A Little Something To Help You Get Ready For School!

Secondary Teacher's Binder in Polka Dot

In my first "Time to Get Organized" post I talked about how to select your organizational style and routine.  I shared that my best method of organization is through the use of binders and page protectors.  I created a "Secondary Teachers Binder" that has dividers for every type of paper  I find myself needing  from class lists and seating charts, to behavior records, IEP's and professional documents plus about 20 - 25 more!  I have also included monthly calendars  and weekly calendars to help plan out your entire year! 

As my first give away on this blog, I am going to give away a copy of the binder in whichever of the four patterns that you choose to one lucky follower.  Additionally, a second lucky follower will get a copy of my "Weekly and Monthly Calendars".  All you have to do is to use the rafflecopter below to enter! 

 

Time To Get Organized, Part Three!

I have found that a key to organization is planning ahead.  Easier said, than done, I know but if you have a goal in mind you can save time, energy and money!  Starting in early to mid-July the office supply stores starting running major sales.  These sales range from supplies for a penny, a quarter, a dollar, buy 2 get one free and mail-in rebates that make items free! 





7/27-8/2/14

For example, in previewing next week's ad at Office Max/Depot (they merged!), I see that next week they will have 2 pocket folders on sale for a penny, 8 packs of pencils for a penny and 12-inch rulers for a penny! Further scrolling inside shows buy two get one free on packs of sharpies and dry erase markers.  Over the last two weeks they have also had index cards for $0.10/100, little pencil sharpeners for a penny, 25 packs of the pencil eraser caps for a penny. 



My boxes thus far

So, the question becomes how do you take advantage of these sales without buying unnecessary supplies because you get caught up in the savings?  I start by making a list before the sales season starts of what I need.  This usually consists of rulers, colored pencils, folders, index cards, glue sticks, more protractors, pencils and erasers, sticky notes, dry erase markers, pens, etc.  This year that list was a little longer because I am making group supply boxes for projects.  (see my post here).   Once I have my list made I start scanning the ads weekly (the previews for the next week are usually available on Friday of the previous week) to see what is coming up. 


Then I go in to "extreme couponer" mode as my husband calls it!  I plan out my route, my day and will sometimes take someone with me (like my husband) so they buy some too!  Since many of the stores have limits per purchase/person you may need to plan on going to multiple stores or on multiple days to get enough (if you want, for example, a classroom set of rulers).  I'm lucky in that I have two Office Maxes and one Office Depot in a two mile radius of each other.  (Or maybe that's not quite so lucky...)  I've also been known to hit Staples but since there isn't one close, it takes more planning.

 

Other things to keep in mind, if you sign up for a store reward card, some of the stores will allow you double the limit.  It's not advertised, but if you ask most give it!  Additionally, the major office supply stores have "Teacher Appreciation Days" in August.  During this time, you can get a canvas bag with samples, a 20-25% off your entire purchase coupon book and usually a coupon book to use over the next month as well! 

 

Searching online Office Max/Depot has their days scheduled for different states at different times.  If you click here you can put in your zip code and find the dates for your area!  I have searched and searched online, but unfortunately cannot find the dates for Staples.  You may need to ask in your local store.

 

If you are able to invest the time and energy, you can save a great deal of money on the supplies you

need!  In the picture below is the result of one stop.  I got enough erasers for the year, glue bottles and pencil sharpeners for all my boxes for $4.50.  I saved $12.00 on supplies that I needed.  Next week I'll be hitting the stores for the rulers, folders and pencils for pennies for sure!

One stop - cost me $4.50

Parent, Teacher...Protector?

Boo-boos that need a Band-Aid?  Check, I've got that covered.  Hurts that need a "mommy hug or kiss" to make it all better?  Check, I've got that covered too!  How to handle the following conversation, not so much...  One day not long before the school year let out I went to pick my daughter up from preschool only to find her sitting alone, trying not to cry, while the other little girls were all playing.  I asked her what was wrong and she said "mommy, they said they don't want to play with me and I need to go away".  She is a five year old, beautiful, sweet, little girl and at that moment my heart broke.  Thinking back on it now brings tears to my eyes.  I can protect her from the physical, make boo-boos go away with the magic of a Band-Aid and a kiss.  But, I cannot make other little girls be nice.  I can't protect her from the emotional hurts that potentially await her when she starts Kindergarten this fall.  That terrifies me. 

