Classroom Organization {Paper}

Classroom organization really makes my heart happy. I spent the first few years of my teaching career constantly reorganizing everything trying to find the best & most efficient way to store different things in the classroom. 

Paper is one of those things that classroom teachers have a TON of! I store my construction paper, computer paper, handwriting paper & tablets in the same cabinet. 

Its far from picture perfect, but it ACTUALLY works. My cabinet looks something like this throughout the year. Handwriting paper, special printer papers, & extra packs of colored paper go up top. 

To keep it organized throughout the year & be able to easily grab any color I want. I used small white sticker dots on plastic magazine holders. 

I simply used markers to color on the white stickers to color code my bins! 

There is some wear and tear on them, but this has worked wonderfully for me for the last three years!

How do you store your stash of paper?

Listening Center

  I think the area in which I excel the most as a classroom teacher is organization. I pretty much never have anything out of place in my classroom, everything has a place, it even has a place to be before it goes to its home! I am actually so quick to put things away it might be inefficient. I put things away BEFORE I am done using them sometimes. I drive myself crazy. I am going to share with you my listening center organization, it is super simple and just *POOF* came to me after four long years of tangled wires and upset firsties at the listening station. Its hard to teach a small group when you have kids tangled up in wires and crying..okay I exaggerate a little. But just a little. Here is my listening center as of today:

 

 

I have tried the Leap Frog touch pen & headphones books, a tape player, computer listening center. We don't have Ipads or anything that fancy at my school for listening as of yet. I have always wanted to have my kiddos enjoy a good listening center, but each year I end up putting it away because of battery issues, headphones breaking, walkmans breaking. You name it, each year it was gone by October.   I use Ikea tables and stools for my listening center. Click the pictures for the link to the item. They are both super cheap and absolutely adorable! They come in lots of bright colors too! I used black zip ties to hold two of the small black tables together! I got so tired of them shifting apart!

     Step 1:  I only have two students here at a time as personal preference. I use a two part headphone splitter, there are ones that split up to 6 ways. Click the picture to link to one I use in my classroom. You just plug it right into the headphone port in your CD/tape player and you can plug the headphones in! It really is great and the best part is its only $3!   

  Step 2: The first thing I did was use a basket to store the CD player, the books, and the CDs. I usually have about 2-4 choices and have not had problems with the students changing the CDs out by themselves. I keep a smaller basket in the big basket to store the CDs/tapes.  

  

 

 I threaded each wire through the basket handles on each side! WHAT. So simple and it literally solved all of my listening center problems in thirty seconds.

 

Here are some baskets that are similar and would work for two partners. I set the CD player in the basket, along with the books and smaller basket to hold the CDs. One set of headphones goes out the handle hole on the right and the other set goes out the handle hole on the left.  

    Step 3: Hang your headphones! I used two XLarge thumb tacks on the bottom on a bulletin board but you could use 3M or even a clothes pin with a tack on the back. I also color coordinated my headphones with colored Washi tape to match the tack they belong on for extra measure to keep them untangled!  

Its that simple! I did this in the beginning of October and I have not heard a single student asking for help with the listening center! A dramatic improvement, I used to spend 20+ minutes each day fixing it and being annoyed, now I only have to change out the books and CDs every month! Easy!  

  If you are looking for even more amazing ideas on how to organize you listen to reading center head on over to Sarah's Blog: Yee Haw Teaching in Texas to see the amazing way she stores her Books & CDs! I think I need to get started on that too! Mine are just in one big tub as of now! I hope this helps you get organized!

Simple Classroom Rules

Summer is officially coming to a close! I start in service on Monday & the kids return on August 25. I am putting some finishing touches on my room this week and enjoying my last week of fun in the sun! I am blogging to share a tiny sneak peak of my classroom, not much has changed this year, and to share a FREEBIE of classroom rules! In the past years, I have done a class make rule list/constitution, a few sweet simple primary rules and a couple other things! It always ends up being too much for me to keep up with when I am discussing positive or negative behavior with students. I had no clue what I was going to use for rules this year & I saved it for one of my last #Mondaymadeit projects of the summer!  After talking to my sweet sweet teaching partner, I decided to take her lead & go SIMPLE with my classroom rules this year & y'all, it really is SIMPLE, BE RESPECTFUL! 

