Jobs in Kinderland

Happy Friday everyone! I hope that everyone had a fabulous week. I know that many of us have seen then end of our summer vacation and I have a few Northern friends who will be doing so soon!!

When I was in Third grade, I had a job for everyone and followed Beth Newingham's system (okay... loosely followed) for credit/debit and classroom economy. But when I came to Kindergarten I knew that I couldn't have everyone have a job. I think it would drive me nuts to manage! Now I know some out there do.... I admire you for being able to manage it! I spoke with a team member and saw how she manages her jobs. Below is my take on it:

This was a really ugly cabinet in my room. No joke. See those black stripes? They are magnet bars that the teacher before me glued to the cabinet.... maybe they are welded there. Not sure. Anyways, we work with what we have :) So I had to make the cabinet pretty and I thought this management chart would work pretty well. I have 8 jobs in total for my class: line leader, door holder, washer 1, washer 2, sweeper 1, sweeper 2, calendar helper, and caboose. Each of my students has their name on a ladybug. On the back of the ladybug is a small adhesive circle of velcro (the soft side I think). I put the other side (the scratchy side)  onto the leaves. Every morning the very first thing we do when we come to the carpet is change jobs. My new calendar helper gets to help that morning. I rotate the ladybugs clockwise from the bottom left around to the bottom right.

If you look at the top of the picture, you'll see an envelope that is hanging from a hook on the side of the cabinet. There are actually 2 envelopes, each on their own hooks. One says "I've had my turn!" and the other says "I'm waiting for my turn!"... and of course they both have ladybugs to decorate them. As I rotate the ladybugs, the student is on the bottom right gets rotated "off" into the "I've had my turn!" envelope until everyone has had a turn. This leaves an open space on the bottome left job leaf. So, after I rotate the ladybugs, I pull out another ladybug from the "I'm waiting for my turn!" envelope. This ensures that everyone will get a turn to do everything. I change the jobs daily so my students should get several chances to do all of the jobs through out the year.

Please feel free to ask questions if my explanation is a tad bumbled or confusing! Or maybe you could post about your amazing jobs and leave a comment below with a link. I'm always looking to improve my systems and management!

Have a blessed day,

Classroom Set-up: Math Manipulatives

I told you I'd be back today! Yay for all of our wonderful new followers :) I love each of you for all the amazing feedback and visits that you give me. It gives me that warm fuzzy feeling knowing that maybe I helped someone else make their class or room or crafty self a tiny bit better. Any who, last week I spent Mon-Thur in my room getting things ready for this coming year. One of the areas that I thought might interest everyone is my Math Manipulative area of my classroom.

Now, a ton of this work was thankfully done for me by the previous teacher. All of my bins are labeled with stickers AND pictures plus they are separated into bins by the different materials. The manipulatives typically arrive in student sets that have just enough of everything for each child. However, at least in my 3rd grade experience, there were times when the student sets didn't have enough for certain lessons. In Kindergarten, having all the manipulatives sorted out by kind is excellent for having the students explore. It also makes it easier for the students to manage the manipulatives. They can actually take out and put away the manipulatives easily. It's definitely better than having them dig in their box for the specific manipulative and try to fit everything back into the too small boxes.

The only thing that I did differently from the previous teacher was that I grouped the manipulatives together. This is really the best thing to do since I have multiple boxes of pattern blocks, 1 inch cubes, coins, etc.

If you are going to be reorganizing your manipulatives I would suggest these tips:

-Label, label, label! Use pictures, words, and even hot glue one of the manipulatives on the outside!

-Have all of your manipulatives together in one section of the room so that they are easily accessible for the students.

-Group them together by type. If you have work mats that go with your coins, put them with your coins. Store all of your number sense items together. Using the main themes of math to organize the manipulatives makes it so much easier for the students to find everything and to put it back again!

I'd love to see how everyone orgainzes their materials too!

Have a blessed day,

Classroom Set-up Part 1: Teacher space

Are you dreaming of your classroom yet? I mean that in a good way.. not in a scary nightmare way like my post yesterday. Well, I have been working in my room yesterday and today and have gotten a ton accomplished! I worked on unpacking a lot (almost all) of my stuff plus figure out what to do with all the Kindergarten things too. That's a whole lot of stuff! I'm excited to say that I have my meeting area, manipulatives, and student tables pretty much where I want them. But I will definitely be continuing to organize over the next few days to make it even better!

