QR codes and Quick Math review cards

I am joining up with Teaching Trio's Favorite Things again this month.
Here are my November faves:

#1 - I've been using QR codes on lots of things I've been making for my class lately.  The kids love using them.  I've put them on Math  and Language Arts task cards and most recently on Scan to Win tickets that they can buy for 5 classroom dollars.  I got the idea from Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching HERE.  I personalized the set of 25 different tickets for my younger class.  You can get hers at TpT HERE.  
QR codes are super easy to add and to use.  I get them from QR Stuff.  Here's what the page looks like:

Just select "Plain text", fill in what you want the text to read, and click on DOWNLOAD.  Don't bother with the 4th step.  After the code is downloaded just right click on it, select COPY, then paste it into your document.  To read it you need to download a QR scanner.  There are plenty to choose from.  I use Quafter.

#2 - I made this Home Time Clean Up chart last week and has it ever made a difference in the classroom.  Everyone is focused on their job, and things are done quickly and efficiently.  I've done this before and I'm not sure why it took me so long to get it established this year.

My class sits at 4 hexagonal tables - 6 kids at each table.  I put numbers  stickers under the lips of the tables, so that each student has a number from 1 to 6.  When a student is away one of the "floaters" from tables 3 or 4 fill in for them.  The supervisor checks that the jobs are done and everyone has stacked their chair before they leave.  They also help everyone out.
Every other week I get them to rotate one place to the right so they have a different job. About every 6 weeks I change the seating plan completely.   

#3 - Every day when my class meets together to start our Math block I do a quick spiral review of  3 concepts.  They aren't necessarily something that we are going to be working on that day.  I used to do this fairly randomly, but then I decided to get more organized to make sure we covered everything they should know and needed to be using, both in school and out of it. So I went through our B.C. Math curriculum to see what they are expected to be learning over the course of the year, prioritized them, and put them in order.

I made a set of cards (grade 2) for these.  There is a concept to review for each day of the week and there are cards for each month of the year.  I cut them into individual months, mounted them on construction paper, laminated them, and put them onto a ring that I hang on my Math wall for easy access. 

They only take a couple of minutes to do each day but this year I have third graders and I can see the difference they made, especially with concepts that you cover and then move on from.
Things like time, for example.  When time is on my daily card I pull out my big Judy clock and set it to whatever increment of time I want to cover.  Then I turn it around and show the class.  Last year I had first and second grade, so I'd show an hour or half hour time on the clock and have the one's call out the time.  The grade two's would rate their answer with a thumbs up or thumbs down, then I'd change the clock to an increment of 5 minutes for the two's to answer.  In a minute there's time to do about 3 or 4 of these for each grade.  If you don't have a combined class you could do double that many!
I have been amazed this year by what a great handle the kids who were in my class last year have on this concept, while the others have forgotten what they learned because it was taught in a short period of time and not reinforced over the year.  I didn't actually do a time unit like I usually do with my class last year.  I just threw a time worksheet in every now and then for them to work on, and included time activities in my Math drawers (centers) three or four times during the year.
Other concepts included in the grade 2 set are counting on and back, skip counting, partners for 10, 10 more/less, count by 10's then count on by 1's, months of the year, ......There are 3 for each day of the week.
If you'd like a set for free click HERE.  I could make them fancier and cuter, but WHY?  They WORK!
PS: If you teach grade 1-I used these same cards for my firsties, since I had the combined class last year, so this year they're all feeling  confident with the grade 2 concepts.

Rotating Buddies

Oh! Snap!  It IS almost September! At least it's officially half way through August and that's getting very close. 

If you're not back at school yet like me, you're probably starting to think about it a lot. Time to start getting ready. 

One of the first things I do after I get my class list is get my buddy system ready.
I have tried all sorts of systems for classroom partners including choose your own buddy (takes too long if you do it one student at a time, causes too much angst if you do it en masse) and drawing sticks, but this is the one I've been using for the last 15 years and it works really well for me.
I make name tags for each of the kids, laminated and backed with a magnet.  I put them on my chalkboard (now painted with whiteboard paint) in two columns in alphabetical order going down the left side, around and up the right side.   

Here is a sample of what the rotation would look like.  Since I don't have my class list yet I made up one. This is a great class (16 students?  In my dreams!) with pretty good gender balance.  Also great 
for teaching alphabetical order (and -y endings....lol).

