A Teacher's Bag of Tricks

So, I have an embarrassing story I have to share.

It was the fall my first year teaching. Football season, so only a month or two into the school year. I was tailgating in Auburn with my besties' family and our friends. Between beverages I was chatting with a girl who had been teaching for three years.

I was venting about the many problems I had already encountered as a new teacher. She mentioned I needed to create my bag of tricks. Bag of tricks? Maybe it was the beverages, because I thought she meant literal bag of things. I eagerly asked her what she kept in her bag and where she kept it for easy access. Needless to say she quickly realized my interpretation and why I needed help.

I spent much of the summer before my first year planning for how I would decorate my classroom. Bright colors, flowers, and a reading garden. What I should have spent my time doing was building my "bag of tricks". My procedures and routines.

Don't make this mistake. Don't be the naive girl who thinks a teacher's bag of tricks is a tote bag you walk around pulling magic out of. Even if you have been teaching for years, it's never too late to improve your classroom management. So, I have brainstormed a list of questions to help you build that brag of tricks or rethink somethings you are already doing.

How will students line up?

How will you get students' attention?

How will you dismiss them from whole group?

How will they know to rotate centers or switch small groups?

Will you have classroom jobs? What will they be? Will you assign them or will students pick them?

How will you manage your class library? How many books can students "check out"?

What is your bathroom procedure?

What is your pencil procedure?

Where are extra supplies? How do students get these?

What is your morning routine? Dismissal?

What are your hallway expectation? Lunch room? Specials?

How will students know recess is over? Where do they line up?

How will you communicate with parents?

How will you ensure students are aware of their progress?

What are your expectations for group work?

What are your consequences for breaking a rule? What if they break two?

What positive reinforcement will you use?

How will students pick partners?

Feeling overwhelmed? I am sorry! Yes, it is A LOT to think about. I have your back.

Jessica from Notes from the Portable and I created an ebook to help you think through these questions and provide you with multiple solutions. I wish I had this when I first started... but now I get to share my bag of tricks with you.

Check it out!

Jessica also created a very handy classroom management planner to help you stay organized! You'll love the management journal and editable planner to keep track of student behavior and parent communication.

You'll want to see this one too!

Want more? Read Jessica's Ultimate Guide for Back to School! She has 29 tips you need to read before going back.

Also, check out my post Starting the Year Off Strong to get you thinking about routines and procedures.

Starting the Year Off Strong!

That first day of school can be nerve wrecking whether you are a veteran teacher with years of experience or a first-year teacher straight out of college.

You want the first day to be perfect. You want to have fun, but also set the tone for the year. You need to establish your schedule, expectations, routines, and procedures so the rest of the year will be flawless (ha! we wish).

I am taking some of my free time (between binging on Netflix) to reflect on some of these things. A new school year brings a chance to start new procedures or revamp old ones. I wanted to share some of the things on my mind with you.

Classroom Policies

*Supplies: Table supplies have always been a weakness for me. I use table caddies and they start off strong, but they always end up messy by the third week. This year I am going to follow through with maintaining organization of table supplies. I plan to implement a new class job that will monitor their table throughout the week. How do you want your students to get their supplies when needed? What if Johnny lost his scissors? What if table 4 is out of glue sticks… again? 

Moving About

*Bathroom: I have a good system in place for students needing to use the restroom, but it could be a bit better. Occasionally I forget when someone is out of the room, I have to quickly glance around and see if anyone is missing before I allow a student to go. Those few seconds are instructional time I do not like to waste. To solve this problem I am going to use hand sanitizer bottles like passes. Students will know not to signal for the bathroom if the bottle isn’t in it’s ‘home’. You can get my hand sanitizer labels for free HERE. Will your students ask or signal to go to the bathroom? Will they use a pass or sign out?

*Pack Up / Dismissal: Ugh! The most chaotic part of my day is pack-up and dismissal. I start out with a firm routine and then a crazy-hectic day comes in and throws us off. It is hard to recover. This year we have specials at the end of the day and will need to pack-up before. I am hoping this will help prevent the chaos. Will you call tables to pack-up? Do you need to sign agendas? When a student is done packing up, where will they sit? What will they do until they are called for dismissal?

Organization

*Homework: I have a designated spot in my room to turn in homework. When I check homework there are always papers with no name on it. It drives me CRAZY! I don’t have this problem with classwork, because students highlight their name before turning it in. Next year I will enforce highlighting your name on your homework too. Where do students turn in their homework? Will you check it or a student? When will it get checked? What if they didn’t put their name on it?

Lesson Procedures

*Early Finishers: Inevitably, no matter how well I thought out a lesson and included enrichment, Johnny is always done early. His work is correct, there is no sending him back to “check” it. A few years ago I invented the Brownie Points box for early finishers. Last year I had a different procedure in place. What will Johnny do when he is done? Will you have a system in place or will they read quietly?

*Answering Questions: I never considered this procedure a trouble spot, until I visited Ron Clark Academy. Wow! Every teacher MUST go, that school is inspirational. One of my biggest take-aways was how the kids answered questions and responded to each other. They don’t raise their hands, they just pop-up and speak. I started this towards the end of last school year, and plan to implement it from day one next year. Will you have your students raise their hand? What if they have a question while you are working with a small group?

You can sit and ponder these things in between Netflix shows or at the pool, but my friend Jessica over at Notes from the Portable and I did all the thinking for you. We answered these questions plus many, many more in our Teaching Tips and Time Savers ebook. Whether you are a super-organized teacher or a little more relaxed we have multiple strategies, tools, and forms for you. We also provided editable classroom forms to make your life easier.  

