First Day!

At the beginning of the school year, the children are anxious, worried, excited, and pretty much every emotion possible.

Today is like that for me! It's my first day of grad school, and I'm anxious, worried, and excited! I've got all my textbooks ready to pack into my bag. I still need to take off my chipping nail polish so that I can meet everyone looking much nicer. I may even paint my nails for this week!

I was introduced to a computer program called Evernote this past week. It's a place where you can take notes and pictures, and then the content syncs to all connected devices (like your iPhone or iPad!)

I plan on using it today to take notes in class, but you can use Evernote in many different ways, such as:

• Making and checking off your grocery list
• Planning supplies needed for a classroom party
• Writing your classroom inventory (so it doesn't take up computer space!)
• Storing all the fabulous ideas you find on teacher blogs!
• Keeping notes during Professional Development workshops
• Collaborating with your co-teacher next door to you and sharing documents with them

The list could go on and on! It has voice record, video record, and photo capture options as long as you have a webcam/microphone on your device. Very helpful!

You can go to their website by clicking here, and while you're at it, go download the free iPhone app!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. I have had something extra awesome occupying my time! I'm not sure if I'm allowed to tell about it at this point, but it has to do with design. I'm SO thrilled about it, and I have been working nonstop on projects for the team that I haven't stopped to think of new blog post ideas.

Let me know in the comments:

1. Do you use Evernote?
2. How do you or would you use Evernote?

Quick Tech Tutorial - Pin It Button!

I'm back with another technology tutorial! Have you missed those? I know I have! This time, it's not a web 2.0 tool. It's all about our favorite site, Pinterest!

Have I piqued your interest? :)

I hope so!  Here's the video tutorial to make it super easy to understand.



Here's the link to the Google Chrome Pinterest app: http://tinyurl.com/kl2s9rl

What do you think? Easy enough, right? I hope this was something that you can use. If you would like for me to make a tutorial for a pin it app button for the Firefox browser, let me know! Thanks for watching. I'd love to know what you would like to see next. I'm thinking of remaking my Prezi and Beeclip tutorials, so be looking forward to that!

The "Mini Clip Chart"

Last summer, it was all the rage on teacher blogs to use a clip chart for behavior management. There were so many options and colors and themes, and I was on board. I even made my own that I wanted to use! (Click here if you would like to see it.) I appreciated the concept of moving the clothespins up and down the chart depending on behavior, and I liked that students can improve and clip back up.

The only concern that I had was that the whole class was able to see it from everywhere in the room. Also, if parent volunteers came in, they would be able to see certain students always toward the bottom of the chart. I wanted a more positive learning environment where students were not ashamed of their behavior, but took ownership of their mistakes.

I started off the school year with whole group management. I had a small, plastic container and some river rocks. Whenever I caught someone being good, I added a rock to our collection. If the class was not following the rules, a rock came out. It worked very well at the beginning of the year! We filled that jar up and got to have extra recess. :) Fun!

Towards October, I realized we needed a little more...motivation. I really wanted to have a clip chart because I could see some students who needed the individual behavior plan, but I couldn't think of a way to do it so that it was not a page or chart on the wall. After much brainstorming came the idea of a miniature clip chart.

As you can see, it's a much smaller version of the clip chart! I used the four colors red, orange, green, and blue. Here's what they mean:

1. Red means teacher's choice. It means parent contact of some sort, whether it's a phone call, office visit, or just an email. The child  may not move the clip back up if it gets to red.
2. Orange is a warning. The students can move up from orange. There will be lots of movement between green and orange (hopefully!). If a child asks to move back up, they are not allowed to move back up yet. I have to actually see the students making good choices, not just begging for green.
3. Green means ready to learn. The students start their day off at green. I have them change their clip back to green at the end of the day so that we can start fresh the next day.
4. Blue means the child is making super choices! If you see that child who is staying on task, working hard, and helping others, move him or her up to blue! You can even find a way to reward that behavior. (Such as a positive note home, a positive phone call, etc.)

All you need is a large craft stick, some markers, and a clothespin.

First, I labeled the clothespins with my students' names. I also put their name on the craft stick so that they can be sure to keep track of both pieces. Next comes the messy part. Word of caution: Your hands will get marker on them. We're teachers, so we're used to messy hands, right!? Get the four colors you want to use and hold the very end of the craft stick. Start coloring the stick with the magic marker in small rectangles with each color.

Yes, the color will stay on.
Yes, it will dry.
And yes, the color will come off the stick if it comes in contact with water. Believe me.

That's it!

I did not need to use treasure box or follow-up incentives for this tool (mainly because I didn't have ideas on how to manage that). I loved that it sat at each child's table instead of in plain view on the wall. I believe it really made our classroom more positive because they really had the chance to move back up when they made good choices. I didn't ever hear, "Robert is ALWAYS on red!!" :) I count that as a success.

