Taming firsties doesn't have to be difficult. It does require patience, consistency, and BRIBERY!
I know that sounds awful, but I use my powers for good. I promise!
First, I make sure my sweeties learn our rituals, routines, and procedures for our classroom. We practice, practice, practice. We make up 5 rules in my classroom. I only ever use 5. They wording is always a little different because we make them up together, but this is the general list.
1) Follow directions
2) Stay on task and let others do the same
3) Best behavior in areas outside the classroom
4) Respect others, self, and equipment
5) Keep your hands, feet, and body to yourself
I use this clip chart
Students only move their clips down when they do not follow these 5 rules. Just when I know everyone has a great understanding for our rules, rituals, routines, and procedures I introduce the pebble jar.
I bought a jar from Michaels like this one
and some pebbles from Dollar Tree/Walmart like these
My students are told that when they are caught being good aka other teachers brag about their behavior in the hallway, PE, library, etc. etc. They get pebbles in the jar. When the jar is full they get a class treat. Works like a CHARM! One year my class filled the jar 5 times! They vote on what kind of treat they get. It's usually very simple like popcorn, cupcakes, and so on.
My students love to fill the jar and my class is always one of the best behaved in school. I highly recommend the clip chart and pebble jar for kiddies of all ages.
Today is Tuesday! Classroom digs on linky party Teacher Week 2013. Yesterday was my first day in my classroom. Do you think my room is ready for viewing?
Um. . .No, but I'm going to show it to you anyway!
When you walk into my classroom the first thing you see is the East wall. See all that JUNK??? In my defense the last week of school I was told to take everything off the shelves and walls so a lot of it ended up on my counter and hanging bookshelves. But check out my floor. . . So shiny!
Facing North this is what I saw. I got rid of the filing cabinet. The red thing in the middle is actually a boat shaped seat with storage in the seat. It's too bulky so I'm taking it home to my boys. The writing table is broken so out it went too! The black wonky pipe thingy is wear the TV/VCR used to hang. When I asked for it to be removed that is what they left. SERIOUSLY!?
The rest of my junk is behind those sliding doors in shelves, on the lower shelves, and in that closet. . . Oi Vey!
Another WTH moment for me is seeing that they painted my bathroom's outer walls, but look at my coat hooks??? UGH. . . Should I leave them be or fix it myself? That is the question.
This is the south wall. I removed the cork boards to reveal my white magnetic boards. The TE before me did this. WHY? This past school year I let it be. I was more than ready to remove it. See the SMART board? I call it a DUMB board because it only worked 6 or 7 times the whole school year. Its off to our campus tech to be fixed. Fingers crossed it does. Those IKEA bags are full of more junk. I also removed that little shelf. No space for it.
I went in at noon and left at 5 yesterday. I only got this (below) done. I blame my coworkers who needed my help moving furniture and they were chatting Me up. (wink, wink)
Okay, I was totally chatting them up!
It doesn't look like much progress, but I went home BEAT!
FYI- My turquoise window curtains are from BIG LOTS $5 each!
Today, I was there from 9-6 and I wiped out and off everything. It's amazing how dirty everything gets. I got to see so many ants and spiders. BLEH! I worked on my bulletin boards, but I swear I kept redoing and adjusting everything. I didn't take any photos today because it isn't complete.
I will post my big REVEAL above on my "Class Tour" tab VERY soon.
I am loving what I see on all of these Class Tour posts. There are some AMAZING classrooms y'all!
Check them out and link up! We'd love to see yours!
I'm going to try something tonight. I want to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. . .
Ok, I want to link up with both Blog Hoppin' and 4th grade Frolics. I don't know if that's against any bloggyland rules. Shhh. . . don't tell anyone!
I'll start with Blog Hoppin's linky party for Teacher Week 2013, Monday is Meet the Teacher Monday
I'm supposed to mention 10 FUN things about me.
I will try to think of only FUN things or at least weird. Weird is fun to me. . .
1. I memorize random facts after reading or hearing them once. Kind of like photographic memory, but not exactly. I know a lot of useless information. It makes me really good at Jeopardy, but not much else. . .
2. I'm uber competitive. It's a sickness. I can not stand to lose. So much so I will refuse to play any game if I think I'll lose. At the gym I pick a person and mentally compete with that person to get through a workout. Pathetic I know. . .