If the list on the left was for Monday the one to the right would be Tuesday - I rotate the name tags counter clockwise at the end of each day.  This year I'll have second and third graders, so I'll get one of them to do it as an end-of-the-day job.
If there's an odd number of kids in the class  I have a single on the top one day and on the bottom the next.  That student has the same options as students whose buddies are away.

The kids keep the same buddy for most activities all day.  Everyone knows who their buddy is and who it will be tomorrow.  No waste of time deciding who will be buddies and no disappointment that someone didn't get chosen.  Everyone takes turns buddying with everybody else.  If a student is away I just pull their name out to the side for that day.  The person across the list from them buddies with another student who has no buddy or, if they are all buddied up, gets to choose to either join another pair, have me for a buddy (if I'm available for the activity) or another adult who is in the class, or go solo, if that is a possibility. 
 I also make tags that say Right and Left (they look tiny in my picture, but they're actually the same size as the name tags - I added them to my screen as an afterthought and didn't have much room to fit them in-LOL) on them and put them above the names, so I can direct them e.g.: the person on the left gets to go first and the one on the right gets to pick the spot where they'll do the activity. It is also good for re-enforcing the left/right concept.

I don't use this system for times when they are going to do a partner activity after finishing work because it's unlikely that they will both be finished at the same time.  When a student is done they go to get the things they will need for the activity then wait for the next person to join them.

If you'd like to make a set for your class you can pick them up HERE. They're editable in Word.
If you use Pages get them HERE.

I have a few things in my TpT store that are great to pull out in September. 

Getting to Know You is an activity I put together for my class to do during the first couple of weeks. 

To get them hooked on doing the activity I call it a "game" and add a dice rolling component. 
It's FREE HERE.

Incentive tags are a standby in my classroom. The kids love to collect them. My printer and laminator will be at work soon printing up these September ones. 

They are $1 in my TpT store HERE.

Or if you'd like a great deal get the fall three month combo set. 

They're usually $2 but right now they're on sale HERE for only $1.25. 

 I'm off to link up with Teacher Deals and Dollar Steals for their September linky.  Hop on over to get some great goodies for your classroom.

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Throwback Thursday - Tables vs desks

I am so loving all the great posts ideas that are being shared on Freebelicious' linky that I just had to jump in.  Here is the third blog post that I wrote.  It's on tables vs desks in the classroom.

 

                                             Go to the linky by clicking HERE.

The beauty of tables

#1  Neatness
The best thing I ever did in my classroom was switching from desks to tables. The Friday desk cleaning ritual was always my low point of the week, and there are always some kids who are natural hoarders and fill up the whole recycle bin all by themselves.  I would rather use the time for playing games, doing Science, Math, reading,...... Most of their supplies go into the blue Table Tote that each member of the group is responsible for keeping tidy.  Their notebooks and duo tangs are kept in bins near the tables.You can see these in the picture below.  They each also have a Book Box for Quiet Reading books, their Home Reading, and anything that needs to go home.  We check these during Home Time clean up each day to make sure they have all the papers they need to take with them.

#2 Efficiency
I have four tables that can seat six kids each.  I put a number sticker on the black part of the table in front of the chair (I'm wondering why you can't see one in the picture.  It should be in front of that empty chair.??).  I just have to say, "Number 3 get the Math duo tangs for your table (or hand out papers, or put the duo tangs away, etc.)".
Their duo tangs are colour (Canadian spelling not an error....) coded according to subject and I always ask them to "stack your duo tangs on your tables in a nice neat pile beside the tote tray, all facing the same way when you're done."  I'm sure they must get sick tired of hearing this, but by the end of the first couple of weeks most kids do it automatically.  No more shuffling around through desks to try to find the right notebook or duo tang. 
Also on the efficiency theme, students can be dismissed from whole class meetings, go to their book boxes, centers, or line up by table numbers which reduces confusion during transition times.

#3. Changing the seating plan
A third big benefit is that it is really easy to change the seating arrangement. The kids just pick up their chairs and take them to their new locations.  I label their chair backs with their names at the beginning of the year for easy identification by on-call teachers, other adults who work in the room, and me for the first few weeks when I'm still getting to know them.  It also helps me see very quickly in the morning who is late or away since the kids do an "at their desk" activity until morning announcements are over.

