This summer I was INFLUENCED!  I kept seeing these thermal label printers all over TikTok, primarily being used by sellers to ship their wares, and I knew I HAD to have one for my classroom.  There was just so much possibility in that little thermal bundle of joy! First, here is why I wanted it.  The label printer uses heat to print, not ink.  I use SO much ink at the beginning of every year to create folders and other things that instantly I knew this would be a money saver for me.  The labels themselves were on sale for $15 for 500 ...which is plenty to begin my classroom for 25 students.   I have been busy making all of the labels, anchor charts, iReady Trackers, and other things that I need for my classroom.  I also have been posting about them over on both TikTok and IG, so many of you have seen those items.   Which is where this post comes in.  I thought I would put up all of the things I have been making here in one central place for......

When the year begins, I love to get student work up as soon as humanly possible.  Filling our bulletin boards with the work that students produce creates a space that they can be proud to call their own.  So, with that idea in mind, my brain is always churning with easy, yet worthwhile, activities that the kids can do starting day one in my classroom.  This 3D " Light Bulb Moments " project was just PERFECT for that.  I began by telling these students that they would be thinking about who they are, what they want to accomplish, and what they would like to share with their fellow classmates so that we could all get to know each other a bit more.  To do that, I told them, we would be creating this fun little All About Me project in the shape of a light bulb.   I passed out three pretty self-explanatory light bulb shaped worksheets to the students.  Basically the kids need to fill in their generic personal information (name, age, favorite color, etc..) a......

Each year, I like to do something different for the gift the students give to their parents during the holiday season.  I like to keep it less holiday focused and more family focused, as I truly don't know what holidays the kids celebrate (or don't celebrate) at home.  Because of this, I tend to steer clear of ornaments or traditional Christmas-themed faire.   So this year, I decided to do a Silhouette All About Me.  This project, which we did for our holiday family gift this year, actually would be awesome for the beginning of the year or Mother's/Father's Day...and I think I may switch it up next year and do just that!  Anyway, here is what we did. We began by brainstorming some activities that the kids liked to do.  These could be anything from playing a musical instrument to reading to playing video games to joining in a kickball game.  The only thing I asked them to really think about is how could they show themselves doing that particular activit......

In this episode of BOOK to School we will use the book A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars   (my affiliate link to Amazon) to get a little beginning of the year math thinking in.  This is an easy lesson that the kids are sure to love, as they will be working with numbers that deal with their favorite subject -- themselves! This book talks about the VERY large numbers that are surrounding us in our daily lives, specifically as a resident of Earth.  How many stars there are.  How many people there are.  How much each of those things weighs together.   It is a fun look at what can be really daunting numbers. So, piggy backing on that, I thought it would be fun to look at the large numbers in the lives of our students.  Since I teach 3rd grade, my goal was to keep those numbers smaller than 10,000, as the kids really need to be dealing with numbers within that range.  They need to be able to round up to the thousands place, add up numbers t......

This year, on the first day of school, I did something that I have never done before.  We broke out some glasses equipped with LEGO studs and the bricks and created representations of ourselves to introduce each other in our class. How?  Well, here is the basic run down. This summer, I went to the Get Your Teach On conference in San Diego.  While there, Hope King showed us this STEM unit that she does in her classroom.  The first activity was a get to know you type thing and I instantly fell in love.  I just couldn't get the idea out of my brain.  So I broke down and ordered these glasses here . (my affiliate link) On the first day of school, I told the kids that we were going to introduce ourselves to each other but first we needed to build representations of our personalities.  Each child got a pair of glasses and LEGOs (that I raided from my own children's stash).  They used the LEGOs to create things that might mean something to the......

My overall theme this year in fifth grade is that we "Think, Create, and Do".  I want to instill a growth mindset into the students and challenge them to be innovators and creators.  So I went with a lightbulb motif throughout the class.  You can see a bit of that lightbulb theming here. One of the first projects we did was think about how we would "think", "create", and "do" over the course of this year.  I asked the students to brainstorm on divided circle map the different things that they could "think" of this year.  This could include subjects we would learn, projects they would make up, problems they would solve (which then lead into our opening discussion on Genius Hour).   For "Create", I asked them to write down all the objects or ideas they would create.  Projects, inventions, friendships, etc...  This one was probably the hardest because I asked them to be a bit abstract in their thinking.  Finally, fo......

Today was our first day of school (my 20th first day!) and I wanted to share a short, yet fun activity to get your kids engaged in academics right off the bat, yet still throw in a little fun along the way.  So I saw an idea to use First Day Jitters and Emojis online and ran with it (I can not, for the life of me, find the original post...I think it was in a FB group...when I find it I will link it.) I read my students First Day Jitters (Mrs. Hartwells classroom adventures) . (affiliate link) In the story, the main character doesn't want to go to a new school on the first day because she is nervous.  At the end of the book, we realize that the girl is actually the teacher.  Even teachers get nervous! When the book was over, I shared how I was a little nervous about starting the day as well.  I mean, what if the kids were out of control?  What if they didn't listen?  What if they hated me?  But I also said that I was excited to meet them all. ......

Today I am going to share a nice back to school project that I have done with my students the past two years that gets them thinking of our classroom as a safe space to share about books.  The students take book "shelfies", which is basically a selfie taken with a book in hand.  I am not sure what took me so long to write about this, but I figure even two years later is better than not writing at all ;)   So here we go. During the first week of school, I begin to emphasize just how much children's literature means to me.  I share my favorites with the kids, previewing books I *know* we will read and ones I hope to read.  I also share other books that have meant something special to me or have moved me in any way.  I bring these conversations up as naturally as possible, but most definitely during our read aloud time at the end of each day (this is sacred time in my class.   There is not a day that goes by that I don't make some time, any time, to ......

I know that for many of us, the end of the day routine can be a time that causes anxiety and worry. Sometimes, no matter how much we intend to get away from it,  this time of day can be completely chaotic.  I was one who definitely felt the chaos for many years until I set in place a routine that cut down on that running around like a chicken with his head cut off energy and have us end with calm.  Here is what I do. I start about 25 minutes before the dismissal bell rings.  I begin by announcing that I am "looking for people who are ready to go home."  This is students' cue to sit down, clear off their desk space, and look at me.  Then, we have our 60-second clean up (I wrote in detail about that here ), our 15-second cubby clean out, and our 15-second furniture straighten.  Yes, you read that right.  My students clean the room, clean their shared cubby space (that is just a little box on their desk) AND straighten their furniture in less t......

As more and more research comes out about the power of Growth Mindset and more and more people are leaning towards this line of thinking (heck, even my District is getting on board...they talked about it at a training I went to over the summer!), I figured that this would be as good a time as any to teach my students about their own brains and mindset.  So I began my first week of school with a few lessons that really set a great tone for my students. To begin, I wanted something tangible and hands-on for my students to experience.  So I searched online and found this lesson here .  In a nutshell, I folded some paper in a crazy figure (that didn't actually look all crazy...until I tried to make it...go to the blog for exact instructions) and told the students they needed to recreate it.  I had them get into groups of 7-8 students, put the figure in the middle and gave them each the exact same piece of paper I used.  There were only two rules:  They could......