Back to School: Putting Up Supplies

Hey guys!! Today, I want to share with you one of the new things I tried this year for back to school. In years past, students came for a full day the first day of school. This allowed me plenty of time during the day to take up each child's supplies individually. However, this year we started school with a "Meet the Teacher Day/Drop Off School Supplies Day" which was an abbreviated day.

Some of the obstacles I faced in trying to decide what to do were... 1) We are departmentalized in 5th grade and we were going to switch on the 1st full day. This left me very little time to put supplies away on the 1st day. 2) We have tables and share schools supplies, so I needed to store most of the supplies while leaving a few out for use.

I decided that I wanted all the supplies put up on the 1/2 day, so that on the 1st full day we were ready to begin.  However, with it being a drop in day, I didn't want to repeat the directions on how to put up the supplies 30 different times for every child. I decided to set up boxes around the room that students would put their supplies in. I also put the instructions on the board, so that all I needed to do after meeting the parent and student is direct them to the directions on the board.

Here are the boxes I set up. I used the boxes that my workbooks came in instead of spending money on cute boxes. After the Meet the Teacher Day was over, I stored the supplies where they belonged and recycled the boxes. I did use a few baskets that I already had for smaller supplies like glue and pencil erasers.

                                             These are the instructions I had on the board.

Over all I felt that this approach was very successful. It was super easy to put all the supplies in the correct storage area after the Meet the Teacher Day. It allowed me to have all the supplies ready for the 1st full day, without taking time out of that day!  I did find that some parents and students didn't follow the directions and I still needed to explain the process to them. I've thought about next year, on top of having the directions on the board, giving them a check list of things to do. That way they have a copy in their hand.

Have you used something similar for putting supplies away? OR Have another way completely? Leaving a comment, I'd love to hear your ideas!!

Sports Theme: Make Your Own Baseball Card

Hey Guys! This year at The Grove our school theme is sports/teamwork. I have decided to go with a baseball theme! I usually incorporate my theme into my Accelerated Reader Bulletin Board and then into the first couple of weeks with get to know you activities and such! I just found this super cute baseball card generator that I am planning on using! I'm not 100% sure how exactly I'm going to use it yet. I've come up with a couple ideas.

1) Make it into a writing activity where they tell all about themselves and hang them out in the hallway.
2) Use the cards to show who has what class job.
3) Pull a card: During a lesson sometimes I pull sticks with their names on them when we are doing review, maybe this year I will pull a card instead.
4) I could put the cards on the door with a cute banner that says "Mrs. McDonald's Team"
5) Could be used for a bulletin board.

I feel like the possibilities on endless! I can't wait to do this! Okay here is how you do it! Go to this site... http://www.mlbbaseballonline.com/cards. Upload a picture and feel in the information. The card can be made into football, basketball, or tennis cards with several color combos if you aren't doing baseball. You can then save it and print it out on paper or send it to be printed as a picture! Here is the picture I made as an example.