As a teacher at the secondary level I can and do intervene when I see bullying.  We have a support system in place and a zero tolerance policy.  I have spent years working to make sure that it doesn't happen in my classroom and as a school we work so hard to make sure that if it happens in the our building that there are outlets, support systems and interventions to stop it.  But as a parent, I don't have that same access.  She will be out of my sight, my reach, my "protection" all day, five days a week.  While I know that she is going to an excellent school, with a great reputation for stopping bullying in it's tracks, I also know that as parent I have to prepare her.  I have to give her tools to combat what she is already encountering.

So, I did what all people do and I started researching how I could give her the tools to not only face what she *may* encounter, but also how to overcome it and not let it hurt her like that moment in preschool did.  I found an absolutely awesome series of blogs by a website named "A Mighty Girl" (http://www.amightygirl.com). 

 

The first post is entitled ""The End of Bullying Begins With Me": Bullying Prevention Books for Young Mighty Girls" and has excellent books and resources for young girls (and I'm sure they would work for young boys too!) that begin the conversation about feelings, bullying and the result.  The post is broken down into "Another Person’s Shoes: Teaching Empathy" which features books about how other people are feeling, that they may feel the same way and that it's okay to be different.  It goes on to a section entitled "Beginning With Me: Dealing With Bullies" which showcases books about how face bullying, how to stop bullying and how to not let it stop you.  The post ends with "Additional Recommended Resources" which features links to other parts of the site and other types of books.  I spent a great deal of time with going through these sources and picked a few of them up to spend some time reading during our story time daily! 

From a teacher's standpoint I was quite interested in the second part of the series "Taking a Stand Against Bullying: Bullying Prevention Books for Tweens and Teens" (and the third  which I will address in just a minute!)  This entries in this part of the series features books that I think would be excellent to pick up and keep in my classroom for when I have students come to me with bullying problems or for when I notice them myself.  It features two types of books; ones about fictional bullies and also non-fiction books about how to deal with bullies.  In the first section "Mean Girls: Fictional Bullies" I found books that I think would greatly appeal to some of my students who need to read about others situations without it being "too real".  In the second section "Taking A Stand: Non-Fiction About Bullying" I found some wonderful workbooks and implementation types of resources that I am going to recommend to our counseling department!  I think that they would find them very useful for those students who come to them and need constructive ways to address the problems.

I spent a great deal of time on the last post from both a parent and teacher standpoint.  The last post in the series is "Leading the Way: Bullying Prevention Books for Parents and Educators"  and it is broken down into three phenomenal areas.  The first, "It Starts Young: Bullying in Preschool and Elementary School" has great resources for both parents and teachers of our youngest children.  (One I already ordered is " Little Girls Can Be Mean: Four Steps to Bully-Proof Girls in the Early Grades").  The second area, "Social Drama: Bullying Among Tweens and Teens" helps parents and educators to carry the message on to the next level.  It features books to keep the conversation going when young girls really start to stop talking to the adults around them and are more influenced by their peers.  The last area, "New Dimensions of Bullying: Cyberbullying and Bullying Adults" has some amazing resources to address how bullying is being taken to the next level and how to shut it down.   

While I know that books alone will not solve the problem, at least they will help me to feel less helpless.  If I can arm my daughter and my son with the tools necessary to be strong against what they face, maybe next time my daughter won't feel so alone.  Maybe next time she'll have the words to speak back or the strength to go to her teacher.  By the way, I had a conversation with her preschool teacher after this incident.  Her teacher said that she is working hard to address these issues.  I forwarded the above blogs to her and she is going to order some of the books for her classroom library.  Every step helps.

Time To Get Organized, Part Two!

One of the many challenges of teaching is organization of not only myself, but also my classroom and my students.  I cannot tell you how often I have planned to do an activity and found that I was missing some basic essential such as glue sticks (because they dried out), scissors (because for some reason they just "grow legs" and walk away), color pencils, crayons, etc. 

