I am just going to say it.  I am not a big fan of task cards. {ducking from anything that may get thrown at me right now.} I know that they are really hot right now.  I know that people love them.  I know that they are the greatest thing since sliced bread for some teachers.  But *I* have just never really fell head over heals for them. Until this year. OK...that isn't exactly true.  I still am not a huge fan BUT my kids LOVE LOVE LOVE them.  Did I mention that they love them?  Because they do.  Task cards have revitalized plain old worksheets for the kids.  They have instant buy in and I find that the kids are completing their work faster if I present the work in task card format than if I simply type everything up on a worksheet page. So, since we have this new found love for task cards in my room, I thought I would share some of the ways that task cards have been successful in my class this year. First up is the " Task Card Dum......

Nothing mindblowing today but I just wanted to share with you my end-of-the-day clean-up routine.  I know that sometimes this time of day can be completely chaotic, but I have tried my best to cut down on that 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 box clean and our 15-second furniture straighten. This is an old picture.  They also have POTW! Then, I ask the kids to take out their planner and we go over the homework.  I have the assignment written on the board, and used to just have them copy it down, but I have found that if I *also* say it aloud, the kids have a higher rate of writing it in their planner and not missing any homework......

 I am going to share something I have already shared with my long time readers, but not many of you saw it (since it was from the "olden days" days...way back in 2012 ;))  I thought it might still be useful to some of you, so here it is again.  This is how I manage the bathroom. I am pretty lenient when it comes to using the bathroom in my class.  I really only restrict it when I am teaching or we are in the middle of something that a trip to the bathroom would ruin.  I wasn't always like this.  I used really be strict on bathroom use, until I had a class that pushed me to my breaking point.  You see, this 4th grade class just wouldn't use the restroom....ever.  They preferred to go right in my room.  Yeah.  It was lovely.  I was almost at the point that I was just going to conduct class in the bathroom itself so as to avoid what was inevitably happening with 8 or so of my students (yes, I said 8...4th graders....8 of them) So......

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......

When I tell people that I have a rug in my 5th grade classroom, they look at me as if I suddenly sprouted two heads.  "What do you mean a rug?  Like the kind the little kids sit on?  What could you possibly do with a rug with FIFTH graders????" What I do with my rug is simple....everything.  The rug is a place we regularly use in my class.  I pull small groups to the rug.  Kids work in partners or triads.  When they need to get closer to the board, they sit there.  When reviewing Calendar, or reading a story in our basal, the students come to the rug.  The rug is used in my classroom 2 or 3 times a day.  I honestly don't know how I would survive without it! The next thing people usually say is, "How do you fit the rug in your room with all those kids?" (because we all know that the upper grades are overflowing with children...another post for another day)  It all boils down to space planning.  I had 36 children in ......

I am pretty lenient when it comes to using the bathroom in my class.  I really only restrict it when I am teaching or we are in the middle of something that a trip to the bathroom would ruin.  I wasn't always like this.  I used really be strict on bathroom use, until I had a class that pushed me to my breaking point.  You see, this 4th grade class just wouldn't use the restroom....ever.  They preferred to go right in my room.  Yeah.  It was lovely.  I was almost at the point that I was just going to conduct class in the bathroom itself so as to avoid what was inevitably happening with 8 or so of my students (yes, I said 8...4th graders....8 of them) So anyway, after that year, I really loosened up.  I want my students to go to the bathroom whenever they have to, without me questioning them, but still with them being held somewhat accountable to going.  So, since starting the classroom economy a few years ago, I started "selling" the ......

What do you do when you have 5 minutes until the bell?   You can't just let the kids go home (though, sometimes it would be SO nice to do ;) ) and breaking out the books to start a new lesson is out of the question, so you need to have some little filler activities to do with them.  Here are a few things that I do to help fill the time, but still have *some* educational basis. 1.  Mental Math My kids LOVE this.  There is no paper or pencils allowed.  The only tools the kids have is their mind.  I basically give the kids a very long math problem, where they are doing multiple operations in succession.  For example, I will say, "5 plus 5, minus 8, times 2 equals...."   When I say equals, that is the students' cue to answer.  They may only raise their hand when I say equals.  The kid who raises their hand first gets to answer and then we start again.  Sometimes I make the problem really hard, sometimes really easy.  T......

One of the things we are required to do with all work that is placed on bulletin boards is post feedback to the students (well, I know we really should be doing this on all work we assign, but the bulletin board one is a mandate ;) )  Since every board has a rubric, a task, and the standards, it would be presumed that the students know what they did or didn't do to earn the score posted.  But, they really don't.  So giving feedback became another layer to all of our assignments. Now, I think that feedback is a WONDERFUL thing, just as much as the next guy, but actually providing written feedback on all papers that go on the board is quite time consuming.  If you know anything about me (and from this post you just might), you know that I practically wallpaper my room with student work.  So giving feedback on all of the papers would have me at school until the cows come home.  To avoid that, but still have some feedback on each paper I put up, I have cre......

The work we do in class each day doesn't stop because a student is absent.  Usually, as the day wears on, it piles up on their desk creating a mound of unfinished work that will need to be completed at some point.  In order to *hopefully* tame this mess, and have a chance at the work being completed, I have made some "While You Were Gone" folders. Over the summer, I ordered these awesome "While You Were Gone" notepads from...wait for it...wait for it... Vista Print .  (I know some of you were shocked and awed that I mentioned them again....not like I am obsessed or anything)  The pad comes with 50 sheets, which was perfect, since I only have 30 kids. I then took the sheets apart and glued them onto red folder and laminated.  When a student is absent, my Table Captain goes to get a red folder from the holder and places it on the absent student's desk.  As the day wears on, and papers get distributed, the Table Captain simply places any work that needs......

Recess and lunch can sometimes be a time of strife for me.  I have had classes before where every.single.time I came back from the short break to a swarm of children just waiting to tell me every little thing that happened on the yard.  Seriously, that gets very old, very fast. So one day, while browsing the web, I stumbled upon something that I thought was genius...and I adapted it to work for me.  It is the "Incident Report Form".  It came from Whole Brain Teaching (which, at the time I found it was called Power Teaching and had a much less daunting website...possibly because PT was in it's infancy and just growing at the time.)  This was a simple little form the students fill out when they come off the yard and have something they want to tell me.  Here is the form that I put out for my students.   I made mine on Vista Print, but here is one for you to print out and use (I did use a paper one before I discovered the wonderful cra......