Notebooks and journals are expensive.  I mean, $0.50 isn't ridiculous, but if you multiply that by 34, then again by the three or four journals needed throughout the year for the various subjects that are taught...well, that is just a lot of money out of my pocket.  And usually, I spend it, grumble a little, then move on because I know it is good for my students and a necessary cost. Then, the year goes on and, come the end, I realize that I haven't even filled half of many of the notebooks for whatever reason (I got lazy in my interactive notebook gusto from the beginning of the year, most things didn't require me to have the kids write it in the notebook, we didn't take that many notes....who knows) So this year, I decided to try and cut down on both the out of pocket cost and the lack of filling the notebook space and try something a little different.  I combined two notebooks into one, by flipping it upside down. The front of my notebook is for grammar.  Al......

 I am going to bring you four ideas that I am using in my classroom for changing ordinary spaces into extraordinary ones.  Ok...maybe they won't go that far, but these things are working for me.  :) If you follow me on Instagram , you have likely seen these images before.  But, it doesn't hurt to see them again...right? ;) 1.  Bookcase = Teacher Desk Teacher Desk on a bookcase I have no teacher desk in my room.  Instead, I put all of my teachery stuff on a very slim bookcase and, viola, an easy to access place for my teaching essentials without taking up the space of a huge, bulky desk! 2.  Anchor Charts on the Windows Use Command Hooks and a chart pointer to create an anchor chart display area anywhere in the room. To use the dead space on my windows, I took some Command Hooks and an extra pointer (because, seriously, I have a million of them) and created an anchor chart holder there.  (I will be honest and say I saw a version of ......

On the first day of school, I like to have all of the students' supplies (ie: pencils, pens, erasers, etc...) ready for them so that I know they have the tools they need to function on the first day of school.  So, since I was getting things prepped for the first day of school anyway, I thought I would share this very simple Bright Idea with you! Such a simple way to distribute school supplies to the students AND to make sure they stay organized. Starting day one, each student entering my room is assigned a number (based on alphabetical order of last names.)  This helps with organizing everything from where they stand in line to knowing which papers have been turned in.  Another thing it helps with is knowing which supplies belong to which student.  Now I don't know about you, but due to budgets, I know that many of my students won't come to school on the first day (or any day after that) with the supplies they need to be an active and productive student in ......

Every time I show a picture of my classroom as a whole, I get questions about the little boxes I have on the students' desks.  So I thought it was about time that I wrote about them. :) Can you see the black boxes on the desks??  That is what this post is about :) They truly are something very, very simple to make.   All you will need is: cardboard pencil boxes (flattened into the net) contact paper scissors brads I will have to say upfront that these cardboard boxes are given to me by my district.  They have been provided by every school I have worked at and went to (I went to school in the same district I teach for ;) )  But you can get them at any school supply place that sells things in bulk.  However, oddly enough the Velveeta box (you know, the cheese??) is the exact same shape.  You can ask your students to bring in those boxes at the beginning of the year and do the same thing with it! Anyway, once you have the bo......

I hate when my classroom is messy.   It drives me crazy when there is paper or other things strewn all over the floor.  I mean, why does there have to be a junky mess everywhere?   It makes sense to me that if a mess is made, it should be picked up.  So from day one of class, I teach my students how to clean up and show them the that I expect that their workspace will be spotless. (seriously, I don't allow trash on my floor.  Ever.  I just can't take it.) One thing I implement in my room is the "60 second clean up".  It is the easiest, fastest way I know to get the room spic and span.  Here is how it goes. I count down aloud from 60 to 0.  During that time, the students are moving around the room, some with brooms, some without,  picking up any mess that they made.  Pencil shavings are swept.  Pieces of paper are picked up.  Anything that has been dropped is removed from the floor. By the time I get to 10, the studen......

I am not sure about you, but throughout the week I have SO many student papers that get accumulated.  Some of them, like essays or projects, are things I need to keep.  Those get graded and filed into the students' portfolios.  Others, like math homework, foldables, workbook pages, thinking maps...you name it....need to be passed back to the students to take home.   If I were to pass these back each day, I fear it would become very unmanageable very quickly.  So I have come up with a solution that has worked for me and my class. We call it the "Paper Pass Back" (clever, I know.)  Basically, all the work for the week that needs to be returned gets put into the "Out Box".  On Fridays, the students line up at the Out Box, I hand them a stack of papers, and they get to work putting those papers on the desk of the rightful owner.  When the stack of papers is done, the student gets back in line and gets more to return.  It proceeds like this unti......

Over the years, managing my classroom library has been a struggle.  I want to be sure that the students are able to get to the books with ease, can check them out to read at home or in class, AND are held accountable for bringing them back (since we all know that each and every one of the books in the library were purchased with my own money!)  I really haven't found the perfect solution to this library dilemma.  So here is what I have settled on...for now. My students are free to browse my library during any free time they have (sometimes I even assign it during Independent Work Time as a May Do) and I encourage them to check books out of my library.  When they have chosen a book from my library, they then fill out a Check Out Slip. When they have filled out the slip, they simply place it in an index card filer (I know there is a better word for it, but I can't think of it now!) where it stays until they are done with the book.  When it is retu......

Since my first day of teaching, I knew that one of my main goals as a teacher was/is to create lifelong readers.  I strive to give the students the tools they need to gain a real love of reading.  One way for me to do that is to have an ample supply of appropriate books for students to read available in my classroom.  And, boy, do I have books!  That was never a problem for me.  What was a problem was the over all lack of organization to my library.  I had books in bins, but they weren't really labeled, the students had a hard time putting the books back in the right place, books seemed to be strewn all over the place, and there was a general "whatever" type attitude towards the library as a whole.   I knew that students wouldn't become readers if they didn't ever read, and my library was holding them back.  So I decided to change that.  One hot summer day, two years ago, I sat down and finally did it.  I organized my libra......