My 7 Must-Haves for a Smooth Back to School

Back to school season is officially here! A quick scroll through my Instagram feed is all I need for some cute classroom inspiration and motivation. I don't actually start school until the very end of August, but I have been going in to my room here and there since I'm already toting around a growing baby bump.

My little one on the way has also got me lesson planning for back to school and maternity leave. Since I am gearing up, I wanted to share the 7 products of mine that I created and still use every year to help get myself together and smoothly sail into the new year.

Data Notebooks are a must for back to school. I have worked in a Baldrige Schools (in which data notebooks are a requirement) since I began teaching and now I can't imagine not having one. We spend a lot of time the first week getting these notebooks set up, they make for perfect lessons to set expectations and build community. We start by creating and recording a mission and vision for our class, then we discuss and map out what quality students and quality teachers look like, and we have a section to set and check in on goals. We set up data graphs to track test scores, so throughout the year we are always revisiting to enter and reflect on progress,

My class rules posters are another piece that is essential for the first week. My class always has a big discussion about the rules we think we need in our classroom. I generally "guide" the discussion to the 3-5 rules that really sum up my expectations. While the students are discussing, I am jotting their ideas on the whiteboard, we are voting to see which rules are the most important, and we are revising to find ways to combine two or more similar rules. What's left when we're done is a messy board that reflects the input of every student. Sometime over the next couple days, I make the final rules fancy in my editable posters document and reintrouduce them to the class by having them turn and talk about why we decided each rule was important. It is a great refresher!

These schedule cards are something that I am just recently very excited about. Typically, I just print and post our typical daily schedule somewhere in the room and if things change then we just go with the flow. Towards the end of last year, during the crazy testing season when our schedule changed daily, I started writing the daily schedule on the board everyday with more detail. The students really loved it. They would pause to read it every day and then keep me on track with what was coming up. This year I decided to make event strips that I can laminate and just re-order in a pocket chart everyday to reflect our schedule.

This meet the teacher day kit has been a life-saver the past couple years. Our Open House day is always the last day of the work week, on a Friday, and then we come back Monday and start school. This is not ideal since the work week is full with meetings, not leaving me any time to set up. I a;so never had time after open house to organize the supplies the kids dropped off before school started on the following work day. This always created such a hectic, frantic time. Now, I can just update my about me/scavenger hunt booklet, print out the signs for supplies, and be ready to go!

For some reason, creating a sub binder was never something I thought was a big to-do at the beginning of the year. I would always drag my feet on putting one together because I knew I wasn't going to miss any crucial days at the start of the school year. Then, I had my daughter. I realized that your own children don't really care that it's the first month of school if they are sick themselves. That's when I started getting myself in gear and creating one right off the bat, just in case. The past school year, it really saved me a couple times when my daughter got sick over night and I could just tell my team to grab the sub binder with pre-made copies off my shelf vs. me having to drag myself into school at 7am to plan. (I also created a binder for maternity leave and blogged about it here.)

Every year I revamp my homework binder/folder a little bit, but the basics stay the same. I love being able to just make some edits vs. having to start from scratch. I also created some parent forms that are tailor-made to fit my classroom. It is so nice to have both in one place for when I am copying like a mad women during work week.

This last product is one that plays a big part in my lesson plans during the first week. One component of this pack is the data wall pieces. Posting and maintaining a data wall is a requirement for me, but I always try to make it as meaningful as possible for my students. I start with a blank wall and only add pieces after discussion or a lesson. The other piece in this pack is the essentials I need for my first week lesson plans, like get to know you writing prompts, behavior anchor charts, fake vs. real reading sort, how to treat a book lesson pieces, writing portfolio cover, etc.





There you have it! Those are all of the things I need to start my year off smoothly. It took me forever to find out what fits me best and crate these items, but now that I have them, it is easy breezy to do quick updates at the beginning of each year. All of these products are available in my TPT store and the majority of them are editable so that you can customize them to fit your classroom.

I bundled all 7 of these products together for the ultimate back to school package!

Please feel free to leave me comments with your ideas and must-haves for back to school.

Monday Made It - Objective Posters Freebie

This Monday, I decided to link up with a digital made-it that I just finished and posted as a freebie in my TPT shop.

