How to Start a Tidy Up Time in Your Classroom in 4 Easy Steps

Do you have a hard time getting your students to clean up the classroom at the end of the day? Are you doing all the clean-up after your students leave the classroom? Your students need to be helping. They need to be responsible for the mess that they make and help clean it up. The classroom is their space just as much as it is yours. Make your clean-up time quick and fun by making your students excited to clean up at the end of the day!

    One of the first things that I do at the start of the school year is have my students apply for classroom jobs. Having my students apply for their jobs makes them more excited about the job because they are doing what they want to do, and they are also more responsible for the job. I have the students pick the job they want and tell me why they think they will be good at the job. I love seeing them get excited and having them remind me when it’s time to do their job. Another thing that I do is give my students pay for the job that they are completing. They can then use the money that they have earned at the end of the week or the month to buy rewards. I use classroom privileges for them to purchase. This way nothing is coming out of my pocket, but you could also use little prizes from the dollar store if you like. 

    

    Now that you have your jobs all set for your students, it is time to get your supplies. I make sure that I have tons of fun supplies for my students to use. They love to sweep and use the dustpan. I even have a small battery-operated vacuum for the students to use on our rug. This is one of their favorite supplies to use. I like to have a few of each supply so students are not fighting over them. Go through your classroom and as you are cleaning up for the first day of school think about all the supplies you used to clean up, then go out and get those supplies for your students. Another thing that I always have my students do at the start of our tidy-up time is use a wet wipe to clean off their desk and sanitize their area. This makes their desk ready for the next day. You could also have your students clean out the inside of their desk during this time. I usually have them do this on Fridays so their desk is ready for a new week. 

    The next thing that I love to do for our tidy-up time is have music playing. We make it a full on dance party. We turn up the music and have tons of fun while we clean up. At the start of the year I have a playlist ready to go with kid friendly fun songs. As the year goes on my students start to share songs with me to add to the list. If it is a song I have not heard of, I always make sure I listen to it first to make sure it is appropriate. 

    I have a bluetooth speaker and an MP3 player or my phone set up in the classroom to play our music. I use music throughout different parts of the day in our classroom. I love to have a Spotify playlist or Apple Music playlist set up with all the perfect music for our tidy-up time. I just connect my music device to our speaker and the kids get to enjoy the music. 

    The next thing that is so important to have during your tidy-up time is a timer. Using a timer keeps your students on track with their clean-up time. I usually only give my students 5 to 7 minutes to clean up at the end of the day. That is the sweet spot with clean-up. Your students stay on task and the playing around doesn’t normally start. If a student is not being safe, I have them go back and sit at their desk and wait for our dismissal time. I like to have a timer running through our projector so the kids can see the time and they love to yell out how much time is left before it is time for dismissal. You can also use a small digital or cooking timer at your desk or up on the board but then it is harder for the students to take over this task. 

    Having a tidy-up time has really helped my classroom be clean at the end of the day. It has helped me to not have to do all the cleanup on my own. Now there are always times that I have to do a quick touch up after my students leave but the majority of the clean-up is done. Now I can spend my time setting up for the next day and get out at a decent time instead of spending all my time cleaning. Let me know if you are going to give tidy-up time a try!

My favorite classroom chapter book read alouds for the whole year

  I love to do read alouds with my class. We do picture book read alouds every day, but we also love to read chapter books. My students love to have a story read to them that lasts over several days. I like to read aloud our chapter books right after lunch. It really helps them to calm down after lunchtime. We also read for a few minutes right before our tidy-up time before going home. Today we are going to look at some of my favorite chapter books to read to my class throughout the year.

    The first book that I love to read at the start of the year is The Year of Billy Miller. This is a perfect story for my second graders. It is about a second grader and goes through his whole year in second grade. My students love hearing what the second graders do in the book. 

    The next book that I love to read is Wonder. This book really helps students learn to accept everyone the way they are. I love the message that this book has. It is another great book to start the year. 

    Next on the list is Ramona Quimby, Age 8. This is a fun book to read. It shows Ramona always getting into mischief. My students are always laughing through this book. I also love to read this book because it is part of a series and it gets my students excited to read the rest of the books. 

    The next book that is a class favorite is Save Me A Seat. This book is about two students from very different backgrounds that become friends and start sitting together at lunch. This is another story that has a great message. 

