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!

The best ways to help morning meetings run smoothly this year

Have you ever tried class meetings in your classroom? Do you wonder how to make the most of them?
Morning meetings and closing circles have become a staple in our classroom. This is a time that my
students look forward to each morning and afternoon. It is also a time of day that I get to just sit back
and appreciate my students because they lead the class meetings. You are probably asking, “How does
she do that?” Well let me tell you, it does take some training at the beginning of the year, but you can do
it this year too! It can even be done with distance learning.  Sit back and relax, as I tell you all about
how I run our class meetings each day. 

   

   The first thing you are going to want to do is research what the different parts of the class meetings
are. At the bottom you’re going to be able to download my class meetings packet, so don’t worry, it will
all be there for you. After some research, you are going to want to let the parents of your class know
what you are planning to do. I have also included a letter to parents or guardians to help you out. The
letter should explain what the parts of the meeting are, and how you plan to run them in your classroom.
The letter will also give directions to the parents explaining how the students will participate in the
meetings. 

   For the first month or so of school, I lead the meetings. This allows me to teach the students how the
meetings are run. We always start the meeting with a greeting. This is a time for the students to say Hi
to their classmates. They love getting to go around the room and say Hi to their friends. After the
greeting, I ask a “getting to know you” question. The question lets us all learn a little more about each
other. When we are not in the middle of a pandemic, I have the students sit in a circle around the
carpet. But this next year we will stay seated at our desks, and our greetings will include social
distancing. I will have the students give air hugs, air high fives, and waves to each other. Then I will
let them walk to one or two friends, remembering social distancing, and give their greeting. Then, all
of the students will return to their seats. I will have the students answer our question for the day from
their seats. 

   If you will be starting with distance learning, class meetings can still be a part of your day. You can
have the students take turns giving their greetings and answering their questions while you are on your
meeting platform. The students will love being able to share, and also seeing their classmates. 

   Eventually, you can choose a student leader and decide if you will have the student lead each day,
or for the whole week. I have included two different planning sheets for you. Each of the sheets have
each part of the meeting. The students will use the provided greetings and questions to decide what they
would like to include for that day. Sometimes students like to come up with their own greeting or
question, and I am fine with that. I like to give the forms to the students a week or two before their
scheduled time to lead. This gives them plenty of time to decide what greeting and question they want
to use, and it also gives me time to review what they want to include. I am also able to check if the
greetings and questions they came up with are appropriate. 

   

   The last thing that I do to get ready for our daily meetings is use slides to give the agenda for the day.
I type in the questions that the students want to use for each day right into the slide. This lets all the
other students know what the question is and lets them start thinking about how they would like to
answer. Now I never force anyone to answer the question. They can always say pass and we move
on to the next person. I like to come back around and let the students that didn’t answer have another
opportunity, or for others to add on to their answer based on what other students had to say. I usually
have some type of object that acts as our talking stick. At the beginning of the year, we talk about using
the talking stick and how you must be holding it to speak. So we do a lot of practicing with the talking
stick and raising our hand to be handed the talking stick in order to respond to the question, or add
on to another student's answer. It takes a little bit of time for the students to get used to using the talking
stick, but once they get the hang of it, it works out great! 

   Class meetings are an excellent way to get to know your students and learn more about them. The
students love to learn about one another as well. Every year this quickly becomes one of our favorite
times of the day. I know things are going to look different this next year, but we can still use class
meetings to build community in our class. If you would like to give morning meetings a try, click below
to get your free sample to try it out! 

How to Keep your Students excited this February

   There are so many fun things that happen in February. But it is also a slump time in the year.
The holidays are over and there isn’t another break for a while. That doesn’t mean your classroom
has to be boring though. Today I am going to share some of my February ideas that keep my students
excited to come to school. 

First off is creative writing. February is always a fun time for writing. My students love to use different prompts to come up with fun stories. I like to use different writing pages as early finisher activities. They also work great as part of our ELA centers. Check out the writing freebie that is included in this post as well. 

   My students love crafts and math is a great time to break out the crafts. I love to incorporate
different projects that go along with what we are studying. A lot of times the kids don’t even realize
that they are practicing their math skills. This makes a fun display for the classroom too.  I love how
it makes the classroom all festive for the holiday. 

   This is also a great time to teach letter writing. I do a whole unit on the friendly letter. I always
like to include some fun crafts that go along with our writing as well. My students always get so
excited when I start to take out the supplies for a craft. And they make a great display in the
classroom too. 

   Our day always consists of a morning meeting and a closing circle. Our meetings are our favorite
times of the day. They really help to get us focused for the day. I love to have themed slides for the
students. They also love to help lead the meetings. This gives them ownership in our classroom. 