I don't know about your district/principal, but for me, displaying daily objectives is a big "look-for" during observations and walk-thrus. This past year, my school made the switch from just requiring content objectives (the what) to also requiring matching language objectives (the how).

For example, instead of just saying:

"I can compare and contrast two fiction texts",

we need to say HOW we are going to do that; like:

"I can compare and contrast two fiction texts by using a Venn diagram to sort trait/feature cards."

As you can imagine, when you have to say HOW you are going to be learning the objective, your objectives need to change daily. I was the worst at this. I would completely forget, my personal goal was to change my objectives at least once a week.

Before the extra "how" piece was required, I used pre-made posters to display my objectives. One year, I changed all the objectives into kid-terms and printed them for each subject onto different colored paper. I put the papers inside a plastic sleeve and displayed it using binder rings. It was easy to just flip the pages to find the objective for the current day.

This year, I created posters, that I plan on laminating, so it will be easy to erase and re-write each day. I added the EDITABLE posters to my TPT store as a freebie.

Stop by to grab them if you will be able to use them too.

Be sure to swing by 4th Grade Frolics for more amazing Monday Made-It Posts.

Morning Work: Reading, Writing, Centers, or Spiral?

One of the many things I didn't learn in college was the importance of morning work. Having a consistent, efficient morning routine can either set you up for an amazing morning of learning or have you worn out by 10, trying to get your class back on track.

Morning work is a HUGE part of how effective your morning routine is. I've tried a lot of different things for morning work over the years and I can attest to how it prepares everyone, even me, for the day. There is no one right way to do morning work, it really depends on your group of students and your schedule. Today, I want to talk through some of the different types of morning work I used in the past and what I got out of them.

Spiral review is typically the morning work I use for at least the first quarter of the school year because it builds consistency. I use Evan Moor's Daily Math Practice and Daily Language Review books, so the students have 5 math review and 5 reading/writing review questions every morning. I typically copy either one week or multiple weeks at a time and have them keep it in their morning work folders. Students know to come in, complete the questions, and then read. When I ring my bell, students put their books away and move down to the carpet with their morning work for review. The math review from this book is not super challenging, but I have to say that the one year I used this morning work ALL year, without switching it up, my students ended the year with phenomenal number sense.

   

Independent journal writing is another type of morning work I've tried briefly in the past. I would put up a PowerPoint slide with a new writing prompt every morning and students would either write about that prompt, choose a topic from the monthly calendar glued into their notebooks, or select their own topic. This definitely helped students grow as writers as far as written expression and composition. It is not a replacement for formal writing instruction because usage, mechanics, and format still needed a lot of work. One of the rules my students needed was no drawing until at least 5 sentences had been written. I also had a "must-start" time. Usually right after announcements, I would ring my bell to signify students that their prompt selection time was up. If students had not yet chosen a topic and started writing, they had to use the prompt of the day on the board,

Reading as morning work was by far my favorite morning work ever! It is outweighed only by the fact that my students had such amazing number sense from the year I did spiral math every morning.

I am definitely not a morning person. Sustained silent reading as morning work was my favorite because I didn't have to prep anything for it, it started the students off quiet/calm, and it gave me ample time to get in attendance and lunch count. This year, SSR will be school wide morning work, for the first 30 minutes of the day. As the departmentalized reading teacher, I love this! In my state, third graders have language arts for 90 minutes a day. When you have to squeeze SSR into that time (along with guided reading groups, whole group reading instruction, and writing instruction), the block becomes very tight. Having 30 minutes of reading first thing doesn't technically take time from my reading block, so I get a full 90 minutes with both of my reading classes!

Centers as morning work is something I've only experimented with briefly during my career. Students absolutely love it, but it starts the day with a lot of energy, so it can be difficult to get them refocused for a mini-lesson once all the morning tasks are done. I've found that it is definitely something that takes a lot of teaching, both with explicit behavior expectations and with how to complete specific centers correctly. Procedures can take a while to learn because students are excited to see their friends first thing in the morning and want to talk about everything. We had to have several class meetings on what "math talk" sounds like at centers to help them stay focused in the morning.