    Another fun book for your classroom read alouds is The Lemonade War. This story is great and has lots of life lessons about starting a business and having math skills. My students love to follow along and learn about the brother and sister and how they are going to sell their lemonade and make money. This is another book that is part of a series, so it always gets my students excited about reading the rest of the books. 

    This next book is one of my favorite books to read to my class. Mr. Popper’s Penguins is another book that is just a fun story that gets my students laughing. My students love this story and all the things that happen to the penguins. 

    This is another great book to read aloud to your class. Front Desk is about an immigrant family and their struggles of being in a new country. I love this story and what it teaches. This is always a favorite of my class. 

    Another great book to read to your class is From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This is a fun mystery that takes two kids into a famous museum. This book is filled with fun adventures and mysteries all throughout. This is a book that most students have never heard of but after reading it as a class, they always want to explore it again and again on their own. 

    The One and Only Ivan is another great book to read to your class. This is a sweet story but also has some sad parts as well. One of my students favorite activities is to watch the movie after we finish reading the book. This book also has a sequel that my students are always excited to read and find out more information about the characters. 

    The last book on my list of must reads is Sideways Stories from Wayside School. This is a fun story that will get your students laughing. The school was accidentally built sideways and the stories that go with that are fun. This book is also the start of a series, which is something that I love because it gets my students excited to read the rest of the books. 

   Reading chapter books with my class are some of my favorite times with my class. I love the adventures that we get to enjoy together with a good book.  Do you read chapter books with your students? What are your favorite chapter books to read with your class? 

How You Can Differentiate in Your Classroom From the First Day of School

    Have you ever tried to differentiate in your classroom? So often I hear that it is hard and teachers don’t know how to differentiate. Today we are going to talk about all things differentiation. Let’s take a look at some of my favorite ways to differentiate in my classroom!

    In my classroom, I use these passports for our two major subjects each day, Math and ELA. In the corner of each page, I put a shape. The shapes let me know which group each student is in. On the passport, I write the work that is due for the week for each group of students. I try to keep the shape pretty small at the top of the page. Behind the passport, I staple all of the work that the students need to complete for the week. I create as many different levels of work as my students need. This can change throughout the school year. At the beginning of the year, you might only need two or three levels, but by the end of the year, you might have as many as five or six different levels. I move my students into different levels as they are mastering the skills on the level they are completing at the time. This is an easy way to differentiate the work for your students. 

    Here you can see the passports filled out and the types of assignments that you could include on your passports. All of my students do the same type of work but I provide several different versions of the assignment. For example, all of my students work on fluency during our ELA block, but I provide different leveled passages based on the reading levels of my students. This can be done for many different areas of your students' learning. You can see above that I have a word work, library, fluency, comprehension and writing section for each passport. At the very beginning of the year, I might start with 2 different levels of passports, and then as the year progresses and my students need different levels of work, I create more passports. I will create as many different levels as my students need. 

    My next favorite thing to use to differentiate is colored paper. I like to use blue, green, yellow and orange. I will put different activities and centers on the colored paper and my students know what color to work on. They just simply go and grab what they need and get started on their work. This is another super-easy way to differentiate and allow your students to take responsibility for their learning. 

    The final way that I love to differentiate is with colored dots. This is another super-easy way for your students to just grab what they need. I use the same colors as the colored paper and so my students know what color they need to grab. I like to put the colored dots on the top of the page, or on the top of leveled readers. 

    There are so many different ways to differentiate in your classroom. I like to make it easy and accessible for my students, so they know exactly what they need to do. Each of these different ways make it super easy for the teacher as well. 

    It is so important that we are differentiating for our students and meeting them at the level where they are. It takes a little bit of time to find all of the different levels of materials, but once you get started you will see how easy it is to keep going. Your students will be excited as well because they are completing work at their level. Your high students are not doing work that is too easy and your low students are not getting frustrated with work that is too hard. What is your favorite takeaway from today? What area of differentiation are you going to fry first? 

My Top Classroom Systems to Teach from the First Day of School

Having classroom systems can help your classroom run smoothly from the first day of school. Students can learn these systems and allow you to continue teaching rather than stopping to put out little fires. Today we are going to talk about the top systems that I start teaching students right away. 

