New Favourite for Organization

Anyone who knows me as a teacher knows that I love to organize absolutely everything in my classroom. I enjoy finding new ways to store materials, resources, and other classroom goodies in a way that keeps everything neat and tidy but still easily accessible. Enter one of my new favourite finds for this year:

I found these plastic binder envelopes at Costco this fall and I love them. They can hold up to 100 pieces of paper and are strong and durable. I have to admit I don't actually use them in binders as I find they tend to stick out too far when the binders are closed (just a hint of OCD when it comes to my classroom) but if I cut off the 3-holes with scissors they fit perfectly in the white magazine holders from IKEA.









The best part about these babies is the price. It cost $10.00 for 25 plastic sleeves and I can think of so many uses for them. At this point I am using them to hold all the little bits and pieces I use for each of my Math units. Some of the envelopes hold the pieces for our interactive notebooks while others hold the cards needed for Math games. I was actually surprised at how much they held. The nice thing I can easily label them with a Sharpie and since the plastic is nice and smooth I can take the Sharpie off using a whiteboard marker later. (If you haven't tried this yet by the way you need to. You can remove Sharpie by colouring over it with a dry erase marker and then wiping it off.

I had hoped to use them as a write on/wipe off cover for worksheets but I think they are actually a little too thick (as in hold too many papers) to keep one piece of paper in one place for students to work on. What would you use these for? I would love some more ideas.

Words Their Way

Have you ever found yourself looking at a resource you have been using and wondering if there is something better out there? This year I found myself asking that question when it came to the spelling program I was using. Don't get me wrong, the program I had been using might work great for someone else but I found it didn't quite work for my teaching style. I had heard a lot about the Words Their Way program and knew a couple of other teachers in my school had been using it so I decided to give it a whirl. Like anything else it is still a work in progress to get the hang of everything involved but I am slowly getting the hang of it.

If you haven't heard of the program before take a look at it here. What I love most about it is that it works with kids at their level. It starts off with a diagnostic spelling test that identifies students strengths and needs. Using this information students are placed in groups based on where they are at and then off they go. The other great thing is that students practice their spelling words independently with only a little guidance from the teacher which means I can help out the students that need a little extra guidance. One thing I have learned about this program is that it requires a level of organization in order to make it flow smoothly so I figured I would show you how I organize it in my classroom.

 First of all to keep the word lists organized I colour code my groups and then copy their weekly lists onto corresponding coloured paper. This way I can simply grab the next week's spelling packet and know exactly what list goes where. In my district we send our printing to a central printing office and it takes a few days to get there and back so I always make sure to have more than one week at a time. When I get my lists back I take a few minutes to organize them into weeks and then store them in my handy green drawers (I love Ikea!).

  

Now for the teaching portion:

On Monday I hand out the sorts to the students and they get busy cutting it out. I give each student two copies of the sort - one for at school, and one to bring home for practice. For the classroom activities each child has a plastic envelope to keep their supplies organized. These envelopes have their name and a coloured square in the corner so I know whose envelope it is and what group they belong in. In each plastic envelope are the following materials:

- an envelope to hold the cut apart sort

- a journal for students to write down their sorts and record their word work activities

- a dry erase bingo sheet (more about this in a later post)

- a laminated keyboard

As the groups are cutting out their words I begin calling groups over one at a time to the learning carpet. Here we quickly go over the sort for the week, read through the words, and go over any teaching points needed for students to understand the patterns.

 Once students have finished with me they take their words and complete the sort on their own. They then begin working on two other "must-do" activities: a written sort where they record their sort in their journals, and three sentences which each use at least one of the spelling words. We only work on spelling for about 15-20 minutes a day so completing the "must-do" activities usually takes our Monday/Tuesday.

As students complete the required activities they bring me their journals so I can check their work. If their written sort and sentences are done correctly they can begin working on earning a spelling bingo by completing different word work activities with their words for the week.

