I love RANDOM Posts.

Just wanted to share some pictures that I've been hoarding...

This is part of my current hall display.  Definitely nothing fancy, but I'm proud of all the work!  On the top row are posters that summarized events that we had been discussing in SS.  All the groups had different ideas for presenting the information and it worked out perfectly!  The second row are our chemical and physical change comic books that we created!  Again, I'm a proud teacher! :)

An example of of the groups poster. This was about the Watergate Scandal.  I loved how they decided to create a newspaper article!

Not much color on this poster, but this group illustrated the Camp David Accord!

Timeline of events that occurred during the 1950-1960's.  Students had to write a summary of the event and find the dates for the event then glue them on the timeline!

Another display that my students created were summaries of different decades.  They had the 1950's-2000's.  They had to tell us about the presidents, the government spending, the way America was dealing with foreign countries, and any other important events that may occurred.  Students also chose to include music and clothes because we listened to music from each decade we discussed!

And last, but not least... :)  

Motivational posters made from two different classes for my homeroom.  Yes, the green one has HEDGEHOGS on it!  If you don't know, I'm obsessed with hedgies!

A student gave this to me, she said it was a hedgehog that came from her kids meal. :) <3

Another teacher bought this for me, the same one that made the green poster! :) Love it!

Preparing for State Testing

We just finished our state testing on Friday of last week.  What do you do to prepare for state testing?  I use the typical Jeopardy and Are you Smarter than a fifth graders, but here are some other items that I've created, bought, and thought of over the years...

I made my own Government BINGO cards.  Each card is completely different and the students are mainly reviewing important documents we discussed, amendments, and the amendment process.

On the other side of the same card is an overview of SS for the ENTIRE year!  This is always fun to see kids trying to recall these important events that we've not talked about since the beginning of the school year.

I downloaded these Where Am I Cards and students had fun trying to guess where I was.  Next time, I think I will ask them to point it out on the MAP!!  Here is the link to get these for FREE!!

I started doing these when I taught third grade and I love them, plus the students do too!  Basically, you fold the paper at the bottom up about 2 inches.  You then write three clues about a person and have students guess the Who Am I?  I actually let my students draw names out of bag to get their assigned person.  They then read them to the class and have their classmates guess!  You could do this with Where am I? or even What am I? and do vocabulary words!

Here is the answer, which is written under the 2 inch flap.

In Science, I had created games already for each unit, so we pulled those games out and revisited them.  So what about you, what do you do to make reviewing fun and meaningful?

Hodge Podge of Items

All year long I've taken pictures and told myself, this is definitely "blog" worthy.  However, my intentions are good, but the follow through hasn't been.  I updated our classroom blog a LOT more than this one!  In fact, there are PLENTY of fun ideas over there that I promise will make their way to this blog! :)

Anyways, for now accept my apologies and this hodge podge of ideas for you!

This is just a picture of my SHOUT OUTS I did before I left on a Friday afternoon.  When students arrived on Monday morning they were excited to see their names on the board for EXCELLENT conduct grades!  I'm always amazed at how far little things like this will go!

I always get the best ideas from other teachers!  Upon entering Mrs. Harman's room last year I thought WOW, why didn't I think of that?  This is just a LARGE clothes pin that is by my door.  It catches papers that need to be passed out or needs to go to the office.  It is the go to place if I'm looking for an important piece of paper!  I bought this at Target from the Dollar Spot!

So I blogged before about my classroom management system.  The pictures were old and I've definitely updated the look since then.  You can find the blog here.  In a nut shell, the three classes are competing for links.  When their links touch the ground they receive a prize and the game starts BACK over.  Originally I kept it going and each class wasn't really competing with each other.  However, this is CHEAPER, plus the kids are excited to earn their links!  Unfortunately, this year my homeroom hasn't won the classroom competition yet!  Mrs. Walters class has won the most! We voted on the 5 classroom objectives at the beginning of the year.

Close up, laminated so that I can erase the expectations each year and write new ones if needed.

Paper clip, 2 index cards, and hot glue hold it all together.

My students LOVE when they walk in my classroom and see this spinner on the board!  You can turn ANYTHING into a review!  For this particular review students spun the spinner and then had to point to the cell parts on a larger diagram of plant and animal cells.  If they landed on the free, they could point and name any part they wanted.  Here is where you can purchase this spinner, plus two additional ones.  