    Every day from the very beginning of the school year, the first thing that we do is our morning meeting. This is a time for students to greet each other, share something important happening, discuss our schedule for the day, and review our classroom rules and procedures. Every afternoon we finish our day with our closing circle. This is a great time for students to share highs and lows for the day, or as we call it in class, our clouds (lows) and rainbows (highs). We also talk about how we did as a class following our rules and procedures. If it was a rough day, we are able to chat about how we are going to make it better the next day. At our morning meeting the next day, we review what happened the day before and what we decided to do to fix it. After a couple weeks of me leading the class meetings, it starts to become my student's responsibility to lead the meetings. This is always one of their favorite jobs to have in the classroom. Having a consistent morning and afternoon with a morning meeting and closing circle can help your classroom run smoothly and help your students know exactly what is going to happen for the day. 

   The next system that is important to have in your classroom is a schedule listed somewhere for all your students to see. I like to have a daily schedule up in the front of the room on our white board. One of our favorite things to do throughout the day is mark off the tasks as we finish them. The students love to see that things are done and see how much longer they might have until something more exciting for them like recess or lunch happens. This is another area that my students are in charge of after a couple weeks of school. I always do it for the first couple weeks so they can see it modeled and know what is expected when they are marking things off. 

       The next system that is important to implement in your classroom is a pacing guide. There are few ways you can do this. First, you could do this by subject. You can have a pacing guide for each subject that you teach for the week, and you can place the items that need to be completed for the week on the pacing guide. The next way that you could do this is have all the subjects placed on the pacing guide for the week. This allows your students to be independent learners and learn to manage their time to complete the tasks by the end of the week. In my classroom, I do this for math and ELA. My students enjoy having the freedom to complete the work they want for each day. At the end of the week, if the work is not finished, they spend some time catching up on their work and then when it is finished, they get to have some free time. I usually put a list on the board of things they can do when their work is finished. They love having this little bit of free time at the end of the week. 

   The final system that is important to have in your classroom is assignment slides. These are some of my favorite things to use in the classroom. Assignment slides can help your students to stay focused and know what is expected of them for each time slot of the day. I also love to include a voice level section for my students because it helps them to know how loudly they can talk. During most parts of the day, my students are allowed to talk to each other because it allows them to talk through their thinking. This is when we see the light bulbs going off and students having their ah-ha moments. 

   There are so many different systems that you can include as part of your classroom. These are just a few that you can try. What systems are you going to try first? Tell me about it in the comments!

My Top 5 Picture Books to Celebrate Summer

    Picture books are one of my favorite ways to celebrate a holiday or season. Summer is one of my favorite times of the year and today I am going to talk about my favorite books to help celebrate summer!

    The first book on my list is "A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee." This is such a fun book and always has my students laughing out loud. This is a super fun book to kick off summer, or to read during a camping day in your classroom. 

    Ice cream is a staple for summer. I love a good scoop of ice cream and summer is my favorite time of year to eat it. "Ice Cream" by Gail Gibbons is one of my favorite books by this great author. This book goes into great detail all about ice cream and how it is made. This would be a fun book to include as part of an ice cream day in your classroom. Use the book to have students write about ice cream and what they learned from the book. How fun would it be to end the day with your students making their own ice cream sundaes? 

    Another summer staple is star gazing and visiting our Nation's National Parks. The book "Our Great Big Backyard" by our former first lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna Bush Hager is another favorite book. This book shares all about National Parks and what wonderful places they are to visit. I love using this book during our end of the year camping week. After using this book, my students also loved researching different national parks and sharing what they learned with their classmates. 

    This is a great book that celebrates the season of summer. It shares all the things that you can do during this fun season. I love having my students create their own bucket list for their summer. This book is always a great way to introduce that activity. 

    The last book on my favorite summer books list is "S is for S’mores: A Camping Alphabet." This series of books is one of my favorites to read to my class. These books are available on all different topics. This particular book is all about summer and camping. This is another great book to have as part of your camping week theme in your classroom. One activity that I love to have my students do with this book is create their own summer alphabet books. They really enjoy coming up with their own themes that go along with summer and creating their own books. They also love to share their books with the rest of the class. 

    Summer is such a great time to share the love of reading with your students. What are some of your favorite books to share about summer? Do you have any favorite activities to do with your favorite books? I can’t wait to hear all about them!

My 5 Favorite Picture Books to Teach Growth Mindset

   

Picture books are my favorite things to use in the classroom. I love using picture books for all different topics throughout our day. Today we are going to talk about picture books for Growth Mindset. This is a topic that is so important to teach to our students. Kids often don’t know how to have a growth mindset. They don’t understand how to change their words from “I can’t” to “I can’t yet.” 