When students complete a bingo activity they show me and I sign off on their bingo sheet. For every bingo they earn the students earn a ticket in a weekly draw for a prize.  If they complete the entire bingo sheet they can earn five draw tickets. We usually keep the bingo sheets for a month or so before erasing them and starting over again. Check out my Word Work and Spelling Bingo post for more info on the activities and draw prizes. 

Finally at the end of the week students are given a spelling test of randomly selected words from the week's sort. I give the students an independent writing or reading task based on lessons from the week to complete while I am giving the spelling tests to each group. Most of the time students are able to work quietly and independently without help and I can quickly call each group over to the learning carpet and give them the spelling test. 

The first couple of weeks were a little chaotic and required some teaching and reteaching and reminding of the expectations during our spelling times. By now the students have gotten the hang of it and it is working like a well-oiled machine. As always there may be some squeaks and kinks to work out with certain students but as long as you are consistent they will eventually get the hang of it. 

Wow! Another long post - I seem to have a hard time keeping things short but hopefully this will give you some insight into how to potentially run Words Their Way in your own classroom.

The Almost Organized Teacher: My Basic Organization Rules

One of my big goals for this year is to work on my organization skills. I am notorious for piling papers on various surfaces until I am no longer sure what still needs to be marked, what needs to be put away, what needs to be sent for printing, and what can be put in the recycle bin. This year I would like to improve on this and keep my desk and papers organized. In my few years of experience I have discovered what works and doesn't work for me and I would like to share a few basic rules I have discovered when it comes to staying organized and creating a system that works.

Organization Rule #1: Organization takes time and consistency.
No matter what system you may use to keep yourself organized it only works if you take the time to use it. For myself I am still trying to develop the habit of clearing off surfaces on a daily basis. In other words I need to take a few minutes every day and put everything away, whether it is supplies we used in Science, a homework assignment the students handed in today, or extra copies left over from the day's lessons. The big thing to remember is that moving clutter from a table to a teacher's desk doesn't count. This is a big thing for me to keep in mind as I am still working on defeating my tendency to simply pile stuff on my desk so I can ignore get to it later. So far I haven't managed to accomplish this completely every day and that is fine... creating new habits takes time. If I don't get to it every day I definitely make sure I take time on Friday afternoon to catch up and make sure everything is clear and ready to go for a new week.

This week was no exception. Here is a picture of my small group working table from Friday after school. Don't worry this pile wasn't there during the school day... I moved it off of my desk so I could get some work done.

 Before I left today I made sure to put everything back in its place and now both my desk and my small group table are ready for the students again on Monday. I am still working at making sure I devote the time and consistency needed to keep things organized but I can already see improvement from last year :)

Organization Rule #2: Put your spin on whatever system you decide to use.
I have spent a lot of time looking at other teacher's classrooms and marveling over their systems for staying organized. I'm the type of person who tends to find an idea and jump in with both feet before I really think things through. (Don't worry, I'm getting better at that too!) The result is I have tried a variety of different organization techniques in the past two years and they have all taught me one thing... just because it works for someone else doesn't mean it will work for me. Of course I encourage you to still look at what other teachers have done as there is no reason to re-invent the wheel and there are a lot of fantastic teachers out there who have been doing this a lot longer than I have. However you need to look at their systems and decide what parts of it may or may not work for you and make a system that works for you and your organizational needs. There is also some trial and error involved... at least that is the case for me.

Organization Rule #3: Be ready to change your system if needed.
As I said earlier, I have tried a few different systems for keeping myself organized. While I don't necessarily recommend changing your system completely, especially in the middle of the year (been there, done that, it doesn't work very well) you need to be ready to try different things if your system doesn't seem to be working. It takes a while to come up with a system for things that suits you and works within the demands of the job. Remember that you will get there! I'm pretty sure I have... I guess we'll have to wait and see.

In a future post I will go over some of the systems I am using for keeping myself organized this year. Don't expect them to be revolutionary, in fact most of them you will probably have seen before. Just in case you haven't though... stay tuned.