   February also means Presidents Day. I love to give my students ownership of their learning
with projects. One of my favorite projects of the year is this Presidents Day project. It lets them
learn about the holiday and how we celebrate it and then they learn from their classmates through
oral presentations. I love to also give my students opportunities to work on their speaking and
listening. Projects are a great way to have students work on this. 

   My last favorite thing to do in February is to incorporate picture books. My students always love
when I get a new book out. I try to bring in lots of different books. There are so many different things
that are happening in February and books are a great way to teach about them all. 

   Are you excited about February in your classroom? Did you find some new ways to celebrate?
Click on the link below if you’re interested in a fun writing freebie for your classroom. 

The Best Classroom Themes for the New School Year!

Hi there! Do you have a hard time coming up with how you will decorate your classroom? I used to
always struggle with this too, but then I started using a theme and everything clicked into place! 

                                     

One theme that my class really enjoyed was our Apple Theme. My students loved the bright primary
colors of red, green, yellow, and blue. The students reflexible seating from this room as well.
The layout in both rooms was very similar, but not exactly the same. 

This Beach Theme was one of my favorites as well. We all loved the calm colors of blue, teal and
yellow. It helped us all feel like we were on a beach somewhere. It was so relaxing!
 

On the far wall are our work boards. I love displaying the work that the students do throughout the year,

and they enjoy seeing their work up too. I am a big fan of using fabric on the boards because it allows me
to leave the same boards up for the whole year. The fabric also does not fade and I can reuse it every
time I decide to use the same theme. 

                                          

I like to display signs and posters for the students to use as references around the room. Here you see
the hand signals we use and our number line. The hand signals are so helpful. I can quickly glance
around the room and see what students need. 

                                    

At the front of the room is our Alphabet, Talking Question Frames and our Schedule. I love having
posters and signs around the room that the kids can use every day. They start to get used to these
reference items being in their particular places and know where they can always find it. 

On the far cabinets we have our Word Wall and our Classroom Jobs. We use a classroom economy,
and the kids get so excited to apply for the job that they want and then get that job. I have enough jobs
for every student and at the beginning of the year each student gets to try each job. Once we have gone
through all of the students then they can start applying for jobs. Each job has a different amount of
money they can earn. At the end of each month they can purchase reward coupons. 

                                     

At the very back of the room is our library. The students love to use the library and find interesting books.
I like to display books on the top of the shelves that go with the different holidays and special times
of the year. Some of the students favorite books are the ones that are on the tops of the shelves.
They just love getting to share books and tell their classmates about the books that they are reading.
I lenjoy seeing them get excited about the books in our library. 

If you would like to see more of what is happening in our classroom follow along at Instagram. 

End of the School Year Blog Hop

Hi everyone! I am linking up with some awesome Southern California teachers to talk about the wonderful place that we live. Southern California is great! We have the best weather and some pretty amazing places to visit. 

During the summer you can always find me at the beach or pool. I just love the summer and the sun!

Another favorite place for us to go is Disneyland. My husband works there so we go a lot whenever I am not in school.  We love to go on our own and with our family and friends!

My husband and I also just enjoy being together! We always create a bucket list of things we want to do during the summer. This year a couple of the places we have on the list are the Getty and the Huntington Library. 

Well now lets get to the fun stuff! Click on the link below to head over to my freebie for you. Then make sure that you visit all of the other blogs and see what their favorite things to do in Southern California. Also make sure to collect their great freebies!

An InLinkz Link-up

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five for Friday and some Freebies

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her "Five for Friday" linky party. I've never done this linky party before, so I'm really excited! Well, here goes! 

One

I went into school on Saturday morning to get some work done. I will be back at school after ten weeks away, so I wanted to make sure the room was all ready for the kids on Monday. I created this board for the kids' fourth quarter AR points. 

Two

My husband and I made our requisite trip to Disneyland to capture a picture for Easter. 

Three

We went to Santa Barbara for a few days and had an amazing time. We spent some time near the beautiful beach!

Four

I spent some time at a phenomenal children's bookstore. I was in heaven and spent way too much money! 

Five

We did lots of sight seeing while we were away. Here's a pic of the Santa Barbara Courthouse - its clock tower had the most incredible panoramic view of the city! 

We had such a wonderful time eating great food and relaxing. 

Well, here's one last thing to leave you with... this week while I was on break, I did lots of work to get ready for the end of the year. Both my second and fourth grade classes will be reading stories about firefighters. I created some activities for the kids to do with the stories. Here are the activities! I hope that you enjoy them. Just click on the picture to download them. 

Here are the 2nd grade activities.

Here are the 4th grade activities.

I hope you all have a great Friday and a great weekend!