Robopops

My Back-to-School theme is going to be Robots. I found lots of cool stickers, borders and cut-outs from teacher catalogs but I really wanted some kind of treat for each student. So I created Robopops!

I can’t lie, they are a smidge high maintenance, but totally worth the effort. Print out my list of supplies and the directions to make your own! Let us know if you think of anything to improve the design. 

Ann Marie

Pictures of Parents

The day after Open House/Back-to-School Night, my students are in awe that their parents were actually in the classroom and sitting at their desks the night before. (That is, if they didn’t come with their parent.) To prove it, I take pictures to convince my students that their mom or dad was really there. It’s fun to leave the photo on a child’s desk and see the reaction the next morning. If you don’t have time to print the pictures, take a group shot of everyone and project it on your SMARTBoard for your students to see as soon as they walk in!

Back-to-School Mini Units

We spend our summers dreaming up fabulous and sometimes elaborate units to wow our students in the fall. Then, when we go back to school, curriculum maps, required standards and other time-consuming mandates get thrown at us and suddenly the life is sucked out of our once brilliant ideas. Sound familiar?

Since we are rule followers we stick to the maps and standards and teach what we are supposed to teach when we are supposed to teach it. However, we also like to throw in our own creative ideas when time allows. This year, we are trying Mini Units. We chose eight books with strong main characters to use for eight weeks.

Elements we will focus on are: character traits, setting, problem, solution and reflection. We also developed extension ideas for higher achieving students. If you’d like our journal prompts you can snag them here.

Our exploration of these story elements will begin with Fancy Nancy. Throughout the first week we plan to project samples to model each element on our SMARTBoards.

We will begin independent journal entries on week two. Each assignment modeled in week one will be completed in the students’ writing journals (you can see our specific plans here). They will only need to glue in small headings to identify which element we’re focusing on that day. If time allows (ha, ha) we will incorporate other books about the same character into the week. If not, we will at least make the books available for classroom checkout.

If you include Mini Units in your plans this year, let us know how things went for you!

Genre Table

It’s difficult to get elementary students to understand and identify genres. The genre table is a strongly visual and interactive center that helps with this challenge. Students select a book from one of two genres that are labeled with signs defining each.

This is an example of a genre table in a 3-6 classroom.

This is an example of a genre table in a K-2 classroom.

They are also given opportunities to write their own stories to support their understanding. For example, when we displayed informational/nonfiction books, one of my students wrote a nonfiction book about spiders and wanted to put it on the table! The teacher can change the genres monthly or biweekly depending on the learning pace of his or her class.

Throughout the year, revisit genres that students had a difficult time comprehending or genres they particularly enjoyed. It’s also fun to compare and contrast different genres (eg. Display ghost stories and fairy tales for 2 weeks and later display ghost stories and legends).

My students wait excitedly each time the table changes just to see what’s next. They also become experts at identifying genres in our guided reading groups each week.

Click here to get a complete set of signs for the genre table!

Easy Back-to-School Pins

Here’s a quick and inexpensive way to create Back-to-School Pins for your students to wear. You will need bar pin backs, stickers (I usually base my sticker choice around our current class theme or class mascot) and plain stencil sheets (sold at Wal-Mart and craft stores).

Adhere the stickers to the stencil sheets and then cut out your now sturdy stickers. Next, use a glue gun to place a pin on the back of each sticker.

Voila! You’ll have a unique “welcome to school” surprise and make quite a fashion statement too (especially if you buy trademark character stickers)! You can produce additional sticker pins during the year to recognize student achievements, stimulate interest in units of study and celebrate student birthdays. 

Content Word Wall

We all know that a good understanding of vocabulary is essential for student success. One way teachers and administrators love to support vocabulary development is through the use of word walls. But how often are your students reading the words with little knowledge of what they mean?

A content word wall is a great way to help tackle this problem. Some teachers like to put word walls in alphabetical order, but we thought, “Why not separate them by content area?” This led us to group the terms into categories that will help students both read and define the words.

We separated a bulletin board into four sections and created these headings for Language (language arts, reading and writing), Math, Science, and Social Studies. To aid our visual learners, we also color coordinated the different subjects. As new vocabulary was introduced, we added it to our boards.

We also turned the word wall into a center to encourage students to actively use it. We made pointers available at the center and had students read the words to each other. They also discussed what each word meant and/or how to use it in a sentence. Once students were familiar with the whole board, they filled out a card letting us know they were ready to read the word wall. We further enticed them by offering a chance to earn a small prize (a bookmark, extra snack, etc.) if all terms were correctly read and defined/used. Students loved this center and would often be found there after completing their classwork.

Check out our Content Word Wall on Teachers pay Teachers. It’s aligned to the CCSS for K-2 as well as the Virginia First Grade SOLs. It has almost 400 words on it to make creating your word wall much easier.

Miss Stephens Doesn't Live in Room 37

On the first day of school, we already know so much about our students.  Imagine what it’s like for them. They may have heard of us but in most cases they don’t know anything about their new teacher. How discomforting that must be! To help alleviate the anxiety, I present a board about me. It sounds narcissistic but I’m not sharing it with the staff or taking it to a meeting with the superintendent. (Wouldn’t that be funny though?) It simply helps my students get to know me in a short amount of time and clears up the misconception that teachers live at school. (You can read Miss Malarkey Doesn’t Live in Room 10 as a fun way to introduce your board.) Even their parents enjoy looking at the board at Back to School Night!

To make one yourself, use a small bulletin board or a sturdy piece of cardboard or poster board. You could also use a little section of your chalkboard if you need to. Think about activities you do, things you love and interesting facts about your life. Use photographs, clip art, stickers and colored or decorative paper. If you are a traveler like I am, the maps with pins to show where you’ve been are always a big hit. Michaels, A.C. Moore and Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store, have a large variety of sticker collections for hobbies, vacations and home activities. The board stays out for a couple of months and when I put it away I always get lots of complaints!  

Ann Marie