Classroom Tour

It's finally ready!! After spending a few days couple weeks organizing, cleaning, and setting up, my classroom is finally ready to go. Good thing too since the kiddos are coming tomorrow! Where did summer go? I am linking up Swimming Into Second to Show Off My Space. 

First the before pictures:

And now... Welcome to my home away from home! I am absolutely loving my classroom this year. I definitely put a little more time and effort into getting it just right but hopefully that means I won't be rearranging everything come Christmas break. 

Here is the view of the room from the door. It seems like hardly any teachers I have seen use rows any more but I like the idea of starting the year with the kids in their own space as they get comfortable with the routines and expectations.

Here is the view from the front of the room. Ignore the cart in the corner by the teacher desk/computers. I am temporarily storing it for a colleague.

Remember those bulletin boards I put up this year? Here they are with borders and titles just waiting for anchor charts, unit questions, and other exciting information! I am loving how much cleaner the space looks with all the shelving covered up!

 Under the bulletin boards are shelves which hold our book boxes, textbooks, math manipulatives and math centers. So happy with the containers from Dollar Tree which totally fit the colour scheme.

Continuing around the classroom we come to the library complete with my homemade Cat in the Hat hat and our CAFE board. The books are leveled according Fountas and Pinnell reading levels. The red bins are for fiction picture books and the white bins hold the non-fiction books.

Next to the library is the writing center with all our stationary supplies and our writing bulletin board.

Beside the writing center are our class computers and bookshelves used for teacher resources.

 Here is the view of the classroom from my desk. I pushed it up against the wall this year to try and eliminate as much "teacher" space as possible. It has completely opened the room up. You can just see the small group table in the bottom corner of the picture.

Along the other wall of the classroom are more cupboards and counter space. I am so thankful for all the storage in this room!

You may be wondering what is living in the giant aquarium. My classroom would no longer be complete without this little guy.

Finally we get to the front of the room. I don't have a Promethean board yet but I do have two huge whiteboards and a projector. Between the whiteboards is a small bulletin board which holds our calendar and some reminders for students about classroom signals and routines.

Beside the board are the mailboxes and job chart. 

 Thanks for visiting and checking out my finished space. I can't wait to share more classroom adventures with you as the year unfolds!

Back to School Goals

It is that time of year again! The students will be arriving next Tuesday and the teachers are busy assembling their classrooms. The last few weeks have been a little crazy and I must admit I have been ignoring my blog a little. Thank goodness for the link-up at I {heart} Recess.

Personal: This goal is a double whammy. My husband and I have been running this summer and my cardio has gotten way better. I definitely don't want to lose that progress now that school is back in session so keeping up with exercise is key. The other part of the goal is to try and keep a balance between school and the other aspects of life. I tend to get slightly majorly focused on work and ignore having a social life or keeping up with stuff at home. This year I really want to get better at keeping things balanced by working less.

Organization: I have spent a lot of time this summer getting my classroom cleaned up and organized. Now the trick is for me to keep it that way and make sure I stay in the habit of putting everything in its place. Part of that is keeping up with my marking. The faster I can get things marked, entered in to my marks book, and handed back to students the less paperwork gets piled up in various places in the classroom.

Planning: Our district has a central printing office that takes care of all the teacher's printing. The challenge is they need 72 hours to get everything back to you. My goal this year is to stay on top of planning so I don't get caught unprepared in terms of photocopying.

Professional: Last year I got the chance to attend a conference on differentiation and I am still trying to figure out how to best implement all the strategies I learned. This year I want to continue building on what I know and practice more strategies for differentiating. One of my big plans for doing this is introducing math rotations (thanks to 3rd Grade Thoughts for getting me started) to help meet each student where they are at with my math instruction.

Students: I love the book "Mindset" by Carol Dweck and her take on learning. She has the attitude that every person is good at learning and every person can improve themselves in multiple areas by applying themselves. This is such a great attitude to try and pass on to kids - if something is difficult that means you are growing your brain and learning.

