First Day Activities

Let me start off with pointing out how FAST summer went by! It doesn't matter if we get out in May or June, the summer seems to always seems to go by too fast! My first day of school was on Wednesday and I wanted to share with you some of the activities that we kicked off our school year with. 

The first activity that we did this year was the toilet paper activity. You should see the students faces when their new teacher is asking them to take toilet paper for no reason! After everyone gets settled in, I have them write one thing about themselves for every square of toilet paper that they need. In the past I've found that its difficult for them to actually write on the toilet paper, so this year I made a sheet for them to write on. 

Kids love the chance to share about their summer, or something about themselves and its an easy ice breaker as well as sets limits for students to share.  Next up was getting our class mission statement and rules started. This is one of the first things that I do each year because it can really set the tone for the entire school year. I started off by reading a really cute book to my students. "Mrs McBloom, Clean Up Your Classroom!" by Kelly DiPucchio is a funny book about a teacher who is retiring and can't figure out how to clean our her messy classroom. Click here to purchase the book!    After I read the book aloud, student then had the chance to write about their idea of the perfect classroom. Once everyone had thought about how their perfect classroom would sound, feel and look students got into groups and shared their ideas. Each student had 1 minute to share about their perfect classroom. 

This activity lead into the groups making our class mission statement, each group made their own mission statement and then we complied the best of each one into our final product. Even though this activity is very time consuming it is worth it in the end. 

My FAVORITE activity to do on the first day of school is making goals. On the first day everyone is excited and eager to learn so it seems to be the best time to talk about goal setting. This year I found an awesome book "Salt in His Shoes" By Deloris Jordan and Roslyn Jordan. This is a story about Michael Jordan and how he worked hard to meet his goals. Click Here if you are interested in purchasing this book. I really liked this book because it appealed to my boys and they could relate to Michael Jordan and his goals. 

After discussing goals and what a good goal looks like, students were set free to plan out their goals. I directed students to include at least 2 academic goals and 1 personal goal for the school year. Once everyone had their amazing goals, we created our art project to display our work out in the hallway. 

Aren't these just the cutest things you've ever seen?!

I love having something from the first day of school to display out in the hallway that is so meaningful. 

Finally to end the first day of school was homework! I have done this activity every year and I've never had a student forget to do this homework. 

The Brown Bag Activity is always a hit in my classroom, even if it is homework. The kids really love getting to share about themselves and bring in some of their favorite things. I love that is works on students speaking and listening skills early on in the school year! 

If you would like any of these activities, with lesson plans, for the first few days of school for your big kids, just click here! 

I hope that you have an awesome first day of school and a great school year to follow! 

First Week of School & a Freebie

The frist week of the 2015 - 2016 school year is over and let me tell you I am one tired teacher! We had a super busy week in 5th grade and one of the highlights was getting to spend some extra time outside learning about relative and absolute location.  We started off by spending a day talking about relative location and giving directions to places from our school. Students were responsible for written down directions to their house, and then sharing them with a partner. They all loved getting to share where their house was, and especially getting to hear about where my house is. We spent time discussing the cardinal directions and how we can use maps for relative location. At the end of the first day students worked to give relative locations from places in the United States. If you want this freebie, just click the picture below. 

On the second day of this lesson we reviewed relative location and then I chose several students to pick random items from our classroom to take outside. When we first got outside I had the students lay down their items wherever they wanted on our basketball court. Then we had blindfolded volunteers listen to directions to the random objects. We discussed how helpful the directions where and what made good directions to the objects. The kids really loved this part, especially those who got to be blindfolded. 

After this review of relative location, I had several students work together to create a grid. Once the grid was made, we placed the objects in the squares and students then gave directions to each objects. They determined that using the grid helped them give more exact locations for the objects. We then worked to make a definition of absolute location. 

After we spent our time outside, we went back to the classroom and focused on lines of latitude. Its pretty confusing for 5th graders to understand that even though the lines run east and west, they are labeled and read north and south. I have found that by teaching them the saying "latitude is flatiude" it really helps them remember the difference. 

Next week we are going to put latitude and longitude together and head back out side to our parking lot that has the United States painted on it!

{Week 3} BTS in a flash

Hello all! I cannot believe that I have been back in school for 5 days already! Its been super hard to get up in the morning, but I'm loving getting to know my kiddos. 

This week on BTS in a Flash with Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher, Fancy Free in Fourth and Ramona Recommends the theme is Decor and More. Let me tell you, getting to decorate every years is one of the things I love about being a teacher, plus you know, teaching the kids and all. :) 

One of my favorite bulletin boards this year is my new helpers board. I purchases this from Amy Groesbeck (I love her stuff) and it was perfect for me. First of all, is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen? I also love that there are so many job options to choose from and I can change them around throughout the year to fit our needs. Its also great because she includes a description for each job and a job application sheet. 

