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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Bright Idea - Nearly Painless Filing and Returning Student Work

My blog reader is full of amazing teacher blogs and my favorite entries have always been the Bright Ideas posts. So, I am super excited to finally link up with all these creative bloggers and their awesome ideas.

When I started teaching (11 years ago!) I didn't have a system for returning student work. Ok, I did have a system, but it wasn't the best system. I would hold on to graded work until I had a few ready to hand out and then divide them up and have the kids pass them out to each other. While this might be a quick way to accomplish this task it left me with some concerns: 1. I was wasting valuable instruction time, 2. students could see the grades of their classmates, and 3. who knows if mom/dad would ever see it!

A couple years after that I changed schools and grade levels. My new team members would staple all graded work to the weekly newsletter which then had to be signed by parents and returned the following week. This ensured that (most) parents were now seeing weekly assignments and grades. Genius! So the next year or two I remember Thursday nights, sitting on my living room floor with a pile or papers. Step one was to alphabetize them and step two was to lay them all out and begin to grab from each pile. Madness! This was the part of the week that I absolutely loathed.

Finally, I realized two important things needed to happen. First, that my students needed numbers to help me organize their work more quickly. They are assigned a number at the beginning of the year and write it next to their name on all assignments. Next, I invested in a cheap crate and some hanging folders. I labeled each one with the student numbers. Another plus is that I can use these over and over again because it doesn't have student names on it!

The front purple folder isn't numbered. All work that has been graded goes straight in there to be filed later by a helper or myself. Note: The "W" after the number was when I taught 6th grade and our students went to multiple teachers. Students in my homeroom put a "W" after their number while students from my teammates homeroom put a "D" after their number. This is a great way to file for those that platoon/departmentalize!

Here are some spelling tests awaiting filing. When it is time to file them it is easy to locate the student number on the paper and quickly place it in that numbered folder! I've never timed myself, but I think I can file each assignment in about a minute or two.

Other important papers (book orders, flyers, permission slips) often go in as well. Ahhh...nice and organized!

Fridays run so smoothly now! I grab all that papers out of each folder, staple them to the newsletter, and they are ready to go home! No more bringing them home on a Thursday night!

If you have enjoyed this bright idea consider following me on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram! For more bright ideas from other bloggers, please browse through the link-up below. Thanks for visiting!

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Monday Made It - GUTS apron

Good evening friends! Just a quick post for my super fun Monday Made It link-up with Fourth Grade Frolics. I actually had several "made-its" but they failed to get properly photographed. I guess that just means I'm sure to have a post next Monday too!

The lovely ScienceWear.net (who we bought our Lunar Cycle t-shirts from) sent me of their GUTS aprons. I was so excited to start painting it, but it took me awhile to get it done because I was not sure what colors to do. I've seen some great ones, but I decided to go with more realistic/anatomical model colors. I LOVE it! I'll be wearing it for all our science labs, even if they aren't messy ones!

Second Chance Sale

I was so excited when TpT announced this week's boost sale because there was so much that I forgot to purchase during the back-to-school sale! Hopefully I won't miss anything this time. I'm linking up with some amazing bloggers to get some great ideas for those MUST HAVES!

First up, something I did purchase in the sale...Little Red's Genre Posters. These are freaking adorable and fit perfectly along my reading wall. I even made small grayscale copies for my kids to paste in their Read and Respond notebooks.

This is something I have been wanting for awhile. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan or anything, but I just get a huge kick out of these Marzano scale posters! They catch my attention and I know they'll catch the kiddos attention to!

I'm not very good at tooting my own horn, but I really liked using this Poet BINGO set with my 5th graders last year and plan on using it again this year. Hopefully I'll get to do it in April when it is actually poetry month! The students get to choose a variety of poems to read and complete some in depth activities with the poems they choose.

This second chance sale is this Wednesday, August 20. My entire store is discounted, 20% off. Get the extra 10% off with promo code "BOOST" at checkout. 

What did you buy in the last sale? What is in your cart for this one?

Monday Made It - Independent Reading Notebooks

I'm asking forgiveness in advance for two things. 1. I know most of my posts lately have been Monday Made Its. What can I say? I love this link up! 2. Please ignore any errors or nonsensical bits of this post. We had to take one of the rats to the emergency vet last night. Got to bed at 1 am, then up a few hours later, so I'm a bit beat.

Ok, so I am really excited to share this made-it because it was a long time coming. Last year was my first foray into Reading Workshop. Although I didn't really have any other upper grade teachers on campus to go to for help, I did enjoy it, and I am trying it again this year with some tweaks and adjustments. I have to give a big shout out to my friend Dana at Learning Required who helped me along the way and was always there to answer my questions.

So, last year my students had reading binders. I bought each student a black binder for about a buck and had them all prepared with dividers and a pencil bag. These were solely used for reading time. Man those binders were cheap! By the end of the year they all had one place to go...the trash. Besides the fact that they didn't last long, they were a pain to maintain. I would ask students to put handouts in, and half of them wouldn't make it. We'd have to take a special day just to organize the binders. Did I mention the word pain?