   The first book that we are going to talk about is "Your Fantastic Elastic Brain" by JoAnn Deak Ph.D.  (Author), Sarah Ackerley (Illustrator). This book is great because it lets kids know that our brains can be stretched and grow. It teaches kids that it is ok to make mistakes. It teaches all the different ways that we can exercise our brains, just like we exercise the rest of our bodies. This book also has beautiful illustrations. This is a must-have book for your home or classroom library. 

    The next book on our list is "The Most Magnificent Thing" by Ashley Spires  (Author, Illustrator). This is a really fun book about an unnamed girl who has decided that she is going to make the most magnificent thing, but it turns out to be harder than she thought it would be. This book helps teach students that they are able to make anything they put their minds to, as long as they keep trying. I love this book for growth mindset, as well as teaching kids about STEM and maker space. 

    The next book on our list is "The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes* by  Mark Pett  (Author), and Gary Rubinstein  (Author). This is another really fun book about Beatrice Bottomwell who never made mistakes. Her town even starts to call her the girl who never made mistakes. But one day she ends up making a huge mistake in front of the whole town. By the end of the story, Beatrice and the reader realize that it is more fun to enjoy everything in life, even the mistakes. This story teaches kids that it is ok to make mistakes and that is how we learn and grow. 

    The next book on the list is "Giraffes Can’t Dance" by  Giles Andreae  (Author), and  Guy Parker-Rees  (Illustrator). This is a sweet story about Gerald the Giraffe, and he wants to learn to dance. But he has crooked knees and thin legs that make it hard for him to learn. By the end of the story, he stays persistent and keeps working towards learning to dance. I love that this story helps kids learn that they can keep working towards their goals and they can eventually reach them. This is another must-have for your classroom library. 

    The final book on my list is "Jabari Jumps" by Gaia Cornwall  (Author, Illustrator). This a great story about overcoming your fears. Jabari has been taking swimming lessons and he is finally ready to jump off the diving board. He watches as all the kids are taking their turns. His dad is close by and he squeezes Jabari’s hand to let him know he is there and cheering him on. This story captures this moment between the patient dad and the determined little boy. This is certainly a must-have for your classroom. 

  These are just a few of my favorite picture books for growth mindset.  Do you have any favorite picture books for growth mindset that you would like to share? I can’t wait to hear all about them! 

My Top 3 Favorite Apps for Assessment in the Classroom

   

     Assessment is a part of teaching that just has to happen. But that does not mean that we can’t make it fun for our students. Today we are going to talk about assessment and using fun apps to help our students be excited when it’s time to take that test. I love when my students think we are just playing a game. But really, it is an assessment, and I am getting lots of data about how my students are doing. It also means less grading for me, which I love!

    The first app and website that we are going to talk about is Kahoot. Have you heard of this app before? My students love when I say we are going to play Kahoot. They think of this as a game instead of an assessment. The one thing that is a little challenging with this app is that the questions appear on the main screen at the front of the room from the teacher’s device and the students devices only have the answer choices. I usually read the questions to my students so it isn’t too much of a problem. With this app, have fun creating your own Kahoot with your own questions, or just play one that is already created from another teacher. You can use this app for any subject that you are teaching. 

    The next app is Quizizz. This is another favorite in my classroom. One thing that I love about this app is that you can assign it for independent work to your students. Each student can play the game on their own. It collects all the data on how your students did on the questions. This app can also be played as a whole class game. I love that the questions appear on the students devices as well as up on the main screen. This is a must try in your classroom!

    The final app that we are going to talk about is Quizlet. This app and website is my absolute favorite. I love that my students can practice vocabulary for any subject that we are working on. There are several different activities that students can work on to practice the content that they are learning. I have even used this app when I was studying to get a second credential.  This app also has a game version. The game for this app puts your students in groups and they work together to answer the questions. Each group gets the questions in a different order. Each student only has the answers to a few questions, rather than having all of the answers. This means that the students have to talk to each other to solve the questions so not one student can do all the work. This is a really fun app for practicing the content that is being learned so students are ready for their assessments. For this app to keep track of all your student’s data, you do have to get a premium account. But this app has so many other features that it’s ok not to have tons of data for this one. My students always beg to play this game over and over again. And I am always ok with that because it just means more and more practice for them. 

    Which one of these awesome apps are you going to give a try? Tell me in the comments which one you're most excited about! I can’t wait to hear from you!