a group member, preferably) can use a dry erase marker and write the student's name on it.  Everything can be collected and the folder can be put back in a designated spot for the absent student to pick up when they return.  I like this better than absent folders in a bin.  That means I have to remember, usually, to file the assignment.  I like the idea that it is out on the desk and that the group members take care of their classmates.

Here is my version:

 I think they will be great next school year!!