SimplerKinderTeacher

New School Year Prep

2012-06-01T12:37:00.003-07:00

School is recently over and I'm already thinking of next year. I found on pinterest an interesting idea of creating a new student packet. Essentially it is a ziplock bag full of all the items and paperwork you would need if a new student were to enroll. Usually each year I have about one or two new students, which is nice compared to other schools that feel like revolving doors. However, getting a new student requires a lot of work. The new student needs all the documents sent home at the beginning of the year with information about my classroom, and needs to be added to all the name displays such as birthdays, hallway names, lunch clips, etc. The picture below is from twothingsincommon.blogspot.com and this teacher decided to make 5 extras for every beginning of the year item. I plan on doing the same thing next year and I forsee less stress when a new student comes through my door. I think I will also create a running list of items for back to school time that I can refer to at the beginning of each year.

Anchor Charts

2012-02-22T16:19:00.000-08:00

These are a couple of anchor charts I made while teaching my kiddos in Writing Workshop. One is from our curriculum and the other was an idea I found on Pinterest. I have made some other anchor charts specific to certain units. These charts work across the year however.

Assessment

2012-02-22T16:05:00.000-08:00

Assessment takes a while in Kindergarten. It's not like I can hand out a five page paper and pencil test with multiple choice, fill in the blank, and essay questions. In order to figure out what my students know I have to spend some sort of one on one time with each. In my classroom I combine a little observation with more "come over here and let me ask you some questions Suzy". I'd like for my assessments to flow better but right now, this is where I'm at and most comfortable. So a system another teacher used for anecdotal notes during writing workshop and a suggestion from one of my fellow Kindergarten teachers merged into flip clipboards.

These hang right over my desk area so I can quickly grab and go. I have one for each "subject" from our report cards. Actually, personal skills were sneaked into the writing folder. Below you see one open and in use. The inside consists of that subject's section of our report card blown up for each child. There are four columns on each student's card, one for each quarter for me to mark up and track progress.

I can refer back to these for inputting grades in the computer as well as when looking at data on our collaboration days. On the reverse side of the card, I can also write anecdotal notes if needed. It is a system that has really worked out well for me!

Table Tubs

2012-02-22T15:43:00.000-08:00

This idea is a combination of two different fellow teachers' ideas. Someone out there probably has the same idea. Here it is: a college plastic bath tote combined with cups makes perfect sense in helping students organizing their table tub supplies. Below is a top view of one table's tub.

As you can see I have many different supplies in one compact space. I thought the tubs would be too big at first, but really they work perfectly. I have coordinated scissor color with the tub color. This way stray scissors are returned without much work. Students have use of two types of glue, crayons, markers, pencils, and pink erasers (pencil erasers and toppers never last in Kindergarten). Here is a side view of the tub:

I numbered my tables with the simple peel and stick letters and numbers you can find at Walmart for projects. I set the number to the side because I figured that later I may add pictures of shapes, or coins, to name the tables which would give students more practice with these. Overall, these have worked out great! They also clean easily with a magic eraser for the following year!

Teacher Desk Area

2012-02-22T15:25:00.000-08:00

My teacher desk area used to be two massive black metal desks. They took up so much room it was crazy. I downsized. Here are a few pictures of what I now have for my area of the classroom.

The above is a view of my entire teacher area. I have 25 students in my class. Therefore my small group table has to be used a a student table as well.

My desk supplies are in the mini clear drawers that you may see at Target or Walmart. I did decide to label these. Some clear drawers I do not label, seeing as how they are clear. But there are quite a few little teeny tiny things that could get forgotten if I did not label.

These items above are some small group manipulatives as well as extra supplies that are larger.

All my papers for the week are sorted into days of the week drawers.

All of my most important binders and folders are kept at the bottom of my shelf. This is the only shelf that houses my things. Any extra PD books are stored in my back storage area.

I downsized my computer desk. This is a tremendous change. The other I had was 3 times this size.

I was surprised when downsizing just how many different places I kept pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, scissors, rulers, etc. Now I have one little bucket that keeps everything! My students even know this is where every writing utensil I own belongs so I sometimes ask them to grab me something if I am situated across the room and they can also return things for me too!

This is where most of my working gets done. I will say, things do accumulate, but due to the fact that this is a shared workspace for both my students and myself, it is a motivator to keep it clean and tidy. Below you see my little filing system. This idea I received from a pin on Pinterest from MissKindergartenLove. It just so happens that this little system fits very well in my teacher bag, again another pin from NotJustTeach blogsopt. This way I can take it home too to get some work done.

Make It Simple

2012-02-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

I've recently been sucked into this world of blogging. I never realized how many kindergarten blogs there are out there! Nor did I realize how many great ideas there were on each blog. I have NO IDEA if I'll have enough time to keep this blog up. I actually tried to make a blog a few years ago, but to no avail. I may start with some basics. How I set up my classroom, ideas for all the "workshops" such as reading, writing, and math, and simple organizing and classroom management ideas I have. Basically, to get back to the title of this post, I want to share how I make teaching simpler. I also hope to continue to learn how others simplify their hectic teaching lives!