If you have any ideas on how to extend this tool to make it more interesting, please let me know in the comments!

Do you use a clip chart? What is your go-to method of behavior management?

Third Time's a Charm (I hope!)

Backstory:
I was really excited about Oh' Boy 4th Grade's Currently linky party. I made my graphic all nice and neat. I posted up the blog post...and as I was browsing my posts, guess what I did. I deleted it. Yeah. So now the link on the linky party goes to empty cyber space. Sad face. I reposted AGAIN and realized that even if I changed the permalink title, it wouldn't connect to that deleted page again. So I deleted again....

Third time's a charm. Here's my currently!

Lindsey Stirling is a violinist that covers lots of pop songs, but also does original songs. She is fantastic. Pentatonix is really good too :)

In case you've never heard it, here's the video:

She's wonderful. Go check out her YouTube videos!!

Thanks for posting this fun linky, Farley! :)

My Lesson Plan Experience

I spent a lot of time last summer visiting lots of awesome teacher blogs. From what I saw, a teacher binder was a sure-fire way to succeed in being an organized, efficient teacher. I put a lot of work into making one -- I made customized weekly lesson plan pages, added monthly calendar pages, a student info section, a birthday list page, and so on and so forth. It was FULL before school even started!! I was thrilled, thinking I'd be so organized and that I would keep up with it every week.

Want to know what happened?

I didn't!

I got so many new handout pages from faculty meetings, and I just shoved them into the binder without even hole punching them! It was a mess in there. Around November, I had given up on the binder and it was just laying on the giant pile of junk in the corner of the classroom.

Judging me.

With it's judgmental binder pockets full to bursting.

So since that was a complete and utter failure, I decided that this next year I would simplify. I decided to create a simple lesson plan book that was just for that -- lesson planning. Not for student info, not for birthday lists, not for anything except the basic essentials. And especially, no pockets. None. Zippo.

Here's how the cover turned out:

Nice huh? I thought it was cute as could be. :) I had my school laminate the front and back cover pages so that it would be a little more sturdy, and I printed it on heavy cardstock paper.

On the inside, I only have 4 sections:

1) A page for continuing education-
If you're a new teacher reading this post, here's something that I did not know about until almost the end of the school year. You will have to turn in your CPE information and certificate copies! OH MY GOODNESS. I had no idea, so obviously I just put the workshop certificates into the giant corner pile of doom after every workshop. My suggestion is to write down the name of the training, the date/time, and the location of the event. Also, keep a file folder of all the certificates handy so that you can add to it as you go along. Sorry for the rant. Here's a picture. :)

Lime green! Lovely :)

2) A page for DRA Scores (because it's helpful to keep track during the year for grouping) -

Sorry for the retina-burning sensation caused by a ridiculous amount of orange.

3) Weekly planning pages -
I chose this setup because I prefer the days to be vertical instead of horizontal. It is easier for me to follow. Also, I put just the subject because my old planning pages had the actual time there, which really messed me up on days that did not follow the routine. I was looking into getting a cute Erin Condren planner, but she puts the lesson plan days horizontal. Sad :(

Purple is my favorite color, so obvs I picked purple for these pages!

4) Monthly calendar pages -

The blue color is WAY prettier in person. Silly iPhone. And yes, I did already fill the calendar out through to next May. Don't hate.

My goal for the summer is to really get myself organized and get everything to have its own home in my classroom. I learned from my mistake, and I am not going to let it happen again!

If you would like a copy of the documents shown above, just click any of the photos!

You can also CLICK HERE for the link, if you haven't figured it out otherwise. If the link doesn't work, please, oh please, let me know so I can figure out what I did wrong. Thanks!

I hope this was interesting to you in some way. Maybe it will give you the motivation to minimize like I did. The coil binding was done at Office Depot for only $3 and some change. Not too shabby.

My next challenge? The scary cabinets in my classroom.

Math and Art and random junk closet. The math items are organized by concept (geometry, counting, time, money, weight)

Literacy and Fine Motor. And random junk. This one needs lots of help. I need a professional organizer to come help me!!!

Looks like I will be one busy woman this summer! Thank goodness I have the Optimum Organization linky party that helps me keep my mind focused on a goal. I will need all the support and encouragement I can get. Cleaning/organizing is NOT in my nature.

I'm also linking up with Manic Monday and Monday Made It...because I made my lesson plan book! :) Also, I made a huge mess of my cabinets. Does that count?

If you want to check out the linky parties, click the images below.

How do you manage your lesson plans? 

Do you have any advice on how I should tackle the scary cabinets??