Once I do have everything I need, I find myself in one of two situations for distribution of those supplies.  Situation one:  I spend way too much time walk from group to group handing out, counting out the required number of each item.  Situation two:  I have students come up to get them and then have this free-for-all grabbing.  Both situations waste a great deal of time and the second one leaves me with a mess.   The clean-up, on the flip side, is just as much of a nightmare, especially if a project is long and students work right up to the bell to finish.  This leads to students that are scrambling to clean-up, supplies left on desks, or having fallen on the floor, etc.


Really Useful Box 4.0 Liter

  So, what then, is the solution?  Well, the solution I am going to implement this fall involves boxes with lids, a checklist and student roles!  I found boxes at Office Max that are big enough to hold everything that I need (including rulers!) with lids.   While they come in multiple sizes, I found this size best able to fit my needs.  I will initially stock the boxes with whatever I feel a group needs and then change the supplies out (ahead of time!) if an activity requires something more specialized.  I can label the boxes with group numbers and best of all - the are stackable!  Easy and neat storage!


Once I found my box, I needed to address the question of accountability.  I created a "Resource Box Checklist" that I will include in each box.  One person in the group will be responsible for checking off at the end of the hour that all of the supplies are accounted for at the end of the hour.  If something is running low, then they can let me know so that I can restock it. 

While I won't know until fall whether this will "fix" all of the issues that I am finding, I know that it is the first proactive step in addressing them!  You can download the resource box checklist here in editable PowerPoint format!




Posters/Illustrations on the Wall at the Secondary Level - Why they are necessary!

The walls of many classrooms at the secondary level (especially the higher you go in math classes) are quite bare.  Not all of them, some of them are quite well decorated with useful information but many are just bare concrete blocks.  The reasons for this are multiple.

1)  Your curriculum changes so much over the year (I do 10 units in 26 weeks) that you would be


Surface Area/Volume Wall Posters

constantly needing to change them (and who has the time).

2)  We are trying to prepare students for college where most of the walls are quite bare.

3)  There is a severe lack of quality resources or posters to put up on your walls. 

It is this third reason that I got in touch with my creative side this past year!  I had posters that after 15 years were worn out and to be quite honest, no longer reflected the CCSS rearrangement of topics!  I had rearranged my curriculum so much that nothing "fit" what I was covering in the groupings that I was covering them.  As I started illustrating our units as we did I found some results that while they shouldn't have surprised me, they did.

Quadrilaterals Wall Posters

1)  I heard more mathematical conversations between students.  They were referencing the posters that I put up on my walls to help each other and were using the terminology correctly!

2)  They understood the topics more clearly because the concepts were illustrated with their properties right there on the same sheet of card stock.

Area Formulas Wall Posters

3)  They were retaining the connection between topics and units longer because I left the posters up for the entire trimester.  They were continually seeing the ideas/concepts/definitions as we moved from one unit to the next.

4)  Students grades showed a rise - not as much as I would have liked to be honest, but sometimes you take what you can get! 

Right Triangles Wall Posters

At the end of the trimester I noticed students referencing the posters as they worked on the review and made note cards.  I even had multiple students ask if they could take pictures so that they could reference them at home for study. 


I have illustrated this post with a few sets that I made (many more are available in my store).  They were quick and (mostly) easy to make!  Here is how I did it.

1)  I used PowerPoint as it allows the best way to layer the concepts, diagrams, labels far better than any other program I have found.

2)  I made a list of the all of the terms/concepts that I wanted to include before I started so that I didn't forget anything.  I designed each set of posters to be a unit of study.

3)  I made a basic layout for the slides so that they all "matched" in that they used the same font,

Transformations Wall Posters

borders, style.

4)  I made sure to include all of the necessary information but did not make the slides so "busy" that they were overwhelming.

5)  Once I had them done, I printed them on cardstock and laminated them so that they would last!  I chose to do it on colored cardstock to save on ink and to make them eye-catching.

However you choose to do it by either making them yourself or buying some that are already made, I highly encourage you to do it!  I have found nothing but positives from using Word Walls/Concepts Posters.  I am looking forward to seeing the results when I start with them from day 1 of the new school year instead of waiting for the second trimester like I did this year.  I am working hard to create some that I can use for the first half of my curriculum and look forward to testing the results!

