My 5 Favorite Picture Books to Celebrate America in the Classroom

  Picture books are a great way to introduce topics in your classroom. They are also an excellent way to celebrate holidays. My students adore it when I bring new books into the classroom to share with them. Today I am going to share some of our favorite picture books for celebrating America. 

    The first book on the list is Our 50 States by Lynne Cheney. This book is perfect for learning about the states of our country. It follows a family going on a summer vacation and they are visiting all 50 states. The book shares interesting regional and historical facts about each state as the family travels through them. This book is ideal to read all at once or in small chunks as you study the different states. 

     The next book on the list is Blue Sky White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus. This book is written in verse and has beautiful, bright pictures. It shares different images of our nation that make our country so special. It starts with the imagery of the American flag and goes all the way to a spacecraft taking off in Cape Canaveral. The book is set up as two-page spreads and shares important landmarks on the pages. This book highlights ideas about our country that are new and old and go from sea to shining sea. 

     The next book on the list is My America, the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates. This book is wonderful for younger students. It is a board book, so it is great for little hands. This book uses the lyrics from the treasured song America the Beautiful and pairs it with delightful illustrations that are bright and colorful. There is a fuzzy, touch-and-feel path through the pages that helps children and grown ups alike remember the thread that ties us all together. 

     The next book on the list is We Came to America by Faith Ringgold. This book celebrates the diversity of the people who have come to this great country. The story features the determination and grit of the people who have come. It also celebrates their stories and their culture. This book teaches how ideas from the people before us have helped to forever shape the country that we all call home. 

     The last book on the list is Lady Liberty’s Holiday by Jen Arena. This is a really fun story about the Statue of Liberty getting tired of having to stand in one place for so long. She decides that it’s time to go and see the rest of the country that our people call home. She takes off and visits everywhere from the beaches of Cape Cod, all the way to the coast of California. Along the way she visits the wheat fields of Kansas, and the Grand Canyon. She has so much fun visiting all these places in America, but will she make it back to New York City to welcome in the Fourth Of July? This is a fun story that shares different places around our country, and shows it in a fun way with Lady Liberty doing the visiting. 

     There are so many wonderful picture books about America. Fourth of July is always a fun time to share these types of stories, but our students will enjoy them any time of the year. What are some of your favorite books about America? Let me know in the comments so I can share them with my stud

4 Great Ways to Start Your Day in the Classroom

  It is crucial to set the tone for the day, as soon as your students walk into the room! There are so many fun things you can do in your classroom to create a wonderful start to the day.  You can do the same thing each day, or you can do a mixture of activities throughout your week. Each teacher has their own style of what they like to do, but you can use the following tips to create your perfect start to your day!  

     The first activity that I love to incorporate in our morning routine is writing. Sometimes I will have students work on their writers workshop pieces, or I have them work on journal prompts. Writing is a great way to start the day because it is very independent and students are able to get started as soon as they have all their things put away. Writing is also a great activity that you can make digital with students working on computers or iPads, or you can have students work with paper and pencil. Writing in Journals is a great activity for Monday mornings because students can write about their weekends, and then they can share their thoughts with their classmates during the morning meeting. 

     The next activity that works well for the start of the day is a math or ELA review page. It works well to have a worksheet that is a review from earlier in the year or from a couple of weeks before. At the beginning of the year you can even use worksheets of skills from the previous year. You can also use pages that review a skill needed to build on a new skill that is going to be taught that day, or in the next couple days. This allows students to continue to practice skills that they have been working on. This is another great activity that works for students to do independently. Because it is a worksheet of a skill that has been worked on previously, students are able to come into the classroom and get started right away. Using worksheets of review skills is an excellent way to help students stay on top of skills that they have already learned. 

    Another perfect way to start your day is with mixed review pages. These are another great activity that students can do independently and help them practice skills that they’ve previously worked on. These are perfect for the start of the day because they work on math and ELA skills. Another great idea is to do math review on one side of the page, and ELA on the other side of the page. Your morning meeting is an excellent time to review the pages and make sure that every student understands what was covered on the page. 

     The final way that I love to start our day is with STEM bins. I put lots of different building blocks in boxes and students can grab a box and use that box to build. Students can work alone with a box of materials, or they can work with a partner. This works perfectly for a slow start morning where students are not all arriving at the same time. I have students work on their worksheet for the day and then when they finish, they can build with a STEM bin. Younger students can just build things that they want, and older students could be given a challenge that they have to try to build, like a bridge or the tallest tower. STEM bins are also a great activity for students to work on when they are finished with their work. These bins are always some of my students’ favorite activities! 

     There are so many great ways to start your day! You can have your students do a worksheet that reviews skills, you can have them write in their journals, or you can have them do a slow start with STEM bins. I love doing a mixture of all of these activities, but you can create whatever routine you like. What are your favorite ways to start your day? Tell me in the comments what you are going to try in your classroom. I can’t wait to hear your ideas! 

My Top 4 Tips To Create An Efficient Morning Routine For Your Students

  Do you have a routine for your mornings? Do your students come into the classroom crazy? I have found that creating a morning routine has really helped to get our day off to a great start. There are a few tips that I have for you to create a perfect morning routine for your students and classroom. 

     The first thing that I do every day is have calm music playing. I love using classical music that the students don’t know and recognize. It is important that the music you choose is not songs that the students recognize. When the students recognize the songs that are playing, they are more likely to come into the classroom wild and a little too excited. There are plenty of other opportunities throughout the day that allow you to play music that the students know. But at the start of the day, you want to set the stage for a calm day. I like to start the music before the students walk into the classroom. This helps to set the mood for the day from the minute they walk into the room. 

     Next on the list is to have a place for the students to see exactly what they need to do when they walk in. I like to use a procedure slide for the start of the day. I type on the slide everything that the children need to do from the minute they step into the classroom. I include everything from putting things away, to getting things out for the day, to getting started on an assignment. Having a place for the students to see what they need to do takes the morning responsibilities off of you as the teacher and puts it on the students. When a student comes up to you and asks what they're supposed to do, you are able to tell them to look at the morning procedures on the board. This also allows you to get the things done that need to get done in the morning, like attendance, and reading any notes from parents.  

     The next thing I do to help with our morning routine is to have some type of assignment. This gives the students something to do after they have unpacked and put all their things away. Some different ideas for assignments could be a writing page or journal entry or some type of math or language arts review. I love to have my students work on a review page that reviews skills from the weeks before. When students are done with the assignment, they get to use a STEM Bin to build different objects. STEM bins are a great idea from Brooke Brown. You can find these resources on teachers pay teachers or even at Lakeshore or Amazon. STEM bins are small boxes with different building toys like legos, blocks, or magnetic tiles for students to build with. You can create these boxes yourself or you can use resources available through Brooke. STEM bins were my students' favorite activities, and it made them work diligently to get their work done because they were so excited to use the bins. 

     The last thing that I do every day to have a smooth morning routine is a morning meeting. This is a time that my students always look forward to. At the start of the year, I lead the meeting so my students can learn the routine. Then after the first couple weeks of school, I hand the meeting over to my students. It becomes one of our classroom jobs to be the morning meeting leader. Each week, the leader plans out the meeting. They choose what question they want to ask and what greeting they want for the meeting. We use our morning meeting slide to help us with the flow of the meeting. This helps the students stay on track. 

     Having a morning routine really helps you create a wonderful environment for your students. Morning routines will help your students come into the classroom and know exactly what is expected of them. I love to see my students come in and know what they need to do. They get started as soon as they walk into the classroom. The morning routine helps to create a calm, smooth morning for your students. What part of the morning routine are you going to try first?