Teacher's Assistants

How do you handle classroom jobs in your classroom? 

I used to have a job for every student in my classroom. But, I always forgot who did what and got tired of referencing my job chart to find out. When we were out of the classroom, I never could remember who was in charge of what. No more!

Now, I have 2 teacher’s assistants per day and they literally do ALL of the jobs that day. This method has really worked for me and has simplified managing student jobs. Everyone gets a turn at doing everything and I don’t have to keep track of which students have held certain jobs or not. Plus, I don’t have to dedicate as much wall space in my room for this simple little chart versus the entire bulletin board my former job chart took up.

Each day I have a boy and girl assistant. They are my line leaders, take lunch money to the café, return library books, pass out papers, EVERYTHING! They love being “in charge” for the day and I love not having the hassle of assigning jobs and keeping track of who is supposed to be doing things.


I put my Teacher's Assistants chart on TPT if you are ready to ditch your old system and simplify like I did!  There are 4 different borders to choose from: 

Chevron

Polka Dot

Quatrefoil

Stripes

Included in this packet are number cards and choice of 6 different color charts. Please check out the preview to see color choices. Each chart has a black & white border.

**Please note that the magnetic border shown in the photographs is obviously not included. However, I wanted to show you how I hang mine in my own classroom.


Simply print out the chart and number cards, laminate, and hang.  I punched holes in the top of my number cards and hang them from a magnetic hook.  You'll want to assign each student a number.  You may be like me and use student numbers for other things such as student mailboxes or desks.  You're all set!

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.  Leave me a comment below!

Thanks for stopping by!

New Birthday Sets!!

New Birthday Sets are now available in my TPT shop.  Earlier this week I posted about my Blue & Red set.  Now I also have a Brights Set.

And - I'm really excited about this - new Blackline sets!!!

Blackline sets are available in Stripes and Polka Dots.  What they enable you to do is print your birthday printables onto any color paper or card stock you desire.  Say what?!

Create your own custom color scheme for your birthday goodies, banners, bulletin boards, cards, certificates, etc.  Print in multiple colors, mix and match, the options are endless!

Thanks for checking out my Birthday Sets on TPT.  Be sure to click on the preview to see samples of what's included.

Blue & Red Set

Brights Set

Blackline Stripes Set

Blackline Polka Dot Set

Have a terrific day!!

Celebrating Birthdays

How do you celebrate birthdays in the classroom?  And, what do you do about summer birthdays?

I have handled summer birthdays a couple of different ways.  I used to celebrate July birthdays during the first week of school and June birthdays during the last week of school.  Now, I celebrate those summer birthdays when it's those students' 1/2 birthdays.  I like this better because it keeps them from feeling left out of the fun.

When my birthday boy/girl arrives in the morning, I have a goodie bag waiting for them.  I include a Krazy straw, bookmark, a card from me, and other small trinkets such as an eraser, silly band, pencil with topper, etc. 

I also give them a birthday certificate.  All of the printables you see here are now available in my TPT shop.

I purchase the Krazy straws at my local Dollar Tree.  They come in a package of 6.

You can either put them in the goodie bags ahead of time or, what I do is, display them in a jar.  I let the birthday boy/girl pick one out after we sing happy birthday to them.

I'm working on adding a selection of color schemes; however this first one I've uploaded is super fun because the blue and red color scheme lends itself to matching with all kinds of Cat in the Hat goodies you can find at the store or in catalogs.

Do you have a bulletin board dedicated to birthdays?  I've also included in this Birthday Set, printables you can use to create a fun display. 

Print the pennant banner and string with ribbon, yarn, string, etc. or simply staple it up as I have done here.

I included birthday balloon décor with the names of the months.  You can use the blank balloons included to write out student names and display under each month.

Alternatively, if you are short on space like I am, you can display this little "Our Birthdays" poster.  I print and laminate, then write all my students names on it with the day of their birthday beside their name.

To check out the set, visit my TPT shop here.  More color choices coming soon!

Birthday Set - Blue & Red

Thanks for stopping by!

Whiteboard Makeover

I'm on a mission to make my classroom more Reggio-inspired.  {More about that here.}

The other day, I went in to my classroom to drop off a few things.  One of them was this Duck Tape I found that looks like burlap.  Burlap!!