While I know that the student areas of the classroom (tables and meeting area) are definitely the most important areas. I also know that (my personality) I have to have my own space organized so that I can find all of my materials and have a work space to be able to finish creating things for my students in their area (labels, tags, etc.). So, my first focus after unpacking and putting things away was to really focus on organizing my desk, bookcases, and weekly organizing spots. So, without further ado, here is my teacher area:

I have to tell you that I have never, ever in my life had my desk this cleared off before! I am that teacher with the calendar that takes up half her desk, a lesson plan book, huge pot of writing utensils, stacks of notepads, cups or drinks, and any other various items crowding the desk. It has always looked very neat but I wanted to make sure that this year it doesn't get cluttered or have things that will easily go missing or get lost in piles.

In my top desk drawer that pulls out over my lap, I bought an organizer so that things don't get all shuffled together. I put things up here like change for the vending machine, keys for my various cabinets, lead for my pencils, magnetic tape, gum, a forehead thermometer, lotion, PTA card, bus change slips, etc.

I have two desk drawers on the right hand side of the desk. Inside I have individual baskets for each pens/pencils, grading markers, permanent markers. Behind those I put my 3-hole puncher, push pins, and paper clips. I also have room spray, white out, staples, and page markers.

This is the lower desk drawer. I used the partion in it to create a space for my purse. Since I'm using my largest purse right now, I know that all of my others will also fit! In the back I have two plastic contatiners to hold items. The front one has essential personal items such as deoderant, toothbrush, tooth paste, hand sanitizer, and a flash light. In the second one, I have extra pencils, pencils, post-its, and notepads so that I don't have to go across the room to get them during conferences with kids or teachers.

 Behind my desk I have two bookcases stacked one on the other, a stacking tower of drawers, filing cabinet, and cork board squares.

On my very bottom shelf are all of my teacher's editions. I'm not quite sure how much I will use them since we teach workshop style. But at least here they are easily accessible! The second shelf has the smaller teacher resource books that come with my TEs as well as other teacher resource books. My top shelf houses my stickers, birthday essentials, stamps/ink pads, and several other teacher resources. The Comprehension Toolkit is for the upper grades but I couldn't bear to pack it up!

My upper bookcase holds two crates (one for each daily and Friday folders), magazine holders, and personal momentos. If you were to turn around the magazine holders I have one with awards, certificates, and ribbons; another with lots and lots of baggies of stickers from the previous teacher; and two that are empty for now :)

This is my own little corner :) I still need to label my drawers of my filing cabinet and stacking drawers. But in order to do that, I need my computer to be synced with my new printer... and my printer to have a power cord. But that's something for another day! Tomorrow I plan on doing lots of printing (in the computer lab) and laminating so that I can decorate my room a bit.... I can't wait to put up my Alphabet with the cute pictures! I'd love to hear if any of this helps you get more organized this year too!

Have a blessed day,

Coming soon, to a blog near you!

I am currently sitting in my classroom looking around at all the work that I have done since yesterday morning. I still have several more hours of work to do today but just wanted to let everyone know that I will be posting pictures soon!!! I can't wait to share with everyone all the hard work that I have put in unpacking, orgainizing, and cleaning. I am getting more and more excited for school to start back! Keep an eye out for a post tonight!


P.S.- If you left a comment on Freebie #5, you should have received an e-mail by now with your Back to School packet attached. Please let me know if you haven't and I will send it to you ASAP!
Have a blessed day,

It's beginning to look a lot like...school time!

As I have hinted at in the past, I am a teacher.

A third grader teacher to be exact.

I LOVE being a teacher. It's the best job in the world!

Well, at the end of every year we have to pack up our rooms so that the carpets can be cleaned. Everything will be dusted, wiped clean, and look beautiful for back to school. Once that happens, I get to go into my room and start organizing and rearranging for the new year. 

I thought I'd show off my pretty, pretty room! I am really excited about this year and have a ton of great ideas for my students :)

This is my desk area with my behavior management system, teacher resource books, and filing system.

The view from the front of my room :)

This is where my students will turn in papers and get their supplies throughout the year.

Word wall and "Stuff" curtain where I hide all my extra ... well.. stuff :)

This is my computer area. It still needs a bit more work to look as organized as I'd like it to be.

This is my back table, back pack hooks, math boxes, and indoor/outdoor recess items.

My back carpet area is where we do most of our learning during workshop time.

This is part of my classroom library with one of my reading chairs.

This is the rest of my classroom library. Everything is labeled with what bin it goes in and what reading level the book is as well.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of my room! I'm really excited to start the year with a new bunch of kids!

What are you doing to get ready for the new year?