For me this Friday, I am going on vacation for a week! I will be in Daytona (my first time visiting there) with my family, lovely boyfriend, and my sister-in-law’s family down from Canada!
Wooo! So excited for the rest and relaxation! Needless to say, I will not be posting next week (unless it rains every day like the weather channel currently says it will). I will be back in full swing the following Monday (6/4).
Happy Memorial Day!
I have mentioned before that I’m not a big fan of the standard class rules that revolve around “no,” “no,” ‘no” mentalities. I like the focus on the positive, but I know it is hard to come up with these in a way that make sure to cover all aspects of misbehavior. I know when I’ve tried to sum it up in a short amount of guidelines, I could think of several situations where a student could potentially get away with something because it “wasn’t against the rules.”
Then, I found this set of class guidelines. While I want to be sure that my students and I come up with our unique set that matters to us at the beginning of each year, it is the teacher’s job to condense all the ideas and subtly guide students to appropriate standards. I will hopefully be guiding my students to these although I think they will come up with most on their own and I will just have to put it all together.
Without further ado, my dream class guidelines:
I am having trouble thinking of any situation that cannot be covered by these.
Dreamy 🙂
Let me just go ahead and show you the picture before I do any explaining or rambling:
Great, right?! I don’t care if you use this for writing, practicing cursive (have not fit it in somewhere now that it’s not in the curriculum… our children need signatures!!), drawing, responding to questions (for example having a math problem with a missing addition or plus sign and they create whichever one it needs), or just plain having fun… you NEED these things in your classroom.
I will be the first one to admit that I have not actually tried using these (I can already forsee kids poking holes in bags, leaky bags, bags being slapped around, etc.), but I will also be the first to admit this is something I would love to work with now as an adult, nevermind as a kid. It is just such a great idea for those children who need multisensory stimulation. You could even make smaller versions in a snack bag for kids who just need something to do with their hands during lessons (if they are responsible enough to do so) or so everyone can have one to keep in their desk. Personally, my immediate thought would be to double bag them, and my second is to have them all stored away together and just pulled out for certain centers or activities. These thoughts could also be the result of working with such young students, though. Having little experience with older students, it might be a good idea for them to be responsible for their own.
Now for the recipe:
Materials–ziploc bag of desired size, food coloring, hair gel, glitter (optional)
Procedure-–1)Squeeze an entire bottle of hair gel in to the bag (obviously not the whole thing if you are not using a gallon sized bag). This is not expensive as it seems… you can buy hair gel at the dollar store. 2)Add the desired amount of food coloring. Personally, I would love to do all different colors but, again, having only worked with young students, I find it’s easiest to have all things one color so time is not wasted with upset children not getting the color they wanted. Just go ahead and do yourself that favor. 3)Add glitter if you want to (obviously I do!). 4) Mix it all up!
Easy peasy, no?!
I JUST LOVE CHEAP IDEAS/MATERIALS/ACTIVITIES FOR THE CLASSROOM! Thank goodness for moms and teachers all around the county willing to share their creative genius.
I am including the link to the blog I got this from. She has SO many great ideas!! I am sure I will be posting more from her in the future.
I am OBSESSED with this idea. Going along with my OCD is my need for uniformity. While I personally love my handwriting, most others have told me it is difficult to read. Of course I have my “teacher handwriting,” but I only use that when I have to. Also going along with my OCD is my love of using sticky notes in the classroom.
…Bear with me. I swear these are all connected.
Now no matter what I am using the sticky notes for, people need to be able to read them, right? Right. (Think subs, parapros, children reading feedback, etc.)
Here comes the genius.
I am providing you a link to a TEMPLATE so you can literally print from your computer on to sticky notes. Not only will everything look the SAME, but it can be adapted based upon your sticky note needs and desires. For example, if you are labeling things for students who are just beginning to read, you can include a PICTURE that they are actually able to decipher instead of a poor excuse for a drawing. I would recommend using white sticky notes (my personal fav) to be able to take full advantage of all the great computer colors offered (aka for intense color coders like me).
Without further ado, here is the link:
http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8056
And why, yes, templates for different sizes are provided along with step-by-step directions for those of us who are less computer savvy! Welcome to my heaven, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure you save the templates in case (God forbid) something happen to the website.
