Bulletin Board Time

It is official... the last week of summer vacation.  I got my classroom ready today and it was just a little hot in the room.  I thought I would post a few pictures of the bulletin boards and explain them.
I have two normal bulletin boards and then an ugly green old chalkboard in the back (new black one in the front!) so I decided to make them into bulletin boards as well.

This is one of my "boards" to cover some of the green chalkboard.  Each class has a corresponding popcorn bin on the top.  If they have a great day they get a piece of popcorn in it (yellow crumpled up paper).  If they get a certain amount by Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Cinco de Mayo (I had to throw in a Spanish holiday) they get to have a movie/popcorn party the day before break.  If they don't make it, they will have to do work packets for the class.  It is based on all class behavior so they have to work together to do well.  I decided if there is one student that misbehaves a lot I will just have them go to another room during the movie.  I don't want to punish a whole class if one student is holding them back.

 

Here is another one to cover the green boards.  Since our school mascot is the Sailors I found this bulletin board set to use.  I left a blank spot in the middle so that students can volunteer to put up a picture of a country we are studying along with interesting information that goes with it. This actually said "Sail Off To A Great Year" but I cut the "Great Year" off and covered the "A" up so that we can put the country's name on the board.

 

This is the bulletin board for absent students.  One column is Classwork that was done and the other is Homework.  Each folder is for a different day of the week.  Since I am teaching 6th grade, students need to learn a lot about responsibility.  Instead of me telling students what they missed, they can grab the work out of the folders and then come to me with any questions that they have about their work.  I stapled the tops and bottoms of folders and turn them sideways so that papers will stick out of them a little bit.

 

I am in the process of finishing my "Homeworkopoly" bulletin board and my general information board.  A few of the things I need are getting laminated so those will be finished on Monday after inservice.  Look for more pictures soon.

Tuesday=1st Day of School!!! :)

"The Yellow Sheet"

I just came across this on a teacher's blog and absolutely HAD to post it immediately.  It is probably the best teaching item I have came across. 
"The Yellow Sheet" (<-----To view the teacher's blog and description click on the link to the left)

Here is a short description of "The Yellow Sheet". 
When a student misses an assignment they have to go retrieve a yellow sheet of paper and fill it out with the date, assignment topic, actual assignment, and their signature.  They turn in the sheet to the teacher and is kept on record.  When a student finally turns in their homework the bottom portion of the paper is cut off and stapled to the student's work with the grade that they received from being late.  If they never turn it in, it is recorded with a 0.  The teacher keeps the top half on record (great for parent/teacher conference and questions).

I will definitely be having a folder of these (hoping they don't get used often!).  I will put up a copy of my own version once I make it over the next few weeks.
What a great idea to keep track of students' work and to make them be responsible and held accountable.

Interactive Notebook Resources

For any of you that are new to interactive notebooks (as am I), I found this great youtube video that really breaks down how to set them up. I plan on giving students different foldable, graphic organizers, and specific ideas on what to put on the left side and then letting them take it from there.  I want to have some specific requirements for the left side so that those students who tend to not to do work will have a requirement.

*I really like how he numbers the pages rather than just doing 1, 2, 3...

Here is another short video that shows more examples of the left side of the notebook.

Last, I came across this AWESOME PDF file (from Dinah Zike's resources) that has a lot (I mean a LOT) of foldables with specific directions on how to create them.  It also gives some topics and examples of ones that have been done on that topic.  Click on the link below to view it. :)

Foldables

Happy Mid-Summer

Happy middle of the summer (already)!



I have decided since I am moving to our middle school and into 6th grade Social Studies that I would start blogging to share my teaching ideas and keep track of them for myself.
Hopefully I will remember to update pretty frequently and maybe someone out there will find something I post useful. I know that I have found lots of great ideas from other teachers' blogs.
Since I live/teach in Pennsylvania I will be teaching the Western Hemisphere to my 6th graders. I am actually really excited about it since I have been going through the book. 

Interactive Notebooks

I decided that I am going to have my students create/keep interactive notebooks for class. I have been looking into a lot of different resources online and decided that it will be a lot of work (more for me than them), but very beneficial to the students.  Everything they need will be in one place and they will get to put their own creative twist on the notes that they'll have to take.



In case you haven't heard of interactive notebooks I highly recommend looking into it for almost any grade and subject.  There are lots of options for doing it....writing notes on right side of the page and students can turn it into drawings/graphic organizers/etc. on the left side of the page, creating different graphic organizers that can be drawn in, graphic organizers students tape or paste in, mini flip charts, tri-fold charts, and the list goes on and on!



I am going to try to post pictures of all the different things I'm going to have my students draw/write/paste into their notebooks so hopefully you can get some ideas.  Eventually I will hopefully get them up on teacherspayteachers.com so other people can use them if they're interested in it.



Okay, I am done writing my first blog and am going to go back to starting to plan ideas for their lessons and notebooks. :)