Motto: As a Christian school teacher I love this verse from Proverbs 22. It reminds me there is more to school and teaching than covering curriculum; it is my job to try and instill in students skills and attitudes that will enable them to be life-long learners and continue to grow beyond their years in school.

Summer Time

Wow! I can't believe that summer break is almost over. One more week until teachers go back to school and only two more weeks until the kiddos arrive! It has definitely been a busy summer filled with beautiful weather, tons of weddings and good family time.

 Looking back I also realized how much time I spent at school this summer. I know, I know this is the point where people tell me I'm nuts and that I should just enjoy the summer but I found using summer to accomplish some big classroom tasks to be quite worthwhile.

I started the summer by culling and organizing old resources that had been left in my classroom by previous teachers. It is amazing how much stuff can be collected over time and how much of that stuff was left in cupboards for me to find. There were a few items I found to be useful but there was also a bunch of old resources that made their way into the recycling bin. It is hard to get rid of things but it's also so good to free up storage space.

I also used some time this summer to attempt to get ahead on my unit plans for the first few months of the school year. Being a newer teacher I find I still spend a lot of time getting to know the curriculum and developing unit and lesson plans. I'm hoping the result of giving up some of my summer free time will be fewer weekends spent at school over the course of the school year.

 I definitely enjoy heading into the new year feeling prepared and ready to go but I also don't want to get into the habit of filling my summer with lesson planning. Then again I feel like spending a full two months away from school would leave me feeling disconnected from everything. I guess I won't actually be able to test that theory until I try it though. Okay, I am officially rambling about this topic so I'm going to ask you to join in with your opinions. Does anyone else use summer time for planning? Do you think it is a worthwhile use of your time? Do you find it stops the longer you have been teaching?

I would love to hear your thoughts. It would be nice to know if I am a crazy work-a-holic or if this is just what dedicated teachers do with their "free" time. Talk to you soon!

Gotta Love Accomplishing Goals!

Well it's official, at least three of my summer goals have been accomplished so far!

My husband and I recently returned from a week long trip in Niagara Falls. We had a lot of fun and it was wonderful to have some time to relax. There was so much to see and do and we had a blast checking out all the tourist attractions.

 I love to travel, have fun, and experience new things and I always try to make the most of my time away,  but I think one of my favourite parts of travelling is the chance to come home and get back to my usual routines. So as wonderful as it was to take a holiday it was also great to come home and get back to normal life. Especially since in two weeks we are off again for a week long stay in BC for my brother's wedding.

Anyway, enough about me and my travels, now it's time to get back to the classroom related goals. Just before we left I had the chance to install my sliding bulletin boards and guess what? It worked!! I am beyond happy with how they turned out and best of all it was relatively inexpensive and easy to do. Check out the before and after pictures!

I love, love, love, all the storage in my classroom but I wanted to hide it so I can keep my classroom looking a little more organized and have more space to hang important anchor charts and student work.

So after a little bit of fun (I love the chance to use some power tools) and some work...

Just needs a coat three coats of paint and...

 Ta da! The finished product!!

 The boards are made of a material called "donacona" which is cheaper than cork board, is soft enough for staples and light enough that the rails can hold it up. I purchased some sliding door tracks from the hardware store. After installing the tracks it was pretty easy to install the hardware onto the boards and get them hung up. Thankfully I had my wonderful husband there to help me since it definitely made getting the boards up and into the tracks a little easier.

I can't wait to get some borders and decor stuff on them. Stay tuned for pictures in my upcoming classroom tour!

Finally, I have also managed to create a much more detailed year plan than I have in the past. It took a while but now that it is done I am glad I have it. I put it into a calendar format so I can look from week to week and try to keep myself on track in all the different subjects. I still have to see how it works for this year but it definitely is more organized and specific than my previous year plans. I'm excited to see how it goes.

If you would like the template add a comment and let me know. I would love to hear from you and I am happy to share!

Wow that seems like a lot. Apparently July has been very productive! Let's see how August goes.