This year at my school had some teachers move around, which means I stole snagged this great kidney table. This will be my 4th year teaching and I've never had one so I figured why not strike while the iron is hot? I cut out some vinyl circles on my circuit and it was ready to roll! I love how the bright colors on the table make it pop, and the $5 Family Dollar tables stools don't look bad either! 

Finally, I have these ugly brick walls that NOTHING will stick to without hot glue and the remains are left behind from year to year. So, this year I decided I was going to do something to hide as much of it as I could. I hot glued black bulletin board paper underneath my whiteboard, added some chevron boarder and this awesome grammar pack from Learning in Wonderland. Hopefully the hot glue will hold throughout the year! 

Be sure to link up for BTS Decor and More! I love looking and and getting ideas from all of you fancy people out there! 

{Week 2} BTS in a FLASH

This week the theme for BTS in a flash with Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher, Fancy Free in 4th and Ramona Recommends is curriculum must haves! 

When I was thinking of my curriculum must haves, it was really hard to narrow it down to just three! There are so many wonderful and useful products on TPT that I use every year, and with this week being the BTS sale, my wish list was loaded down with products. 

My must have products are some of my go to's and one go to that I would love to have! 

Frist, is a product that I made specifically because I couldn't find any products like it on TPT. One of the 5th grade math standards is that students must interpret a fraction as division of the numerator by the denominator. My first year of teaching, while I was building all of my must have curriculum this was one of the standard that I was difficult for me to find resources for. So I took the situation into my own hands and made something up. I a responsible for learning my on RTI group, so while I am working with a small group my other kiddos are working on centers. I typically use this resource for one of those RTI centers, but at times I pull it in for a walk-the-room type of thing. This product is on sale for $2.00 until tomorrow, click the picture to purchase. 

In 5th grade Social Studies is HUGE and one of our biggest, and most difficult, units is American Government. My students have a wide range of schema about this topic, and a wide range of reading abilities, so this product from The Sweetest Thing was a life saver. This product has a variety of passages about American Government in a variety of reading levels. All of my students can read at their own level and we can still have class discussions because all of the passages are very similar. I use these passages in reading to practice a skill, and then carry over their knowledge into my Social Studies lessons. If you teach government, I would HIGHLY recommend this product. 

Last but not least a product on my wish list. Jennifer Findley from Teaching to Inspire Fifth has been one of my favorite TPTers and bloggers since I started teaching. I am always so excited too see one of her new products. I've had my eye on this decimal differentiated constructed response back for a while now and I do believe that this TPT sale is going to be the extra motivation I need to purchase this product. If you haven't checked out Jennifer Findley on TPT you should go there now! 

With school starting back I can't wait to read everyone's must have curriculum! 

BTS in a Flash!

I am so excited to link up with Fancy Free in 4th, Ramona Recommends, and Not So Wimpy Teacher for their back to school in a flash series. I start school on August 5th, which is too soon! I feel like summer just started and I'm not read to set my alarm clock again. 

This week's them for the BTS in a flash is teacher faves, and let me tell you have I have a lot of favorite things. My favorite color is pink, my favorite food is basically anything, my favorite book is "Gone with the Wind" and I also have a lot of back to school favorites too!

My favorite back to school activity is something that I learned in college and have never forgotten. I'm not sure if it has a formal name, but I've always called it the "Brown Bag Activity." Even though my students moan when I say "Get your agendas out to write down your first homework assignment" on the first day of school, they always seem to get over it by the next day. The brown bag activity is a fun way for me to get to know each of the kids, and maybe the kids to learn something new about each other. If you are interested in learning more about this activity, its a freebie in my store! Click the picture to head on over! 

First of all, there are two favorites in this picture. I have always been lover of the flair pens, but then I ran across these beauties. I am in LOVE with the liquid flair pens, if you've never tried them, walk run to the nearest store to check them out. I actually bought mine of amazon, because that is another one of my favorite thing, but we'd need a whole blog post about that. The second favorite of mine in this picture is my Erin Condren life planner. If you are interested in purchasing your own and want $10 of, click the picture above! I'm also addicted to buying stickers and everything else that goes with the planner. I just bought my first teacher planner too and I'm in love with it also. Does anyone have any good sticker recommendations for the teacher planner? 

Most teachers drink coffee, right? Not me I prefer to get my caffeine in a bubbly way. Ask any of my past students, I love Diet Coke. I'm not going to get through the first day of school like a VIP with out my Diet Coke. 

Last in this back to school favorite is my favorite back to school read aloud. Teaching the big kiddos we don't often get to read picture books, even though I try. I have found that the big kids love Mrs. McBloom and her crazy classroom. I use this book to talk about keeping our room clean obviously but also working together to get things done. This helps me lead into creating our classroom mission statement and setting up rules and expectations for the school year. 

So, what are your favorites for back to school?