I would love to hear from you guys, I always get such amazing ideas from feedback.
What do you use as morning work?
Does your entire team do the same thing?
Is morning work at all mandated by your building principal?

Leave me your thoughts!

Quick Tips: 5 Tips for Back to School Prep

I'm back with another Quick Tips post to give you 5 things to think about when setting up your classroom and preparing for your students. These 5 tips have saved me a lot of time throughout the year by shaving minutes off of day to day activities. This time adds up, people!

Let's Go:

No more arguing over whether or not you already stacked your chair or wondering where your chair ended up during center rotations (because apparently in third-grade world, it is super important to have the exact same chair all day).

It is no fun to do this for them in August, it takes time. But, there will be no more confusion over what side houses what. This is more to hold my parents accountable for their end of communication than my students. I also include my procedures, homework schedule, and contact information right on the folder so I will never hear the excuse, "I didn't know" (...hopefully). This 3 pocket folder is from Teacher Direct.

You will thank yourself mid-year when everything is a mess and you don't have time for figuring out where something needs to go. It also makes it easy to give students directions to find something because we all know "on top of, right beside, to the left of, etc..." will not result in you getting the thing you need.

I am so glad that I hopped on this bandwagon after reading this post from The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. If you do interactive notebooks in your classroom, this is a must! It saved me so many precious minutes throughout the year when gluing down smaller, sort pieces.

I have noticed students respond better to libraries that have a corner. When bookshelves lay flat against a wall, there isn't really a space for students to gather. Creating a nook makes them feel like it is a separate area and they are more likely to spend time there. It sounds cray, I know...but it's true!

Check out my other quick tips!

Morning & Afternoon Routines

Managing Student Interruptions

Keeping Up with Unfinished Work

First Day Tried & True Linky: Lesson Idea for the First Day!

When I first joined this amazing linky of First Day plans, I knew I wanted to share my favorite writing lesson for the first day. It gets students sharing and building relationships right from the start!   It all centers around one of my favorite first day read alouds:  How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague 
I have read this book every first day for the past four years, people. You know it has to be good if even Pinterest (which has exploded over the past 4 years) hasn't yet shown me a lesson that I would use to replace this. It is definitely tried and true! Click here for my lesson plan.

The writing template I use for this activity is apart of my Back to School Essentials Pack.

Thanks to Chrissie at Undercover Classroom and Sarah at Education Electrification for hosting this great linky party! Be sure to check out other Tried & True activities as you plan your first day!

An InLinkz Link-up

Plan. Prep. Teach. GUIDED GROUPS {Summer B2S Tips}

We are oh so lucky to be teachers because we get the whole summer off, free of any kind of work at all! In fact, be real...that's the real reason any of us became teachers in the first place...

You have no idea (actually, you probably do) how tempting it is to punch someone in the face when they say things like this to me. First of all, I do more work in the 10 months school is in session than you do all year. Honestly, I probably do the same amount of work AT HOME during the school year that you do AT WORK in a full year. Second, I do not have summers "off" from work. Sure, there are meetings, PD, and various other things I will have to attend, but the bottom line is if I don't plan, prep, and research over the summer I will drown in August. Fast.

I don't know about you, but I can't turn my brain off. Even when I'm relaxing, scrolling through Pinterest, the vast majority of my feed is school stuff. The first thing I do every morning (before I get out of bed because I'm super lazy and like to procrastinate in the morning) is check my email and scroll through my update email from Bloglovin' to see what all of you are up to. Lately, I have been really into posts about how to use my summer purposefully. What can I do over the summer to ease the inevitable back to school chaos? Sure, I have my own plan. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I did find some great posts about this here, here, and here. Then I thought, "Why not share my own plans?" I mean the more information out there the better, right?

So, I decided to start a new summer series called, "PLAN.PREP.TEACH.", about all the ways we could prepare for back to school during the summer, if we so choose. Today's post is all about preparing for guided groups.

(UPDATE: Also in this series: Homework & HW Binder Organization)

What groups will you have?
At my old school (read about my decision to switch schools here), we had groups for guided reading, guided math, word study, core extension (LA), and core extension (Math). Oh, and we also had groups for a once-weekly encore switch up among the grade-level. There is no question as to why all of my groups had to be planned out or students would get lost.