4.  Conservation

Kids use WAY less supplies since they are shared amongst a group.  I used to be passing out pencils and erasers constantly.  I even had a monthly program with a bunch of draws that kids earned entry slips for.  It was a tedious and costly endeavour.  And the careless kids didn't seem to improve much and got upset because they didn't earn many draw slips so had slim chances of winning.  It was  lose-lose situation.   Now they are much more mindful that the supplies belong to everyone - and if they forget they are quickly reminded.
 On the shelf behind you can see thelittle blue basket that the table's felts are kept in.  This is a big SCORE for me because since they share I only have to put out 4 boxes of felts for every 6 kids.  That's 8 boxes of felts that I don't have to purchase out of my limited classroom supply funds. If occasionally the colour they need isn't available there's another bin with felts left over from previous years that they can help themselves to. (this actually doesn't happen very often, and I can pretty much bet that they'll need either red of black).
Their notebooks and duo tangs also benefit from being put into bins in a "nice, neat pile" instead of being stuffed into desks where they often get crumpled and ripped.
There will always be kids who are naturally organized and others who are "gifted in different areas", and I'm not saying that the latter group become Tina Tidy and Norman Neat by sharing supplies, but it sure helps.

#5 If you don't have tables....
 A couple of years ago I switched up from grade one to grade two.  Alas! My tables were too small for the grade two's as the year progressed and I had to go back to using desks (at least they are the kind with removable trays).  I group the desks together and still treat them just as if they were tables.  The trays have a few things very few things in them because there is a place for them to put all their supplies and papers.
One of the disadvantages to having desk groupings instead of tables was that the desks would move apart and sometimes the tote trays would fall between them making a huge mess to clean up causing chaos and disruption.  Last year I took a sharpie and made circles where the four corner legs of each group should stay.  That helped some, but there was still considerable "drift" which had to be corrected at the end of each day.  Then I saw an excellent suggestion in Mrs. Terhune's blog for keeping the desks together as a unit.  She used zip ties around the legs of adjacent desks to hold them together!   Brilliant!  Here is a link to her awesome classroom organization post.

zip ties holding desks together

Second Post (with pictures!!) and a Freebie (if I can figure out how to link it...)

Wednesday August 14, 2013

Only three weeks left of summer and I'm really getting excited about getting back to school. At the same time I am beginning to panic a little about all the things I want to cram into these precious last weeks of summer:  visiting my parents on Vancouver Island,

View of the glacier in Courtenay, B.C.

 making dill pickles and canning peaches,

Last year's dwindling supply

cleaning, weeding, the list goes on and on.

Oh, did I mention getting my classroom ready?  I went in for a few hours on Sunday. It took me ages to figure out a new floor plan because I got a great new carpet (YAY!) late last year which I can have over in a corner instead of in the middle of the room.
I have been busy over the summer (inspired by the excellent blogs I've been following) updating some of my mismatched classroom items and making things that I've seen on Pinterest and in teaching blogs. I decided to redo some of my older things that needed a facelift (and after 20 years of teaching that added up to a lot) in primary colours - bright and simple.  I blew a wad of my Scholastic bonus coupons and picked up other goodies at dollar stores.

Here is one of the things I made. It is a set of washroom flipcards ala Clutter-Free Classroom.  After much thought I decided to go with student numbers on some things that will be used from year-to-year.  When kids go to the washroom they flip the cards so their number is on top.  When they return to the classroom they flip back so the "boys" or "girls" card is back on top. I made it easy for them to flip back to the "boys"or "girls" card by making them a bit bigger than their number cards. This picture is before it was assembled. I printed it on cardstock, laminated the cards and hole punched them, then attached the numbers on metal rings (after I took the pictures).  I think this will be a big improvement on having the kids print their names in a corner of the board, both aesthetically and functionally.

I am hoping to place a link to the flipcards here so that you can download them if you like them.  This is my first attempt at doing this so if it doesn't work and you'd like a copy please leave a comment and ask me to e-mail them to you.

I am planning to post my next blog much sooner than I got around to this one.  To be honest I was procrastinating while madly wishing for a copy of Blogging for Dummies (which I actually found in a google search!).  My next post will be about building a positive classroom atmosphere at the beginning of the school year.  I will include a freebie for an activity that my class does in the first week back.