What Worked Well Wednesday

Happy Hump Day everyone!! I know many of you are headed back to school (if not already there). I hope you have had an incredibly amazing start to the school year!!

I have had so many amazing opportunities to meet some really amazing people through these social media platforms. One of the best things I've done so far is to find my #teachertribe.  I am a proud member of the #kindertribe and am so excited to have found a group of people who are more concerned with building each other up than tearing each other down. I'm so grateful for this group!! A Facebook page was just a start for this tribe, we soon branched out into a collaborative blog. 

The blog is mostly run and taken care of by the administrators, who will create different posts for the blog. There are two days a week other kindergarten teachers can link up to the blog. On Wednesdays we get to link up for 'What Went Well Wednesdays' and share something that went well during our week. I'm not back to school just yet, but I would love to share something that worked well for me last year!

I really like how I handled student supplies last year. I purchased a carton of these zipper pencil pouches from The Dollar Tree (in our district, teachers/schools are responsible for providing student supplies). I numbered each of the kiddos on my class list and then used a Sharpie to write the number of each student on the pouches.

Inside the pouches are all the supplies my kinders need during the day.

I purchased these really awesome 'soap containers' from The Dollar Tree. They came two to a pack and the lids are able to lock on. Not only that, but they perfectly hold an entire box of 24 crayons. How sweet is that?? I also numbered their crayon boxes.

In each pouch there was also a sharpened pencil, pair of scissors, and a glue stick. (I use glue sticks and glue sponges) These three tools are like the Holy Trinity in kindergarten, aren't they??

Also in the pouch is a dry erase marker and a piece of square felt to use as an eraser. We do A LOT of work with whiteboards in our classroom and we go through A LOT of dry erase markers during the year!! We have to spend many days in the beginning of the year practicing the proper way to use these markers, including not banging them on the boards to make dots and not using them for drawing or coloring on paper, as well as not to use them for drawing and coloring when we're using them to learn!

This is how I handled classroom supplies last year, and it really seemed to work well. The pouches from The Dollar Tree are super cheap-o and don't hold up well to kindergarteners, so I'm glad that I bought the whole carton so I can swap them out throughout the year. This year I am going to make stick-on labels for the crayon boxes, and I might change the way I label the pouches. I think this year I'm going to write the names of my kinders instead of a number. Honestly y'all, it was hard for all of us to remember who had which number! Being OCD, I definitely had a list, but it got to be a pain having to constantly check it. I think names are going to be much easier.

How do you handle classroom supplies? I'd LOVE to hear from you in the comments!!

If you head back over to the Kinder Tribe blog you can see lots of other amazing tips and tricks from teachers this week!

You can still link up for Spotlight Saturday! It's a Teacher's Show and Tell to share our favorite products, resources, activities, ideas, tips, tricks, and anything and everything else that could make our classroom lives easier!!

Rock Your First Year Teaching

One of my very favorite parts of blogging is getting to learn so much from other educators! There are so many amazing and incredible educators out there who enjoy sharing their tips, tricks, and advice. It's like having a library full of tips and tricks right at your fingertips! Today I am participating in a linky that allows teachers to share their advice for that slightly-daunting, incredibly exciting first year of teaching!

I am linking up with Teaching with Crayons and Curls and My Mommy Reads in order to bring you lots of advice for your first year in teaching! I would have LOVED to have something like this when I first started teaching! It is so great getting to be part of a community that shares their successes and celebrations as well as their trials and tribulations! With that being said, here's my advice for all you Newbs out there! :-)

1. Make friends with the support staff at your school! I can't stress how important it is to make friends with the office staff, custodians, and lunch room staff! These are the people who keep the school running, who knows where everything is located and how it works, and who are the first people you go to when you have a question about school. Trust me, you will need these people so much more than just once or twice throughout the school year! Make friends with them and keep them on your good side, and you will enjoy the benefits of those friendships all year long!!

2. Find someone in your school who knows not only how to work the copier and laminator, but who also know how to unjam the copier and replace the laminating film! You will use these machines A LOT during the school year, and once school gets started you may not be able to find someone to help you during the day. It is important to know the fundamentals of these pieces of technology so that you can problem solve yourself when you need to. Trust me, the copier will jam when you only have 5 minutes of planning or lunch left and the laminator will run out of film on the day the only person who knows how to change it is absent!

