More Projects!

I am so inspired by all of the blogs out there!  I have found such amazing activities on many teaching blogs.  Thanks to all of you, I really feel confident going into the start of the school year.  It's hard not knowing who my students are or what grade levels I'm working with because I can't plan anything yet. (Although I just found out what IEP students I'm working with at building #1 so I started planning for the 3 of them).   So I took a bunch of ideas that would work with a variety of grade levels and got to work recreating some of them and making some of my own ideas as well.  

A while ago, I was reading the blog I heart Organizing and saw the idea to use the mini expandable files to hold receipts.  I loved that idea so I went to Target's dollar spot and bought a few.  I bought a smaller one to hold coupons.  

 Receipts are organized by month.  

 Coupons are in 6 categories: This Trip, This Week, This Month, This Year, Restaurant, and Stores for coupons that are specific to a store. 

As I was looking at the files I realized that these would be perfect for my Dolch Word Kits!  My first year teaching I made a bunch of Dolch Word Kits using the materials from The School Bell. The sight words are broken down into 11 lists and the students get a book with all the words in it.  So I printed a label for the cover and labeled the tabs 1-11.  I also made a tab for the students book.  This is so much better than keeping each list's flashcards in an envelope as they are currently. What do you use these files for?

My next project was making a Story Map poster that can be found at Create Teach Share.  

 I LOVE the finished product!  Without a board in building # 2, I'm going to be relying on posters like these.  She also has a making connections poster which I am starting now.  I'm thinking about adding a question mark at the bottom of this for lingering questions. 

All summer I have been waiting to make the birthday balloons that I found on What the Teacher Wants. As I was cutting out the balloons, I realized that many parents in my district don't want their kids coming home with a giant pixie stick.  I had just bought some crazy straws to use as pointers so I used those instead.  Not as fun as a pixie stick but more parent friendly.  If any of you have ideas for something else to use, please let me know!  

They are cute though! I don't have a container to keep them in yet but I will find one when I get more straws.  

I was on Mrs. Unger's blog when I saw her stretchy the snake word cards.  

I printed out her cards and a label and made this: 

A white label would have worked better but I was already printing on clear labels so I just added it to the bottom of the sheet.  

This year I want to focus on reading instruction.  I now know that I will have two 5th graders and a 4th grade at building 1.  I want them to be able to really discuss a book and be forced to think about it while reading.  I wanted to collect questions to ask students during our reading groups so anyone could randomly grab a few questions and ask them.  I decided to print the questions on clear labels and stick them on craft sticks.  The labels were a little big so I had to tape the back of the sticks to keep the labels from peeling off. 

  I like the look of the wood behind the words.  I'm going to keep the sticks in a Wasabi Pea Canister as soon as my fiance eats a bunch of wasabi peas :) 

Finally, I spray painted some pizza trays for students to use magnetic letters on.  I was looking for cookie trays but when I saw the round pizza trays I had to go with them.  They are like giant polka dots!

I have seen this so many different places.  I have no idea where it originated from so there is no link.  

Thank you to everyone who is posting all their ideas for new-ish teachers like me to use!  Even though I only know who 3 of my students are, I feel like I have found enough ideas from all of you to get me through October! 

-Becky