I love this fun and simple idea for younger grade levels. It is something that can easily be created and replicated several times over in the course of one day and, when laminated, will be a great classroom resource for years to come.
You lay the letters out on black construction paper in random order. You then set the paper out in the sun for the day, and the paper will fade around the letters. Even if the entire paper fades after years, the letters should always be a bit darker. If not, it only takes about 5 cents to replace, right?! Talk about a bargain and a great morning activity for pre-k or k students!
I am not sure I would use this in class… it would be more something that I would use for my niece and nephews. But I could see maybe doing it in class if we had a volunteer or parapro or something who could work with individual students or small groups. It would be a really cute way to display the alphabet around the room if you got smaller canvases and put one letter on each one.
Anyways, the point of it is that you put masking tape down on a canvas to create whatever you want (word, design, letter, etc.). Then you let the child just go crazy with fingerpaint. Let them be creative!! So what if they mix 5297349257 colors together and it all coms out brown?! It is their design, so they will be proud of it. Once the paint is dry, pull off the masking tape and you have that word, design, letter there in white!
I don’t know about you guys, but I always loved when we would get unexpected treats from our teacher in class. Heck, I still love it now! It’s a fun and simple way to show your students you care and trust them enough to handle this extra bit of fun in their day. Don’t withhold from students who are not behaving or having a not-so-great day. Let this be a time to express your love for each and every one of them no matter what they try to do to tell you they do not care. We all know they do.
I thought these rice krispie “paintbrushes” were the perfect treat. No utensils needed, no crumbly mess everywhere, more than just a piece of candy…
They are also a really cute idea for school bake sales, kids’ parties, baby showers, etc., dipping them in colors that are appropriate to that event.
Ever microwaved a bar of soap? NO? Well neither have I. But apparently some other creative fearless kid-lovers have, and here is the result:
a soap cloud!!!!
Okay, so here is the deal:
You get an IVORY bar of soap. Note it must be Ivory. You put it on top of wax paper in your microwave and set the power on high for a couple minutes. It probably will not need to stay in there the whole time. And then it turns in to this!! No mess, no nothing. The shapes turn out differently each time, and you can smash it or flake off soap pieces.
While this is a fun little mini activity to do when learning about clouds, it is also one of those things I would like to do just for kids to have fun. The woman whose blog I got this from then lets the kids smash the soap in the bucket or use in the the tub. She also breaks it down with a food processor or spoon and bowl, adds it to warm water, molds it in to a ball, puts in in cookie cutters, lets it harden, and colors it to make cute, colorful soap shapes. Whew! What a woman.
Here is a link to her blog if you want to read all her takes on soap clouds AND see a demonstration video of the bar of soap being microwaved.
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2012/04/kitchen-craft-soap-clouds-and-homemade-kiddie-tub-soaps/
For me, I think I will stick to using it as clouds, a fun activity, and an incentive for some of my little stinkers to wash their hands!
If your students are anything like mine, they LOVE to play games, especially with dice. They also LOVE to let those dice roll this way and that way and every way besides right in front of them on the desk where they are supposed to be.
Let me just tell you now… you will no longer have to face this problem 🙂 This solution will not only eliminate dice flying all across the room and children crawling under desks searching for said dice, but it will also make things run a lot more smoothly and efficiently with the dice remaining directly in front of the students with easy visibility.
Behold the dice container: (!!!!)
Kids can shake the container, put it down lid on the desk, and see what they have. I am not sure where these containers are from, but I have some almost identical to them that I got from Ikea… I think it was four for a dollar or something affordable like that. Also, it makes passing out the die much quicker and cleaner.
Yayyy for never losing a dice or hearing it clatter across the desk again!
AHHHH i just love cheap, GREAT, ideas!! This is a perfect center activity for Pre-K and Kindergarten students…matching upper and lowercase letters.
But why stop there?! You can use these matching spoons for almost anything!!!! (Can you tell I’m excited?) Think numbers/number words, colors/color words, smiley faces/emotion words, and so on. There are probably a lot more activities for younger students, but a lot of you are wayyyy more clever than me, so I am sure you can think of plenty of ideas for all grade levels. Feel free to share 🙂
minervateach. 