At my new school, it seems like I will need groups for guided reading and guided math ONLY (big sigh of relief). My new school is Title 1, so we have a lot of additional support. During my guided reading block, I will only have 1 group, for 30 minutes. I will have a reading specialist, reading assistant, and ESOL teacher that will push in for those 30 minutes and pull their groups. So, for 30 minutes, every student in my class is engaged in a small guided reading group and when the team leaves, I have my whole class back. I am so excited to teach in this model, it is actually the reason that compelled me to interview in the first place. But as you can imagine, I have a lot of reworking to do. For example, I have used Daily 5 for the past 4 1/2 years but I'm not sure I will need that anymore...hmmmm, lot's of things to think about.

Also, I will have a Title 1 math teacher push in 3 times a week during my math block. I can't wait for this because reading is my thing, not math, so I will take any help I can get! I just need to plan on what groups she will pull.

When will you see your groups?
I used to make a schedule that looked like this:

I know, I know, it is not truly Daily 5 if you tell them what centers to go to and take away their choice. Honestly, the choice of centers just did not work for me. They have choice when they get there of what to read, or what to write, or what word work activity to do, they just can't choose their center. I have had way too many student behavior issues and mean-girl drama over the years to deal with that. So I don't, and my centers run smoothly.

For reading this year, I will only need to see my one group during the alotted 30 minutes that I have "the team" in my room. Simple.

For math, my lowest group will need to be seen every day. I figure I can pull them on the days when I don't have the Title 1 math teacher, and she can pull them when she is in the classroom. My second lowest will need to be pulled 3-4 times a week and my highest two only 2-3 times. I plan on doing math workshop for only 2 centers a day this year, so I can really go in depth with the groups I am pulling.

I have been doing math workshop for the past 5 years, but in many different forms. This year, I think I am going back to the M.A.T.H. set-up since I will have fewer students and can have only 4 centers. The acronym (in my classroom) stands for: Meet the Teacher (guided groups), At Your Seat (independent work/task cards), Technology (computers, iPads, or Smart Board), and Hands-On (fact fluency games).

I like the super cute set-up below from The Teaching Sweet Shoppe.

What will you call your groups?
Ok, this may seem like a silly thing to plan ahead, but you quickly run out of group names when you are trying to juggle 6 different groupings like I was at my old school. I had colors, fruit, animals, you name it!

This year, I really want to do a teamwork/sports theme, so I decided to name my guided groups after NFL, NBA, and MLB teams. To help cut down on August prep, I already made posters for the groups that I can print on cardstock, laminate, and hang on the wall so I can quickly switch up groupings using a dry-erase marker. I uploaded these posters here for FREE if you are interested.

How will you track progress?
I like to create my own anecdotal notes forms so I can include only the information that I think is important. I create different forms every year. Sometimes I bundle them into prong folders by group and sometimes I throw them into a binder alphabetically by student. Either way, if you are like me, this is the perfect time to get creating. These forms will be the last on your list once school starts.

If you can answer all of the questions above, then you are in good shape. Please comment with your thoughts and advice, I know you guys have more amazing ideas that I haven't yet stumbled upon. See you next time!

Introducing Yourself to Your Students

Do you introduce yourself to your students before meeting them? Every year, I send a letter telling the students (and parents) about myself and reminding them about our Meet the Teacher Day. I love sending a letter and every year I get fantastic results. I have found that it makes students feel less anxious about meeting me because they already know what I look like and some facts about me. I have also found that parents tend to use what I wrote as an icebreaker to start a conversation with me.

Below is the letter I will be sending this year to my students. We don't start until September 2nd, but I like to get this out of the way so that once my school opens, I can spend my time setting up my room.

*I am currently doing 5 things at once, so please let me know if there is a typo in the letter. Thanks!

 I also made my letter into a FREE editable template for grades K-6. You can download it at my TPT Store.

I would love to hear how you acquaint yourself with your students at the beginning of the year.

UPDATE: Due to some requests, I recently updated my homework post with an editable template as well! Click here to view the post.