Bright Ideas: Use plastic dividers to display student work

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook then you have seen several of my back-to-school posts. You heard me correctly...back...to...school. This week was back to work for teachers and on Monday I get to meet my new class (well, the few that didn't make it to Meet the Teacher). I'm so excited for this school year!

I wanted to share a little Bright Idea. This is something I totally stole from another teacher my first year of teaching, I've used it ever since (and this will be year 12 for me!). I'm so not the type of teacher that is in to making super cute bulletin boards and changing them out during the year. I am low maintenance - I typically leave most of my same bulletin boards up for several years at a time before I feel the need to change them.

This is my current student work bulletin board...

These pocket dividers are colorful yet transparent and make a super easy way to display student work. As an added bonus, it is sooooo easy to change it up throughout the school year without doing a major overhaul (you should of seen me just trying to put up a piece of butcher paper on the wall...hilarious!). They are also super cheap and very durable. Most of the ones I have are from my first year of teaching (well, not these, because I wanted different colors this year).

Just cut off the divider tabs and attach them to the wall (I just staple the top). Throughout the year students can slip in their amazing work. I mostly use them for student writing, and I have them leave their work in them all year so at the end of the year - BAM - writing portfolio!

The nametags are simply laminated and hot glued on (they peel off super easy when you want to change them). I use a Vis-a-Vis marker so that I can easily change the names for the following year.

For those of you that use GoNoodle, you'll notice a theme here. All of the tags are free from GoNoodle! My previous theme was popcorn. You can get an idea of what it looked like before...

I hope you found my Bright Idea useful and that you have an WONDERFUL back-to-school, whenever it may be for you. For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

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100 Acts of Kindness

Ahhh, summer vacation is here . . . and now I have time to work (what's wrong with me?!)! I have so many blog and TpT items on my to-do list for summer. Some are a bit ambitious, and I'm sure I won't accomplish everything on our short 6 week break (we're on a modified year-round schedule), plus I'm going to be out of the country for two weeks! But today I got together with my friend Dana from Learning Required to initiate her into TpT (go follow her brand new store)!

While she was working on her first freebie I went ahead and updated my very first freebie. It is perfect timing because I was planning on posting about it anyhow.

With the last few weeks of school approaching my class seemed to becoming a bit meaner to each other (surprising because I had a very sweet class!). It was time to put operation 100 Acts of Kindness into action. It is such a quick, easy, and low maintenance way to get students thinking about being kinder to each other and recognizing their peers for their kindness.

In the past I have done this as a whole month challenge, but I obviously didn't have a month, it was our last full week of school. I cleared a bulletin board and stapled up a folder to hold the tickets then copied a bunch on brightly colored papers, cut them apart and placed them in the folder. A quick explanation and model of how to fill out a ticket and my 5th graders were all ready to go!

The students were excellent about filling the tickets out at appropriate times of the school day and they would quietly leave the left side of the ticket on my desk and give the right side to the classmate who was caught in an act of kindness. A few times during the day I would staple up the kindness tickets and seeing them go up on the wall prompted students to be more alert and active in giving them out.

Here is what our bulletin board looked like a few days later.

I updated the TpT FREEBIE to look prettier (but the tickets are the same). This is one of those easy-peasy activities to remind students of the importance of kindness and recognizing and thanking others, even if it was just for lending a pencil or picking up a piece of trash.

If you have used, or plan to use, the kindness tickets with your students I'd love to hear your ideas!

It Rocks to be Drug Free!

The teachers at our school always have the most creative Red Ribbon posters. For a couple of years I did "Ms W's Class Leaves Drugs Alone" and had them write something they do instead of drugs on a leaf and then watercolor over it. Then we pasted the leaves on a big tree. Other teachers started doing this, so I went in search for other ideas. Last year we did "We fill our cup with . . . instead of drugs". The students cut out cups that looked like those popular clear tumblers and they wrote in all the things they like to do. It was cute and colorful. This year inspiration struck! I had seen something that had the word "rocks" in it and knew we had to do "It ROCKS to be Drug Free!" I brought in my Guitar Hero/Rock band guitar, mic, and drumsticks and took a photo of each student rocking out. 

Sorry I had to cover the kids faces, many of them had such awesome expressions. And, I don't want to brag or anything, but our class won out of 5th grade. We even got our poster hung in the best spot in the cafeteria, right over the door! 

What genre are you reading?

When I taught 6th grade I felt that the students knew genre pretty well, but this year my 5th graders seem to struggle with it in their Read and Respond (I haven't "taught" genre yet). I set up this genre bulletin board in our classroom library area.

Last year I started using those small shelves from Ikea to display books in my classroom. I don't remember how much they were but they are super easy to install and are very sturdy. Since we study ancient civilizations in 6th grade, I would display books to go along with whatever we were studying: ancient Greece, Rome, China, Egypt, etc. I figured that for 5th grade I would try to display different genres and switch them out every few weeks to help the students understand them better. I used the free genre poster download from Beth Newingham (who coincidentally inspired me to start a classroom economy years ago).

My photo isn't the best, and there is an inconvenient glare, but I currently have up Informational, Mystery, and Realistic Fiction. My hope is that they not only better understand genre, but maybe they'll pick up and read some of the books I have displayed. Books are so much more welcoming when you can see the front cover and not just the spine!