Click on any of the pictures above to go directly to my TPT and download these posters for FREE!!! 

This is what you see from the back of the classroom when looking towards the whiteboard. 

A close up shot, I really like the simple look this year, no theme, no nonsense! Just plain & simple! 

I teach my whole group lessons from the back of the classroom in a cozy little area, but I decided to display the rules from the whiteboard where I normally give directions for activities. 

These cost me $5 and about twenty minutes! First, I simply printed out the rules posters on plain white card stock.  Second, I just slipped them into the Document Frames, that I picked up at Dollar Tree. You don't even have to trim the edges of the posters!  Third, I choose some gold ribbon, for my "Golden Rules" and hot glued it to the back of the frames. I then used small clear 3M hooks to adhere under my white board. Last step, was to simply tie the bows, separately, and slip them on top of the hook to hide it! 

"I don't know."

So often when we teachers ask younger aged students a question using random selection, they are unprepared to answer. BUT they WANT to answer and they KNOW they are supposed to say something, so we hear "I don't know." all the time. Well friends, I attended a fabulous training on ELPS this summer. The presenter had some great takes on how to assist students in finding an answer. One of the ways we can help students be able to answer our questions is by teaching them ways to solve the problem of not knowing the answer.

We give the students the words to use to seek clarification on WHAT I want to hear. 

The first step is to teach the students that they do not get to say "I don't know." 

The second step is to teach the students that it is OKAY to need more time to think about the answer! When a student chooses this option as the teacher, we need to help them by taking a second to get the attention off of that student and have everyone in the class think about the answer, but go back to the first questionee after the allotted time. 

Third step is to teach the students that they might know the answer, but just don't understand the question or vocabulary in the question. So one way to figure out the answer, is to ask the teacher to repeat the question or say it in a different way. 

Fourth step is to teach the students to use their resources, books, anchor charts, the teacher! The students should know that they are not going to go research this online or in the library. This should be as simple as pointing an anchor chart. If the student can remember that there is an anchor chart on what you are asking or remember the page in the book that you are discussing they should be able to use this question to seek clarification and come to a conclusion. 

This is just the tip of iceberg on implementing the ELPS to help our ELL/ESL students and the rest of our class right along with them. I think we all need to be creating problem solvers, not "I don't know."ers! 

If you would like to purchase this poster set, click here to go directly to the product page in my TPT store. 

 

Where are we?

My school does tons of different things for students, OT, speech, GT, reading, CHAMPS, PALS, counseling so I always have students out of the classroom & all over the building! In first grade it is still hard for some of the kiddos to remember where to go when they finish their pull out! I saw the super smart & cute idea to make a Where Are We? poster on pintrest of course! Last year I made this one:

I REALLY loved it! It helped my kiddos & even school staff looking for my class! But as you can see I forgot a spot for the playground! So I revamped this file & added the adorable Melonheadz clipart to it! This is my new one: 

I love it! So simple & cute! I simply printed the file, cut the spots out on the black lines, put Modge Podge on the back of each spot. I used a paper towel to wipe excess Modge Podge off of the pan. I glued 1.5 ribbon to the back of the pan with hot glue to hang on 3m hook on my classroom door. I got the super cute clothes pin from Michaels Crafts last year. I assign the job of moving the clip each time we leave to classroom to my teacher's assistant of the week. It worked beautifully last year for my firsties. If you would like to download this file click the picture above to go directly to my TPT store. 

Classroom Organization {Crayons}

One of the classroom crafts I have had my eye on for a couple of years is the Sterilite crayon drawers! This is the set that inspired my project! 

 I have used small baskets, cups, & buckets. They all have fallen short in the past. This year I am going to try using a drawer system for extra crayons that are misplaced from each table or center. The picture below is the set I just made, so easy & quick! I have seen the fully covered drawers but I choose to leave them pretty much clear so I can keep an eye on how full each drawer is! I also choose to combine colors (that are extreme opposites for easy sorting/picking) so I can save space! 

I purchased this mini 5 drawer organizer from Walmart, I printed the labels out on cardstock, cut them out, & used Modge Podge on the backs of the lables & attached them to the front of the drawers! I just used a paper towel to wipe off any excess Modge Podge that was on the plastic.