3. There are going to be many mornings during the year when you are running late. Maybe you overslept or the alarm didn't go off. There will be days when you run out of the house with barely enough time to get to school, and those are usually the days you forget to do things. Brush your teeth, put on deodorant, wear matching shoes... If you have some travel sized personal hygiene products kept in a drawer or a cabinet in your classroom, you can feel better about running out of the house and forgetting to do something!

1. Hopefully you are lucky enough to work on a team where you can plan together and share ideas. If you come across an awesome idea or activity, don't be stingy with it and only use it for the kiddos in your classroom. Good ideas should be shared so all can benefit from them. Plus, if you don't share with others no one is going to want to share with you! Your school life will go so much easier if you are willing to share with the other teachers in your building!

2. Every school has different rules about how you can hang things on your walls. Most schools follow a strict fire code that states exactly how much you are allowed to have on your walls as well as if you are able to hang things from your ceiling. Before you spend hours and hours setting up your classroom, make sure you have checked with other teachers in your building the correct way to hang things on the walls. If you use the wrong tape or pins or staples to put things into the walls and ruin the paint, you will be making your custodians very unhappy. And remember I said it was important to keep them happy?? It would be a shame if you spent days hanging things on your walls only to be told you had to take it down and redo it! A simple question asked can save you hours of extra work!!

The biggest piece of advice I can think to give is that you need to understand that your job is never, ever, ever over when the bell rings. You will be staying after school to put your classroom back in order after a hectic day. You'll find yourself coming to school early because you enjoy getting work done when it's so quiet in the building. You will lug home stacks of papers to grade and forms to fill out. You'll spend your weekends planning awesome activities, creating amazing lessons, and scouring Pinterest for new ideas. You may find yourself attending after school PTO meetings or a sporting event of one of your students. Even over the summer, your job's not done. You'll have PD sessions and courses to take in order to keep your certification. You'll find yourself on vacation and walking by a storefront window and getting inspiration for a lesson or activity. Your brain will always be on the hunt for the best ways to teach new concepts to your students, and that's a switch you'll find it very hard to turn off! Our jobs are not like office jobs, where whatever they were working on gets left on their desk at 5:00 and waits there till the next work day. We work every day, whether we're in the classroom or not. Oh, and don't forget that should you ever have to call out sick, you'll be doing more work for that day than you would if you actually went into school! It takes organization and patience to get through your first year, but you will get through it. And you'll become a better teacher for the following year because of everything you went through!!

I can't wish you enough luck for your first year of teaching! You will laugh, cry, yell, and pull your hair out. However, you will never find another job as rewarding and fulfilling as being a teacher! There is so much more wonderful advice out there for getting through your first year of teaching, make sure you head back over to Teaching With Crayons and Curls or My Mommy Reads to see who else has linked up!

Don't forget to come over and link up for Spotlight Saturday! I can't wait to read the products, activities, resources, and ideas you showcase! This week I am Spotlighting Mrs. Garcia's Super Scholars! Come read all about it and link up to share your Spotlight!!

Bright Ideas Linky Party

Hi everyone!!  Did you just finish up your first week of school?  How did it go?  Are your littles back in school yet?  I am linking up today with Miss V's Busy Bees for her Bright Ideas linky party.  You really need to check out the rest of the ideas on this linky after you're done reading!!  :-)

I have spent my past week getting my classroom set up.  I am very, very grateful for having such an extended amount of time before we have to 'officially' return to school.  The first few days before the kiddos arrive are usually so filled with meetings and what not that it is hard to get anything done in the classroom.  I am incredibly lucky to have a principal who allows us to plan together as a team and get into the building to set up our classrooms, and I couldn't be more grateful.  On Tuesday, this is what I walked into.

 This is the view from the front door of my classroom.  The top picture shows the left side of my room, and the bottom picture shows the right side.  I decided to totally rearrange my classroom this year, so while having everything piled into the center of the room was trying at times, it was also perfect for moving things into the spots I wanted them.  Luckily for me, I had my nephew Mason to help me move furniture!!