Lastly,  my timeline is something that I'm proud of in my classroom.  More about the timeline can be found here.  With each unit we've added the important events to the timeline.  This kept up in check all year long!  The only thing that I would do differently next year is to make the cards smaller, not the words, but just trim off the extra color on the back.  It got a bit crowded on the timeline!  I also might be moving this up front!  

Classroom Digs

Well, I'm late to teacher week.  If you've read my blog you know that I started back with the kids on Monday.  So I finished my first week last week during the official teacher week.  I was completely exhausted EVERYDAY and even yesterday I slept forever. :)  I'm playing catchup today, so bare with me as I share my classroom with you! ;)

If you're late to the party, or would like to see the others that linked up click on the picture!

I already shared some photos of my classroom, you can go here to see them..

But here is more! <3

As you walk in this is immediately to your right.  My reminder board is where I write homework or information sent from office that I need to tell students.  "Jimmy is a car rider today!"  I also have my signs for no name and hall passes.  The red bucket is for absent students.  The sign says "Were you absent?"  The folders inside have the days of the week and any day they are absent they can get the missed info from here.

My book shelf has already been used, so hence the messiness!  I am excited to have just my Science and SS books out for students!  On top of the shelf, the green and purple trays, are where I keep the twitter board cards! :) 

The students LOVED the SWAG sign! :) On this shelf I have health books, dictionaries, the black trays are for 4-H info for each class.  The red bin is for 4-H coke tabs that are collected throughout the year. 

Classroom Competition, blog coming soon! ;)  I am also in the process of making a new poster because we changed our requirements.

Edmodo Best Practices available by the computers to remind students of what is acceptable. 

 My desk, that I DO NOT use. LoL.  Unfortunately, it is the one item in the classroom that cannot be removed.  It can be moved around the room, but it cannot leave the classroom.  The black and gray buckets are for organization! More on that to come later!

I need to redo my labels, but here is where I keep scissors, rulers, crayons, etc. 

Teacher bookshelf 

Organization.  The shelf is more of a paper holder, instead of using it for student mailboxes.  I have 26 homeroom students, but teach 84 altogether. 

This goes along with our classroom competition! I'll be writing a blog about this soon! However, if you want to read about how it worked my first year, click here. 

Student point of view... 

When you walk in this is what you see. 

The little ol' white board. 

This is my entrance.

Thanks for visiting my classroom! <3

LOVING my classroom!

Well, I went back to the school today.  I'm not complete done, but I'm ready for pre-planning and I can finish up the rest sometime during those three days.  I told my hubby tonight that this is the first time that I feel, "Hey this is my classroom."  Every year I've moved!  I've moved schools and classrooms.  I got to stay in the same room, same grade, and same subjects this year.  Anywho, here are the last minute items I made and hung up today. ;)  

 I absolutely love my SWAG banner. I hope the students like it, too.  The original idea came from http://blog.mdigitalmarketing.com/  However, I changed the got to has because I'm proper like that! LoL.

 Yay, for my timeline.  The hubby helped me with this.  All we did was cut poster board in half, draw a line in the middle and then put cute name stickers every five inches apart. ;)  The students will be adding facts and dates to the timeline throughout the year.

 I gave myself some extra "time" on my timeline by going to 2020! LoL

 Technically, our standards cover 1860 to present, but we talk about briefly about how "America happened" (referring to the McDonald's Commercial!)

UPDATE on my timeline, click here.

 We got the desk moved and I put a table up near the board to place the computer for the promethean board.  Ignore the mess, that is one of my to do's still.

Here is the desk in the corner. :) 

Got this awesome poster at Target. I will write reminders and notes from the office like "Johnny rides the bus today."  It will also be where I write homework. :) 

The green and purple bins will hold the Twitter items for the Twitter board. 

Right outside my door for parents to scan, even visitors.  It takes them to my blog and gives them my email address. 

View of the rest of the items around my door.  The green paper beside my QR poster is how I tell students what books they need to bring to class.  I'm not a big book user and books can get heavy, so sometimes we only need one, or even just paper and pencils. 

Still have a table, that is now in the middle of this picture, that needs to be moved out.  

The front of my room. :) 

I got the frames hung without the ribbons. :) I hope they stay!  These are my EQ frames.

How is your room looking??