3. This is pretty random, but I wonder if anyone else does this. I have to smash my sandwiches, burgers, etc. before I eat them. Seriously, I didn't even notice this until my hubbs pointed it.
4. I buy EVERYTHING in multiples of 3s. I don't know if it's an OCD thing or if I just can't stand running out of an item. I always have back up and back up for my back up.
5. I have a West Texas accent because I was born and raised in the Lubbock area. People often assume I can't speak Spanish because of my accent. I like to surprise people by interchanging between the two.
6. I don't/can't play any musical instruments, but I love to sing. I sing ALL the time. I'm not saying I'm any good at it, but I sing all day long and I love singing with my own children and my students.
7. I can imitate a lot of voices. I have a wide vocal range. Sometimes I surprise myself. I do use this "talent" with my firsties and my own babies during read-alouds and they love it.
8. I'm the middle child of a pastor so saying I was a wild child is the understatement of the year! I made really good grades, signed up for all extracurricular activities and sports despite of all my crazy adventures so MOST of my teachers were o.k. with all this cray cray.
9. I have 3 kids. I guess that seems like a pretty common fact. What makes it fun is that when I was 20 I was told (by 3 dr.s) that because of medical issues I would be unable have children. I had my daughter at 22, my older son at 24. A few days before my 26th birthday I found out I was 6 months pregnant with my third child. God is GREAT!
3 Little Miracles
10. Everywhere I go kids and babies approach me like they know me. Kids come up and talk to me and babies reach out to me to be carried. It feels nice that little ones have that trust in me just by looking at me.
I'm not too sure if those were all FUN, but hopefully you get an idea of who I am. If you'd like to know some more randomness click here.
I have to say I joined teacher bloggy world to network with other teachers. Although I've only just begun blogging myself (long time blog stalker) I am having so much FUN because of all of you.
Thank you for sharing your creativity and time and thank you for letting me share too y'all!
Onto the second item of business. . .
I made several Monday made its, but I took them to school. Today was my first day working in my classroom. I'll take pics and add them here. Gotta love the update button :)
Anyhow, I do have one I want to share.
I changed my theme this year for something a little more bright and cheery.
I made some glitter clothespins last year for my display bulletin board, but a lot of my firsties took them home at the end of the year so I had to make more. I'm sure you've seen these all over Pinterest. If you're the original pinner on this project let me know and I'll credit you here.
This is an easy project because all you need is clothespins, glitter, and mod podge. This year I'll be using the clothespins to hold up photos on another bulletin board. Im going hot glue them to the ribbon and display the photos like a timeline. I'm sure you've seen the photo timeline on Pinterest too.
**HERE IS AN IDEA** I was stapling my photos onto my bulletin boards. Instead of messing up my photos with holes I am going to paste them onto a sheet of scrapbook paper and clip them onto the bulletin board by month. At the end of the school year I'll remove sheets August through June and make a scrapbook with all of our photos. (By the way I'm give my students a CD of all our photos at the end of the year as an EOY gift.)
I purchased these leaves at our local teacher store. I hot glued them onto the clothespins. Each student's name will go on the leaf (see how I used the veins to write?) and each leaf pin will hold their work to be displayed on the bulletin board outside my door.
(missing the thumbtack on back)
I really do envy all of you who get your student lists before school starts. We get a list the first day of school and it changes that first week so much. A lot of our parents like to wait the week of to register. (The only student names I know are teacher kids who placed them in my class.)
Remember this fabric?
and this blue one??
I made curtains to cover some shelves in my classroom.
I used an iron, the fabric, tension rods, and iron on hem tape. (Choose a tape that matches your fabric type. Some are thin and used on fragile fabrics like lace some are heavy duty for thicker fabrics like canvas.)
I ironed how I wanted my fabric to look hemmed. (I folded it and ironed it.) Then I placed the hem tape and ironed again. VOILA! The trickiest part is leaving enough space when making the "pocket" the rod slides through. I am the Queen of DIY Winging It. I used the actual rod to help me place the hem tape and ironed with the rod still there. LOL I love how the colors pop. They turned out to be a little long. Nothing a little hem tape won't fix tomorrow!
Here they are all wrinkled. Good grief!
**ANOTHER IDEA** I am going to use that Downy wrinkle away spray tomorrow to see if it works instead of ironing. I'm always up for finding ways for me to do less work. I'll update here tomorrow :)
I hope you enjoyed my two linky post. Can't wait to see what y'all have going on during this week's Teacher Week. Head back over here too!
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