My bright idea is one I saw on Pinterest.  I cannot find the Pin anywhere, which reminds me that I never finished my Pinterest Makeover.  Sigh.  Anywho, I'm sure it's a Pin you've seen.  I have also seen it on Facebook.  This bright idea is for hanging resources up on walls that are painted.  In other words, this is a safe way to hang things on your walls without getting in trouble for destroying them.  It involves using painter's tape, and/or hot glue.  First, you outline the space you need on the wall in painter's tape.  Then you either apply double-sided tape or hot glue ON TOP OF the painter's tape, and attach your resources.

This is a frame I made for my Word of the Day poster.  I applied the painter's tape to the wall after I measured it against the edges of the poster.  Then I put up double-sided tape, and attached the poster.  You have to be extra-sure when you line up the poster, because it's a pain to try and take down to readjust it. The double-sided tape will either stick to the painter's tape or the poster, but of course never just one or the other.  Also, when the painter's tape gets pulled off the wall it begins to curl and twist, which can make it tricky.  After I tried this method, I saw a FB post about a collection of 'Teacher Tips and Tricks', and when I read through them I saw this being done with hot glue in place of the double-sided tape, so of course I had to try that!!

I used the painter's tape to edge out my back chalkboard.  After I finished that, I applied hot glue right to the painter's tape and then applied my border.  It was only after I had already started that I realized the border I was using wasn't laminated and would therefore need to be trashed at the end of the year.  Ah well, I had already started so I kept going.  

While this is not an idea that I came up with, I wanted to share it with you for the linky today.  I had several teachers in my building say they had seen this trick on Pinterest or Facebook and were wondering if it worked or not.  As of Friday when I left, everything I had put up with the painter's tape was staying on the walls.  We'll see how long this lasts, but I was able to create several bulletin boards on my cinder-block walls using this trick.

The blue 'Math' board on the right of this picture was created using the blue painter's tape and double-sided tape trick.  I have since added more resources to this board and so far it has stayed up on the wall!!  (The yellow board next to it is attached to the wall, and most classrooms have at least 3 of these boards in their rooms.)  I also created my Job Wall board using painter's tape and hot glue, but for some reason I never took a picture of that one.  D'oh!!

Don't forget to hop back over to Miss V's Busy Bee's to see who else linked up to share their bright ideas.  Oh, and Miss V is sharing about how she uses Washi tape in her classroom.  I'm dying to try it in my room too, but I'm wondering if it leaves a residue on the walls when it's removed?  I chose the painter's tape because it is supposed to come off cleanly without leaving a residue or removing paint.  I would love to use Washi tape to section off my Word Wall, which is on my chalkboard this year.  Have any of you used Washi tape on chalkboards before?  Does it leave a residue after you remove it?  I don't think I would be allowed to leave it up on the board all summer long, due to classroom cleaning.  I would love to hear your advice on this, or on something I can use instead.  I thought of using painter's tape and then applying ribbon on top of it using hot glue, but that seems like a lot of work...  Would love to hear your thoughts!!!

Monday Made It

Hi all!!  I'm back to link up with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It linky party.  This is an AWESOME way to learn all sorts of new tips and tricks for everything education-related, and my To Do List is DEFINITELY growing thanks to this linky!!  :-)

I'm going to share with you 3 things I've made so far this summer...I would be able to share more if I actually COMPLETED some of the things on my To Do Lists instead of just adding to them!!  :-)

First up I spent A LONG TIME working on setting up a Facebook page for my little blog.  It took a lot of research from other bloggers who have already created their page and the viewing of a lot of YouTube tutorials, but I FINALLY got everything working!! <click on the picture to go to my FB page>

I need to give a shout-out and a HUGE thank you to Ashley Hughes from The School Supply Addict and Chisti Fultz from Ms. Fultz's Corner for their AMAZING video tutorials.  If you are thinking of tackling the Facebook page, you should really check out their sites to get some great tips!!

When you go to my Facebook page, you have the option to 'Like' my page.  When you do, you will be able to get an EXCLUSIVE FANS ONLY FREEBIE that you cannot find anywhere else!!  It is a PERFECT freebie for the beginning of the year!