Click here to download a sample of my Geometry "A" Poster Bundle. 

The Delicate Balancing Act - Parent and Teacher

I have been a teacher for just over 15 years now and in all of that time I have only ever been on the teacher side of the desk.  This fall, however, I will start a new journey with my oldest child as she enters kindergarten.  I will have to learn how to walk that delicate line between being the teacher of 120 students a day and the parent of one very small student!   

How do you walk that line?  How do you go from being the one who is entrusted with the education, the safety and well being of someone's child(ren) to being the one who entrusts your child to someone else?  School hasn't even started yet and I am already worried.  I worry that the teacher won't understand my daughter's unique personality, that the teacher won't foster her love of learning, that the other students will be mean to her.  I worry that my little girl, who has been reading since she was four, who loves using her imagination to entertain herself and her little brother and who LOVES to learn will be crushed by the new CCSS and hate school.

I went to the new parent orientation and found out that she is expected to be able to write a paragraph by the end of October and that recess is now combined with the 30 minutes they get for lunch.  So in the course of a 7.5 hour day of school she gets less than 30 minutes to play.  I know, trust me I know, that school is not playtime but at 5?  At 5 they still learn best through play and investigation, now sitting at a table...

But, I also know that if I expect others to trust me with their children, that I too, must trust that others will teach my children and protect them and give them what they need when they are out of my hands.  It will definitely be a fine balancing act but hopefully one that I will be able to use to enrich my own abilities as a teacher. 

In the meantime, I have started going through different stores on TeachersPayTeachers to find resources that we can use to "play school" this summer.  Three of my favorite stores so far are:
1)  Christina Winter
2) 1st Grade Salt Life
3)  KB3Teach

Time to get Organized!

As a teacher we have so many pieces of paper to keep organized that it sometimes seems so overwhelming!  We have lesson plans, tests, quizzes, daily homework, memos from the office, seating charts and hundreds of other pieces of paper.  If, like me, you have a family on top of that, it can seem more than overwhelming, it just seem insurmountable!  However, if you have a plan and a system, you can tackle it with ease!

Step One:  Figure what organization strategy works best for you.  Are you the type who does better using binders with dividers, page protectors and a three-hole puncher?    Binders are the option that I choose!  I have multiple binders.  Usually a teacher one ( as well as separate binders for the lesson plans, homework assignments and other documents that go along with each unit that I teach.  I have some awesome binders for teachers available here.)

   

Secondary Teacher Binder 2014-2015

TPT Sellers Binder

(I use the binder  on the left to keep my classroom organized and I use the binder on the right to keep track of all my TeachersPay Teachers documents!)






Some find it much easier to keep a file box with hanging folders and manila folders. If this is you, Target has some great options.  I use some of these to keep in the back of my room for students to pick up extra copies of assignments/notes.  This allows me to hold them accountable for what they missed, make it available and most importantly, it saves me time not having to dig through my files every time a student is absent!

You could also choose to do something like this:

Whatever your organizational method is, make sure that it is one that you can follow through with!  If the method isn't something that comes easily, you will abandon it within a few days to a couple of weeks!






Step Two:  Set an organization routine.  Are you the type who needs to file stuff away daily so that it doesn't get lost, mixed up or forgotten about?  Is it easier for you to put your important papers in a folder and then organize weekly or biweekly?  For me, I work best if I put papers in a file folder and than organize them into a binder each afternoon or the next morning before the next set starts!

Step Three:  Stick with it!  One of the things I learned from a course I took a long time ago (the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) is that it takes 21 days for something to become a routine.  After a few weeks it will become such a part of your daily/weekly routine that you will just naturally start to do it and continue it with ease!

Organization has seriously saved me multiple times.  My binders have allowed me to show parents when things were assigned, graded and due.  My binders have helped me to keep track of important memos from administration, keep up on my PD hours for renewing my certificate and many other routine requirements.  Most of all, they have helped me know that I can go home at night to my family and not have to worry about where I put something or if I have a copy of it!