Time Give Away

Ok so I have a ton of things that I want to make available to anyone that wants them. I have been having a really hard time putting a price on them because I think that teaching is about sharing ideas and as we all know teachers don't make a ton of money and the money they do make is spent on classroom supplies. I've decided to make all items I post free for the taking. The kids come first and if something I have made is going to make your job easier in some way so that you can spend more time with your students or family then it is yours. I only ask, in return, to give credit where credit is due. Honestly you don't even have to mention names. This week I have some spelling templates for homework and a homework cover sheet. Enjoy!! and let me know what you think.

Plan books

So it's Sunday night and usually I am up until all hours doing my plan book to pass in Monday morning. This year I discovered planbook.com and have cut my time down by more than half. It has standards by state that you can just click to match your lesson and I was able to make a template that I just fill in. I can extend my lessons over days or bump it if I didn't get to it. And the best part... I can color code everything. It saves as a PDF so I don't have to worry if my administrator has the program to open it. No more excel to get frustrated with. I think I may be in love. It is free for 1 month but once I started using it I paid the very low yearly fee. A small fee is nothing when I get to spend my Sunday night putting my kid to bed and read them a story. I even got to watch a little tv and have a Weight Watchers cookie and cream ice cream bar....heaven.

Teachers Pay Teachers

I started a page on teachers pay teachers. I have so many things I've created over the years that just take up space on my hard drive. I thought I should start to share. The items below are free on TPT and more to come. Enjoy!!

Cover for a 8.5 x 11 binder

Prints business card sized passes

School Beginnings

 This is the start of my math area. I need to change the labels  on my bins so look for that pic soon.

 Revamping my science area this year.

 Social Studies beginnings.

The start of my decorating this year! You'll see a lot of stuff adapted from Pinterest to fit my needs and style. I have a Cricket machine that I can't live with out. That is how I made all of the cutouts. I made the clothes line jobs a few years ago and it has really worked so I've kept them but for the most part I like to change things up each year.  The colored clothes pins stay and I have regular clothes pins with the kids names on them....well as soon as I get my class list I will. We only change jobs on the first of the month so the kids have their jobs all month long. This cuts down on having to remember to change jobs each week and the kiddos really like having their jobs for a month. Also it allows me to hang the job chart a bit higher since I only have to get to it once a month. On the first of the month we have a ritual of cleaning out our desks, changing them if needed, jobs classroom library check (make sure book are where they are supposed to be and books in the "book hospital" are repaired) I don't like to put up too much on the bulletin boards because the kids create a lot of the displays. For example the first week of school in math I take small groups and the kiddos make a poster of problem solving strategies and "math words we already know" to post on the math bulletin board. Through out the year we add to theses posters. In science the clouds are laminated so we will write words to describe the cloud types on the clouds and then display student work and vocabulary with definitions written by the kiddos. I will definitely update with more pictures as I take them.

You Have to Start Somewhere

Ok here it goes.... I have blogged for other things but never for school. After reading so many other bloggers I thought I would give it a try. I am a second grade teacher for my second year. Previously I taught first grade for 10 years. My first full time teaching job was in second grade so I feel like I am revisiting my roots. Hopefully I can share some ideas about what works for me. School starts on August 27 so in the next few days I am going to share how I get ready for the first day.