I am also planning on adding an insert to the students' Read and Respond that includes a handy guide to genre.

I {heart} Dollar Tree

I'm sure most teachers have already discovered Dollar Tree and its great teacher section, plus all the other great things to use in the classroom. Before school started I found this popcorn poster with popcorn pieces for $1. Remember, I am not a teacher who makes really crafty bulletin boards (I prefer simple but still effective) so this was not only cheap, but it was an easy way to spruce up my writing folders. There was only one left at the Dollar Tree I was at and it only came with 25 popcorn pieces, so I threw some on the scanner and printed out more.

The colorful folders I have been using forever. I just bought a few packs of the binder dividers that have pockets, cut off the little tabs, and stapled them up. Students have a great way to display writing and I have them leave previous writing in so that at the end of the year it's also a writing portfolio. Plus it's super easy for me because I don't have to do any work to update the bulletin board.

Room in Progress

So, my classroom is still not completely set up (it is set up enough to effectively learn though), and I'm ok with that. I'm not one of those teachers who create elaborate themed rooms or make fancy bulletin boards, I like to keep things simple and I love to fill the walls with student work. Besides, our fire code is extra restrictive...nothing 24" from the ceiling or 24" from the floor, no paper within 6" or outlets, no paper around the door, nothing hanging from the ceiling, etc. You can see from the following photos that I haven't followed this 100%, and if something is said, I'll deal with it then. Anyhow, here is a mini tour of some of the room.


My sister (and nephew) came in over the summer to help me get my walls up and unpack and she did a PHENOMENAL job. I have the best sister ever! She put up this totally cute Domokun board above a bookshelf. Domokun (or Domo as most kids know him now) is pretty popular right now, but I've been a fan for years. The plan is to have Domokun reading a book and to have a cute saying in the cloud, but I obviously haven't gotten to that yet! Any ideas for what to put in the cloud?




One of the Pinterest projects that I couldn't get out of my head was the crate seats. A teacher friend and I went to Treasures4Teachers (a post coming soon) and I found 3 yards of Ikea upholstery fabric for $3. I couldn't say no to a deal like that and within days I had my new crate seats. The only other items I had to buy were: the plywood (about $25), mattress foam ($10), and duct tape ($4). I already had a surplus of crates, and it just so happened that I had three green and three blue. I lowered my round table and have a great new reading/center area. It's only day three of school and I have kids trying to finish their work so they can get back there and read. At one point today I had the table full of quiet boys devouring comic books. Probably the highlight of my day. I put duct tape over the staples so that students can flip the cushions over and use it as a writing surface. I didn't add the loops that other teachers have because it is easy to just stick your hand through the crate handle and pop them out. I also put our dictionaries and thesauri in them to keep them somewhat anchored and sturdy. I'm very pleased with how they turned out and I'm so glad that the kids are excited about using them too.

The biggest project (and the one I was most excited about) was to put contact paper on my tables. I've been hinting at this and now can show some before and after photos (although I wasn't smart enough to get the same angles).

I was inspired by Ladybug's Teacher Files and I chose a formica-esque contact paper ($5 for a 24' roll) and did the edge with black electrical tape. I bought 7 rolls of contact paper and covered eight rectangle tables and one round table. I have quite a bit leftover, and I'm still deciding if I want to put contact paper on the long table I have in the back against the wall.

You may also have noticed my nametags. I used chalkboard contact paper for those and wrote on them with a chalk marker. So far they are not as awesome as I had hoped (students touching them causes them to fade quickly and the marker doesn't come off as easily as the directions state). But I think they still look nice and I can wipe and re-write them when I move students.

I've gotten great comments from teachers that have stopped by my room and even the custodian. Some can't figure out what looks so "nice" and others ask if I got new tables. I'm pretty pleased with them and the kids seem to really like them. I've gone over the expectations for caring for our tables and I'm hoping they last the year and beyond.

First Day of School!

Yeah, you heard me right, school started today! I know most people have weeks of summer vacation left, but we are already in learning mode!

This is the start of my 9th year and it is starting out to be so different than the previous 8. The biggest difference so far, is that I haven't been stressing, and that is a HUGE deal for me. I still haven't finished unpacking from my classroom change and even though the school was open on the weekend I didn't go anywhere near campus. Usually the weekend before school starts is full on anxiety and moping (can anyone say 'pity party'!). But not this year! It was a weekend like any other.

Then this morning came around, I walked into my room and was not greeted by a nice, cool, air-conditioned room. My AC wasn't working! So my new fifth graders and I endured in there for an hour until they headed to specials. We were drenched, but we persevered, and I continued with my theme of not stressing. An hour later the air was fixed and the rest of the day was much more comfortable. Despite the AC fiasco, this was the smoothest first day of school in my career.

I have a lot to share in the coming days/weeks as I get my classroom completed as the kids start diving in. Probably the highlight of the day was Classbook. Each kid (I have one too!) has a status box on the news feed and the kiddos wrote their first day "status" at the end of the day. For now they have the generic Facebook profile pic, but I will be adding their photos soon. I am also going to be introducing a like button and a comment box as well. For now I will be using the Classbook as a place for reflection and for students to write what they have learned. It seems to be a hit so far!

My favorite status of the day: "I had one of the best days of all my school years."

Stay tuned for more Classbook updates!