Jessica also has 29 Things You Need to Know Before the First Day of School! Hop on over and check out her list… she has FREEBIES! J

Back 2 School Link Up: Parent Communication

It has been a busy week… I started moving into my brand new building. All of the teaches are busy setting up their new classrooms. August is always a whirlwind, but I feel like it especially will be this year.

That being said, I haven’t had a chance to announce last week’s giveaway winner. So, drum roll please…

Debbie, Jessica will be emailing you about getting your gift card!

As I am gearing up for my first day on Monday one thing I always think about and prepare for is parent communication. So, this week Notes from the Portable and I are sharing some of our favorite ideas for communicating with your student’s parents.

I have a communication notebook with a divider and clear page protector for each child. In front of the page protector I put this sheet:

I use this simple form to keep track of how often, when, how, and about what I contacted parents. It makes recording these things super easy. In the page protector I put any absence notes, tardy slips, and conduct referrals.  Want this form? See below how you can get this communication log plus many other amazing beginning of the year resources for FREE below.

 

 

I also make sure to print out any email correspondences between myself and parents. I store these behind their communication log.  It is always good to cover your rear-end. ;)

Another thing I like to do is call my parents at some point during the first week of school. This helps establish a positive relationship, and makes those not-so-fun conversations a little easier.

This week we are giving away our Teacher Time Savers: Everything You Need for the Beginning of the Year pack, plus any item you want from each of our stores! That’s 3 fantastic products all for FREE!! Just enter below…

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Back 2 School - Getting to Know You Activities

Time to start planning those back to school activities! This week Notes from the Portable and I are sharing some of our favorite getting to know you activities and games.

Getting to know your students is important. Knowing their likes and hobbies will allow you to engage them throughout the year.... if Little Johnny loves baseball he will enjoy solving baseball themed word problems in math.

One 'get to know you' activity that I love is NAME ART. It is a minimum prep activity (love that too!). All I do it type my students name in bubble letters using Power Point.

Print their names out and have them decorate the letters with things the love. While they are working on this you will have a few minutes to do those tedious first week tasks (you know- organizing 20 packs of paper so they fit in your cabinet). Then, when everyone is done have the students share their name art. I like to hang their name art somewhere in the room.

 

Another good and time consuming activity I have my students do is an All About Me banner. Each kid decorates a pennant, then they share it with the class. I take there picture with this frame and they put it on the pennant. Then, I string the pennants into a banner and hang it in the hallway.  You can download these banners HERE!

 

 

Lastly, now that you have gotten to know you students, now it is time for them to get to know you! I like to play a little game... 25 Facts About Your Teacher! I tell the students 25 facts about me, and when I am done I try to see if they can remember them all. I have played the 'game' several ways...

 *Students can call out facts until you get to 25

*Students can work in pairs/groups to list as many as they can

*Students can list as many as they can on their own - see who can list the most.

I created a Power Point that I use to share my facts. This ensures I won't forget a fact as I am introducing myself and allows me to quickly check off the facts that they can remember.
You can download this editable template HERE for FREE!!

 

Of course, we have another great prize this week... a $25 Michael's gift card! Enter below!

 

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And the Winner Is....

Thanks to all of the people that entered our $25 Target Gift Card Giveaway! Notes from the Portable and I have randomly selected a winner....

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We hope you will join us again this Thursday for another Back to School Link Up and of course, another fun give away!!

Intoducing....Back 2 School Link Up !

I hate to bring this up… I know it is only July, but many of us will be reporting for preplanning very soon. Yup, back to school time is right around the corner. #Sorry #Don’tHateMeForBringingItUp

To make this ‘season’ easier, Jessica Zannini from Notes from the Portable and I are hosting a new link-up each Thursday for the next 4 weeks. We hope you will participate!

Here are the topics we will cover:

July 16th- KICKOFF WEEK! Setting up your classroom

July 23th- Procedures & Teaching them to your students

July 30th- Getting to know you ideas & games

August 6th- Communicating with parents

Jessica will host the first link up July 16th. If you post on social media please use #back2schoollinkup. We will also have weekly giveaways, including TPT gift certificates!

We look forward to sharing ideas with you and reading about what you do in your classroom.

 

Classroom Sneak Peak

It has been a very BUSY past few weeks! I went in to my classroom a couple of days before pre-planning to start prepping. Once pre-planning officially began my to-do list got longer, and longer, and longer, and it is still growing. Although, I set up my room the same as I did last year, I am loving my revamped bulletin boards and a few other additions. I have a brief sneak peak for you, but you will have to stay tuned because close-ups are coming soon.

This is my new writing board. I decided to do banners instead of letters on all my boards and I am obsessed! I love my writing goals chart I created after seeing it on Mrs. Heeren's Happenings blog. Her goals chart is super cute, but I needed to adapt it a bit for my friends.

 

This is my favorite part of my room! I love the way it turned out. Those are GingerSnaps's genre posters above my library.

 

Another banner... I love the way it turned out. Ignore the stacks of papers on the counter, I took this picture right before Open House. Can you spot my snazzy caddies and my crayon drawers?

 

 

Lastly, here is the little present I had waiting for my students at Open House. Again, this was not my idea... I can thank Pinterest for it. You can download the pencil tags for FREE over at A Cupcake for the Teacher.

 

Ok, I have to get back to work on some new TPT products. But, before I do, I have a question for my fellow TPT sellers... how do you handle product requests?

I have received a few lately, and I want to get them done in a timely fashion. With school starting again I am struggling to find the time to work on them. I would love any advice on requests.