I couldn't resist ripping the old Duck Tape down immediately and replacing it on the spot.  "I'm just going to school to drop off a few things", I told my husband.  "I'll be right back", I said.  Yeah, right!  Sucked in again.

The reason this tape is up here to begin with has to do with my classroom projector / Apple TV.  You see, my white board actually has lines all the way across the entire board.  When we got our new Apple TV's installed a few years back, we wanted to be able to project it on the white board, rather than on a projector screen.  That way we could write on the board while projecting.  Problem was, those pesky lines were annoying.  Annoying!

So, our trusty custodians came to the rescue, ordered a large white board, and taped it to the center of the existing board with white Duck Tape.  Which was fine.  It was fine until I used it for a few years and it got all disgusting from dry erase markers.  And started to peel.

Anywho, since I'm trying to "go neutral" with my color scheme for next year, I found this burlap Duck Tape to replace it with.

I love the way it turned out.  Yep, it doesn't take much to make me happy. 

And now, I'm wanting to find other places in my classroom to use this awesome burlap tape on.  Any ideas??  Hmmm??

Yay for Pennants!

Loving how my writing center is starting to come together.  This year I moved it to a new location in my classroom.  I used to have a bulletin board in the old location, but over here I only have a boring beige wall.  (Yawn...)

So, I decided to create a bulletin board on the wall to sort of frame the space.  Today, I added a pennant and I love, love, love how it turned out.

Here's a tip for cutting pennants, and anything else really.  For 15 years I taught rubber stamping, card making, and paper crafting and this simple, little tip makes a big difference in your projects.  Tip:  Leave a white border space around your pieces.  It makes it easier to cut because you don't have to trim precisely on the edge.  The white border creates a frame and compliments the projects. 

 

These pennant banners are one of many patterns/colors available in my TPT shop.  The set includes:

-Upper and Lower Case alphabet

-Numbers 0-9

-Symbols (period, question mark, exclamation mark, hyphen, ampersand, and apostrophe)

 

With the symbols included, the possibilities are endless.  See how I used an exclamation mark on mine?



Visit my TPT shop to see more colors available in chevron and polka dot patterns.

 

 

  

Thanks for visiting!

Bulletin Board Progress... and a Fail!

This week I've been working on putting up new bulletin boards in my classroom.  I'm fortunate that our school does not require us to take them down at the end of the year; however, I've had the same paper & borders up for 4 years, so I am ready for a change!

I have 2 adjacent boards just as you come into my room.  I've never really done too much with them... I can't really use them for anchor activities or teaching because they aren't in our teaching area.  So, I've mostly used them to display classroom rules and sometimes student work.

This is what they used to look like...  Blue paper and red/white checkered border.  {sorry, poor quality photo!}

I replaced it with black paper and red herringbone patterned border.  I also layered a green polka dot border at the top.

So, at this point, it looked better but, what to DO with it?  I've been seeing some super-cute student work boards on Pinterest and Instagram, so I decided to go with that.  I picked out 4 bright colors that went with the color scheme in my room and... voila!

I hot glued miniature clothespins to the top center of each piece of card stock.  This will allow me to easily change out student work.  I usually have 23-26 students each year, but I went ahead and put up 30 pieces of card stock.  I plan to put up some fun quotes in the extra spaces.  I'll post a picture soon of those!

Okay.  Now on to an epic FAIL!  Hopefully admitting my mistake will help some other teacher out there save some time & money!

I picked up some fadeless paper at our local teacher supply store in black.  What I didn't notice, until I was back in my classroom ready to hang it, was that I accidentally got GLOSSY paper, instead of regular paper.  Sigh.

I went ahead and hung it up, hoping for the best.  By the way, the boards I am using this on aren't actual bulletin boards.  They are white boards.  I have a huge amount of white board space in my room, but need more bulletin board space, so I usually hang paper up and use magnetic borders.

Long story short, when I came back in the next day, the paper had bubbled horribly.  I was already not loving the glossiness of it, and now THIS.  Worse yet, it wasn't just 1 board... I actually have 3 boards, just like this, with the horrible, glossy, bubble thing going on.  Ughhhhh!!!!! 

I wonder if it's because I'm covering white boards and not a regular bulletin board... maybe the sleekness made it bubble?  I don't know.

You can bet I ripped that right down and went back to the teacher store for regular black!  Ahhhhh!

Friends, if you don't like the glossy, bubbled look, read the label.  You're welcome!  ;)