New Brain Breaks
I love, love, love using brain breaks in the classroom. Anytime you notice a lull or a lack of participation a quick brain break is a great way to get students engaged again. Brain breaks can be a variety of things from singing a song, doing 20 jumping jacks, or doing a little dance. My student teacher and I found these great Disney Just Dance Videos on YouTube. They have ones for "Under the Sea," "Bare Necessities," "Be Our Guest," and more. Now, as a teacher, using YouTube videos can be a concern because you never know what ad could pop up. Our district found this great site, that you might already know about, but if you don't I had to share. It's called SafeShare.Tv. It is a way to show YouTube videos in the classroom in a safe way. You put the web address into the SafeShare website and it provides you with a safe link to use in the classroom - ad free. The website is www.safeshare.tv. Wonderful website and wonderful way to show some fun dance brain breaks on the Smart Board!
Student Teacher - End of Year Gift
I was lucky enough to work with a fabulous teacher candidate (student teacher) from ASU for the whole school year! She was fantastic! She was one of those student teachers who you could just tell had that natural teacher gene from the get-go. I would not have survived this year without her and I'm so excited because she already has a job for the next school year!
Since she was so wonderful, I wanted to do something extra special as a going away gift. I collected donations from the students and was able to get her a very generous gift card to Lakeshore Learning so she could start working on getting items for her own classroom. I also got her the book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It was a class favorite so I had all of the kids sign a copy that she could have for her own classroom. We also made her a memory book that had advice for her in her own classroom and also reasons why she was a great teacher. Then, I wanted to do something as a thank you because she was seriously so helpful in keeping my classroom running this year. I remember how that first week or two of school with New Teacher Orientation and the first week can be incredibly rough. I remember how I was at school until 8 most nights and the last thing I wanted to do was cook something for dinner. So, I made her a little gift card booklet to help her get through that first week. See pictures below...
Our memory book binder...
My gift for her....
Since she was so wonderful, I wanted to do something extra special as a going away gift. I collected donations from the students and was able to get her a very generous gift card to Lakeshore Learning so she could start working on getting items for her own classroom. I also got her the book "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It was a class favorite so I had all of the kids sign a copy that she could have for her own classroom. We also made her a memory book that had advice for her in her own classroom and also reasons why she was a great teacher. Then, I wanted to do something as a thank you because she was seriously so helpful in keeping my classroom running this year. I remember how that first week or two of school with New Teacher Orientation and the first week can be incredibly rough. I remember how I was at school until 8 most nights and the last thing I wanted to do was cook something for dinner. So, I made her a little gift card booklet to help her get through that first week. See pictures below...
Our memory book binder...
My gift for her....
Teacher Love Notes
Every year I receive tons of sweet pictures and notes from the kiddos and of course they all want me to hang each one of them up. Well I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to make a Teacher's Love Notes binder. Each time I got a sweet picture or note, it went into the binder. Then, during independent reading time, kids were able to look through it and see all of their beautiful pieces of work. The kiddos really enjoyed looking at it, it kept it organized so it wasn't all over the classroom, and it made them happy to know I had kept their work. This is definitely an idea I will continue to use next year.
I'm not sure where I got this cute cover, but I think I found it somewhere on Teacher's Pay Teachers. So, I apologize for not knowing who to give credit to, but thought this binder cover was super cute!
Some of the sweet notes for the binder...
I'm back!
Hi everyone!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have some big changes coming this summer. I will be moving to Las Vegas and will also be moving grade levels. After teaching first grade for five years, next year I'll be moving on up to second grade (and will need to rename my blog). I'm finally out of my classroom and cleaning that out was quite a project. I'm not sure how I collected that many things, but boy do I have a lot of school stuff. And now that I'm avoiding packing up my apartment, I've decided to do a few blog updates. Blog updating is way more fun than cleaning and packing more. Anyways, I'm hoping to update a few times this summer and hoping to also have some great second grade ideas to be sharing next year. Thank you for your patience with me! I'm excited for this next step in the journey and excited for the busy, crazy summer I have ahead of me! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!
As I mentioned in my last blog post, I have some big changes coming this summer. I will be moving to Las Vegas and will also be moving grade levels. After teaching first grade for five years, next year I'll be moving on up to second grade (and will need to rename my blog). I'm finally out of my classroom and cleaning that out was quite a project. I'm not sure how I collected that many things, but boy do I have a lot of school stuff. And now that I'm avoiding packing up my apartment, I've decided to do a few blog updates. Blog updating is way more fun than cleaning and packing more. Anyways, I'm hoping to update a few times this summer and hoping to also have some great second grade ideas to be sharing next year. Thank you for your patience with me! I'm excited for this next step in the journey and excited for the busy, crazy summer I have ahead of me! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!