Yesterday, I posted about how I begin the Classroom Economy on the first day of school (or whatever first day you wish to do it on really.)  Today, I am going to tell you what I do on the second day.  :) Day Two: Now that the kids have a little bit of experience with the whole credit/debit thing, the first thing we do in the morning is hand out money to those who are in class on time.  Before I do this, I show them in my register (the same as the kids'....I just put mine on the ELMO for everyone to see) how to record the new dollar that was just handed out.  Then the kids do the same. On this day of class, we focus on "Earnings".  You see, I want the students to earn lots and lots of money.  That way, they can "pay" for the things they need (and want) later on.  If they have a big bank roll, it makes life a lot easier for them in class (hey, that's the same in life isn't it??) Click here to access this file (and a few others with it) So w...
One of my most favorite things I do to manage my class is my classroom economy.  It is something that gets instant buy in from my students and allows me a chance to teach many different standards, all while keeping the students focused on their learning tasks at hand.  I have written about it several times here on the blog, but I wanted to share with you how I set it up the first few days of school. Day One: On the first day of school, I start my math block by explaining that in this class, things will run sort of like how they do in the real world.  We will be conducting a classroom economy.  What that means is that everything you do in class will either earn you classroom money or cost you classroom money. This is where the kids usually start to look at each other and squirm around in excitement. I then hand out the check register to the students, which is attached to a postcard with all of the classroom fines, expenses, and earnings. If you are interested in these pos...
OK...this is a long one. Communicating with parents is one of the hardest (if not THE hardest) aspect of our job. Each and every day, the light of someone's entire world walks into our classroom doors.  It is only natural that we keep them informed of what is going on in our room and with their child. With that being said, it is something that I struggle with each year. Keeping 30+ students’ parents informed of the goings on in class is challenging to say the least. But there are some things that I have done to at least try to keep the lines of communication open. Here are a few ideas for you that I use in my classroom. Communication Magnets On the first day of school, I send home a packet of information about my classroom. In that packet is a magnet with my name, room number, school phone, classroom website, and my email address. This magnet has a little letter accompanying it asking the parents to place this on the refrigerator for the entire year. Even if it is ...
On the first day of school, I like to have all of the students' supplies (ie: pencils, pens, erasers, etc...) ready for them so that I know they have the tools they need to function on the first day of school.  So, since I was getting things prepped for the first day of school anyway, I thought I would share this very simple Bright Idea with you! Such a simple way to distribute school supplies to the students AND to make sure they stay organized. Starting day one, each student entering my room is assigned a number (based on alphabetical order of last names.)  This helps with organizing everything from where they stand in line to knowing which papers have been turned in.  Another thing it helps with is knowing which supplies belong to which student.  Now I don't know about you, but due to budgets, I know that many of my students won't come to school on the first day (or any day after that) with the supplies they need to be an active and productive student in my room...
Nothing terribly life changing today, but I wanted to share with you a little tidbit that I have been doing to make circles for some classroom signs. Now, you are probably thinking, "WHAT?  I know how to make circles!  This girl is crazy trying to show me."  I would probably think the same thing.  But seriously, I discovered how to put circles INSIDE of circles to make some fun looking borders that will look awesome on a bulletin board. So here is what you do. 1.  Open Power Point and select the Shapes tool. 2.  Select a circle and open that up onto your document.  Make the outline black and have "no fill". 3.  Then play around with the outline.  To do this, you go to the "Format" section on the top and click "Outline".  A little box will come up on the side of the page that looks like this.  Find "Composite Type" and, after you click it, you can choose double lines and everything!  It is really fun!! Now, here is where I...
Every year, as summer reaches its midway point, I sit down and think about what I would like to do the same the next year, what I would like to get rid of, and what I would like to try.  This summer has been no different. When I sat down and really thought about what programs make my year as a teacher run smoothly, four things popped up into my mind: 5th Grade Spiral Math Calendar Math Paragraph of the Week Essay of the Month Math Homework Calendar Math Essay of the Month Paragraph of the Week I can honestly tell you that these year long programs save my sanity.  Each one of them helps me to build eager, excited, motivated, and skilled scholars from my students.  Each one of them makes my day as a teacher fly by.  Each one of them lets me leave the classroom at the end of the day knowing that I did all I could to teach the standards and enable my students to excel. How do they do that, you ask? Well, all four of them take th...