Yeah, so this year I decided to use the amazing binding machine to make my own Independent Reading Notebooks. These took me weeks, literally, to prepare. But once they were done it was so satisfying. And so far, the kiddos are taking great care of them and using them just as I taught them.

Let me give you a tour of some of the pages.

Our district has really emphasized Marzano's Learning Goals and Scales over the past few years. Each of the notebooks has several of these tracking forms for students to write the learning goals and indicate where they are at the beginning, middle, and end of each concept. Although I have the scale posted on both sides of my room, they have right there in the notebook too. And speaking of Marzano's scales, have you seen these adorable Star Wars ones from Daisy's Bookbag? Too stinking cute! I think I need them!

Back to the tour...

 Each student has a genre tracking form, as well as page describing the common genres (not pictured). The pages following this are their reading log where they track what they read each day (not pictured).

Students periodically write me a letter about their reading, how it is going, what is going well, and what they are struggling with. I've included some useful letter writing pages, as well as lined paper right in the notebook. No need for loose paper running away, I'll just collect the notebooks when I need to check their letters and write back to them.

I'm really big on students using sticky notes to "show" their thinking as they read. To hold them accountable they keep all their sticky notes in their notebook. I also have something else I'm working on to help keep them focused with their sticky note writing.

There you have it! My awesome Independent Reading Notebooks. If you are a Reading Workshop teacher I'm sure you've recognized that I've recycled a lot from Fountas and Pinnell as well as the amazing Beth Newingham. I love that teachers share their knowledge so that we can help all students be super readers!

And, as always, thanks to the lovely Tara of Fourth Grade Frolics for hosting my favorite link-up!

I hope my post was acceptable...time to crawl into bed about three hours earlier than normal!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Morning Meetings

I'm linking up for the first time with Second Grade Sugar and Spice for Wordless Wednesday. 

80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3-6 

 For years I've wanted to start the day with a Morning Meeting, but our schedule never allowed for it, until this year. I snagged this great book, but my question to you is...

What are some great greetings and activities I just have to include in our Morning Meetings?

Monday Made It

Monday Made It #1...I made it through the first day of school! Yup, today was the day! I spent the day with 24 newly minted 5th graders! We had a blast, and each year the first day gets easier, but man, the exhaustion of day one must be mandatory!

Ok...on to the real "made its"...

Last week my super duper little sis treated me to a night of Party with Paint, and we did a version of "Starry Night". It was a lot of fun and I love how this piece came out! If you are in Arizona, I highly recommend Party with Paint, I've been previously, and will be going again soon!

Speaking of awesome little sisters, mine also gave me a set of Nubar Nail Polish. It's non-toxic, vegan, all that good stuff. It was perfect timing because I had recently received some Jamberry samplers from the awesome Tamara of Pretty Nail Wraps. I'm trying out my first Jamberry and they were super easy to apply, but I don't think I did it right because the tips are already starting to peel. Any tips from Jamberry experts?

Made It number 3 is school related! The amazing Diane from Fifth in the Middle was kind enough to give me some great ideas and tips for using brag tags in the classroom. I know she has posted about them before, but it finally clicked that I needed to try these out. I bought her template and have started to build my stash of brag tags. I'm excited to introduce them tomorrow to my new 5th graders!

Each kiddo will start with one that has their name on it. I love the chalkboard background and the KG Melonheadz font! 

Each kid will hang them on a hook next to their writing display folders. I found some push pin hooks that are PREFECT for this!

The computer did not seem to want to print all of the ones I had made. I was able to get my birthday and "tidy table" ones printed, laminated and cut. 

I've also got some Class Dojo ones to print! 

Everything is going to store neatly in this craft organizer that was only $2.99 (plus an additional % off with a coupon!). I also now have a lifetime supply of ball chains (100 for $22!).

Do you use brag tags in your classroom? Throw your ideas, tips, products, etc. at me! And thanks again to Diane for your help with getting me started :D

Monday Made It

Today is my final day of summer break, silly me, I spent 5 hours of it at school starting to get ready! This Monday Made It is a bit of a cheat, it's very similar to the same one this time a year ago, but with one important change...

Last year I started using reading workshop in my classroom and I bought cardboard magazine files for the kids to use for book boxes . I even reinforced them with colored duck tape. This year I did the same, but improved them a million times by using....GALAXY duck tape ! How cool is this tape!? Not only does it look amazing, but it fits with our study of space.

The tape really helped reinforce the boxes and they lasted all school year. I ended up tossing most of them though because the white box became dingy form 5th grade fingers. Still, a good investment!

This year I also changed the number styles on the boxes. I did have Ladybug's Teachers's beautiful numbers last year, but I had to laminate and glue them, and several fell off. So, this year I chose a different font for each number, printed them on Avery labels, and slapped them on!

All ready to be filled with OUT OF THIS WORLD books!

Here is my Monday Almost Made It (4thgradefrolics, can you make that a thing?)! My mom bought me this meta cat puzzle. Not only is it a picture of cats, but the puzzle is shaped like a cat. That has made finding edge pieces a bit challenging. I was really hoping to finish it today, but it's not looking likely.