Back in the Classroom Again!

Yipes! While I never completely left the education world, I have not taught in my own classroom for 16 years! That is a crazy long time.

So here I am about to wrap week #4, and as you all know the exhaustion level is high. To complicate matters, my father passed away the first week of school. I waited to travel to be with my family until after curriculum night. So I wrote 3 days of sub plans and my back to school night presentation simultaneously!

Five Favorite Classroom Organization Tips + A Freebie

I am always looking for new organizational tips and tricks for the classroom.  Pinterest has a wealth of great ideas and I am constantly finding new things to try.  However, my tried and true top 5 tips & tricks have been around long before Pinterest. As you sail into summer consider using some of these tips to help start next year off right.  A few of them can be easily prepped in the summer months.

What if Everybody Did That?

This summer I stumbled across a book I hadn't seen before and the title immediately caught my eye.  It is called What if Everybody Did That?  As I flipped through the pages I couldn't help but laugh at many of the comical illustrations.  More importantly though, I also couldn't help noticing how this book so perfectly illustrates that actions and choices have consequences.  In a very simple and fun way this book shows children the effects of their actions and why certain behaviors aren't acceptable. The oh so simple question, " What if everybody did that?" along with the clever illustrations by Colleen M. Madden drive home the point so beautifully.

This book is perfect for the beginning of the year as you are establishing your classroom rules and procedures, or  later in the Spring, as it lends itself perfectly to Earth Day.  I love finding ways to use literature to support other subjects like social studies and science and this works perfectly for topics that revolve around helping others and the planet too! It's like Character Education and Science Mashup of sorts!

Have y'all watched many of the Kid President videos yet?  If not, you are missing out! Not only is he adorably funny,  his messages are fantastic!  Here is a great one to share with your students after reading What if Everybody Did That?   Part of what I love about this book is how it ends.  I won't completely spoil it for you, but just know that the end of the book and Kid President can encourage your students to think about the ways and the power they have to shape the future.  How awesome is that?





If you'd like to do some extension lessons based on the book I've  put together a few simple activity pages. They include:

• Cause & Effect Graphic Organizers
• Templates to make your own What if Everybody Did That? class books.
• Vocabulary Activities (choice, responsible, consequence, cause, effect, actions)
• Reflection Writing Activities

Click to Preview Product

Building Classroom Community With The Name Jar

I always love it when I can find a fantastic book that ties to exactly what I want to teach!  The picture book, The Name Jar, by Yangsook Choi is a new favorite of mine.

This particular book has many wonderful lessons. It lends itself so well to the back to school focus on building classroom community.  The teacher, Mr. Cocotos, has clearly established a supportive and comfortable classroom community before the main character Unhei arrives as a new student from Korea.

One way to jump off this book is to have fun with the jar theme. It so simple too! First, create a large chart with an empty jar on it.   Give students sticky notes and ask them to name things that help make a positive classroom community like the one in the story.  Use this to start a discussion on what your classroom agreements will be for the school year and how your goal is to create an environment like the one Mr. Cocotos established that helped Unhei feel welcome in both her new school and her new country.

The unit includes a graphic organizer for students to record class ideas.

Another fun way to extend the jar theme and to help your students get to know each other the first few weeks of school is to give them a blank jar and have them fill it with words or pictures that symbolize their identity.  To make it extra fun, make sure they don't include their names anywhere on the front.  Then, have the classmates try to guess which jar belongs to which student!   This could be a fun display for parents to try and guess which jar belong to their child at back to school night too!

Option: Make this a technology training lesson. Have students add clip art into the jar!

These are just a few ways to use The Name Jar to help build your positive classroom community at the start of a  new school year.  If you are interested in the seeing additional activities I have designed to go with  this book please click the image below to see a preview of the unit in my TPT store.

Click to see more of this unit.

Back to School With Google Forms

Have you made a Google Form? Filled one out?  Used them on your blog or in your classroom yet?  If not I think you are going to want to learn!

I know what Google Forms are and have even filled out a few myself, but I had NO clue how to go about creating one.  Luckily for me there are several experienced folks out there who have created some excellent tutorials with simple step by step explanations that made it really easy to learn.

I follow Chris Kesler's new blog TPT School and he recently posted a YouTube tutorial on creating Google Forms.  If you are interested in learning how simple it really is, then I highly recommend spending a few minutes to watch his tutorial.

There are so many potential uses for using Google Forms in the classroom.  The first of which is one I suggest you have ready to go the first week of school....a Parent Volunteer Form!   The thought of parents filling out an electronic form and it populating a spreadsheet with names, contact info, volunteer interest and availability is pretty darn exciting for an organizing freak like me!  Oh, and how about you make QR Code that links to your Parent Volunteer Form and you have it on display outside your room and at Back to School Night?  Yes, please!

This is my first Google Form, but the possibilities are endless! So glad I took the time to learn.  Hope you try it out too if you haven't already!