 Just click the picture of the drawers to go directly to my TPT store & download the freebie!  ________________________UPDATE 7/15/15_______________________ These drawers were a total lifesaver this past school year! I don't think a single student asked me for crayon or told me that they found one on the floor! They held up very well & I will be using this system for many years to come!  If you want to see more classroom tips and organization ideas like this please follow my Pintrest board! Click the picture below to go to the board on pintrest.com! 

Do you have any organization quick tips to share, leave a comment, I am always looking for more ideas! 

Literacy Calendar

I started this year off wanting to do a literacy calendar area, since I do not teach math, I thought it would be a great way to frame my daily literacy instruction. However, this is my first year in first grade, I didn't have a great frame of what firsties would need as a daily focus. Flash forward 12 weeks &  I was able to clearly see where the broken links were in my firstie's reading skills. Blends & vowel combinations! We also need a lot more focus on fluent reading! I started looking through blogs & Pintrest to see what was out there, I am SURE most teachers do something similar to this, but I just could not find anything on a daily literacy routine or calendar set up. So this is what I came up with! I think it is sort of a reading focus wall but also very interactive for the students to lead and learn while we go through each item!  

The first thing I have are my focus wall labels to identify each piece of learning. You can find them in my TPT shop! 

Sight Words:

We have our weekly sight words on the red chart that come from our reading series & go along with our story of the week, on Friday's we make a big todo about moving them over to the word wall & into long term memory! I just type them into text boxes & print! 

Sentence Stems:

The yellow chart displays sentence stems, we usually focus on the same ones for about two weeks, we read these aloud for fluency. The reason I teach sentence stems is help my students answer questions, orally and written, in full sentences. I have found the stems help them frame basic thoughts into a sentence! My partner teacher even noticed the full sentence switch over, WITHOUT me mentioning it! YAY! 

Genre: 

I have this genre poster displayed along with the genre poster for the genre our story of the week is focusing on! We review the characteristics of the week's genre and  make connections to other books we have recently read that are also in the same genre! 

Vowels: 

I have these super cute vowel posters up on my wall, the kids the pictures and chanting the sounds and pictures! The best part is that they are a FREEBIE from Christine Statzel! Click on her name to check out her awesome TPT store! :) 

Blends: 

I recently went on a search to update my blends posters and came across another great FREEBIE from Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files!  Stop by her blog to pick up these great posters! I love that the word examples are not the first thing that come to mind! Hello people..EXPANDING that vocabulary! 

Strategy & Skills: 

I have weekly strategy & skills mini-posters that I change out to coordinate with our weekly focus! These are in the works for TPT still! :) I feel a freebie coming on.. 

Story Map: 

I use this big green and black laminated poster to write down the map of the story that we are focusing on this week with visa v markers! The kids are dying to do this, but are starting it next week. Baby steps! 

Anchor Charts: 

I have two clothes pins with tacks hot glued to the back to hold up up new anchor charts that we are using/making for the current week! This way I can have two half charts or one large chart displayed each week. Also, since I do not have a white board in this area, I would like to note that since I teach two blocks of reading to the same level of students, I generally make my anchor chart frames and then laminate them, so I can do the same lesson while filling in/writing on the anchor chart with both groups! So if you were wondering where I am writing while teaching whole group, its on my laminated anchor charts! 

Letter Combinations:

We chant this chart each day! The kids love it and it is already helping them with unfamiliar words in their reading! The anchor chart idea came from Maria Mallon, you can see her original chart below, I changed very little on the copy I made!  ,  I have been letting my teacher's assistant, which rotates each week use a pointer to point at all of the words & charts as we read them, I just sit in my chair and observe! After all of this is done, we do HFW flash cards, about 50words/per day.
Weekly Fluency Poem:

Then we practice our fluency reading a poem each week, that either coordinates with the phonics focus skill, holiday, or social studies theme for the week! 
The whole routine takes about 18 minutes and a bit longer on Mondays!  I should also mention that I do not have a space for spelling words because I use Words Their Way as my spelling program and it is differentiated into 6 different tests/per week between my two reading blocks, two much to keep up with on display! One week in, we are all loving this new routine! I am loving the results I am already seeing with my kiddos! I am open to questions or comments with improvements or additions to the wall! 
-Katie