My Facebook page has some other tabs, too.  I link to my blog, my Pinterest board, and my Instagram account.  Don't forget to click on the Fans ONLY tab, and when you 'LIke' my page you will get this exclusive freebie!!

Finally, I have been working on something for my kinders to use during our rotation time this year.  I don't know about y'all, but I am a HUGE fan of cereal.  Love the sugary kids cereals, and I love having a different one every day.  How do I manage to keep in my budget with a different cereal every day? By buying the single serve multi-packs!!  You know the ones I mean, those variety packs of cereal in the little cardboard boxes.  I was enjoying some Fruit Loops and looking at the empty box, and all of a sudden I had an idea.  Here's what I started out with.

After some alterations, I now have this.

All I did was cut off the tabs at the top of each box and use different styles of Duck Tape to cover them with.  Make sure you check out my post tomorrow to see what it is I plan on doing with these!!

I hope you make sure to visit and 'Like' my Facebook page so you can download your exclusive freebie!!  Don't forget to go back to the Monday Made It linky to see what else has been made this past week!!

Creative Clipboards!

Happy almost Friday everyone!!  Is it just me, or do the days seem longer the closer we get to summer break??

Today I wanted to talk about clipboards.  I use them A LOT in my room.  We use them when we're on the rug, but we also use them when we are working on our Daily 5 language arts rotations and our Daily 3 math rotations, as well as taking them outside to do work in nice weather.  I use them so much that I have a class set (which I will have to add to next year, since we are getting the overflow from a neighboring school that is going through remodeling).  For me, it is cost effective to get the wooden clipboards that are only 97¢ at Wal-Mart.  However, versatile they may be, they are not the most attractive tools we use.  So, I went scrolling along in Pinterest and I came across a VERY Pinteresting idea.  Cover them with Duck Tape!!

I don't know if you've noticed, but Duck Tape has come A LONG way from the early days of the thick, silver tape they were famous for.  Nowadays, there are so very many different colors and designs it can be a bit overwhelming!!  I went shopping around at various stores, and found different designs of Duck Tape in every store from Wal-Mart to $5 & Below, and the prices stayed pretty much the same. I wanted to find patterns and designs that would appeal to boys and girls, so I ended up buying quite a few different rolls. I did find a few different types, and decided to try them all out.  Here are three different types that I tried (I'm sure there are other types out there, I just haven't found them yet!).

The sparkly silver roll, pictured on the far left, is kind of like one giant sticker with a backing that needs to be pulled off before it's used.  This was helpful because I could put the tape right up against the clipboard to measure it out, without having to fight the sticky side.  Of the three kinds I used, this one was the thickest.  That made it a bit hard to work with around the edges and corners of the clipboard, but it still turned out very nicely!  However, I was only able to cover one clipboard before I ran out (I covered the front, back, and sides).

Next I tried the 'traditional' roll, which is the roll pictured in the middle.  The tape on these rolls is thick enough that it can, at times, be tricky to cut.  I spent a lot of time juggling the roll and the scissors while I cut the pieces, so it would probably be helpful to have someone hold the tape while you cut it.  I was able to cover two clipboards with this type of roll.

Finally, I tried the roll pictured on the far right.  This type of Duck tape comes with it's own 'slicer' so you don't have to mess with scissors.  It also has little tabs that hold the edge of the roll, so that it doesn't fold over and get stuck together.  Also, the tape on these types of rolls in considerably thinner than the other two.  I would compare it to the clear packing tape used to tape up shipping boxes.  This roll was super-easy to use, and I was able to cover four clipboards before I needed a new roll.  I think, of the three, this is the one I liked the best.

I think it helps to start out with different types, until you find the one you like the best and are most comfortable with.  I did not try any generic or store-name brand tape, so I cannot give an opinion on those.  Growing up, my mom always said there were some things you just had to pay a little extra money on.  I feel that Duck Tape is one of those things, especially since I want these boards to last as long as possible before I need new ones.  So far, I have gotten two years' worth out of the first batch I made, and I plan on using them again next year!!  I just keep adding new patterns and designs, and I have created a class set of unique, kid-friendly clipboards that they all enjoy using.

I would love to hear about how you use clipboards in your classroom!!  :-)