Monday Made It- July 13th

I'm linking up today with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics to share some past projects I have made for my classroom.  Last week was very busy and my weekend was even busier so I did not have a chance to finish begin any new projects.  My goal is to blog every day in July so I thought it would be fun to highlight some past projects of mine and link to previous blog posts.  

I think a classroom door is equivalent to the first impression you give everyone of yourself as a teacher.  I want my door to not only look exciting and inviting, but also to be a mix of fun and educational.  My classroom door has evolved through the years, but I really love what you see below.  I was thrilled to not have to take down my door decoration at the end of the school year.  I'm praying nothing fell off over the summer.  We shall see.

Welcome to Room 407

Calvin and Hobbes have been my favorite since before I started teaching

A few years ago I decided to make a math focus wall for my classroom.  It has evolved a bit through the years and this coming year I am thinking of changing it up a bit.  You can click to see all posts on my Math Focus Wall.  This year I mainly focused on having the CCSS posters up so I could refer to them as we worked through different units in math.  I promise to do a post in Aug or Sept about how I change it this year.

Math Focus Wall

This blog post explains my Daily and Class Files.  These are two or my best organizational tips I have for any new teacher starting out.  The class files are great to have if you teach middle school and have multiple classes you teach throughout the day.  

Daily Files

Class Files

This is the corner of my room where I have my Learning Stations/Games bookcase.  The bottom two shelves are filled with math games, puzzles, cards, etc.  Students are allowed to use them during Homebase or if they have time in math class.  The top shelf has math manipulatives and the middle two shelves hold buckets I use for learning stations throughout the year.  I love the way this little corner turned out.

I decorated my teacher desk like you see below, but now I do not use my desk (it sits against the wall), but I loved the decor so I changed it to my file cabinet.  So much cuter than a plain black cabinet.  You can see this photo was taken in October.  I change out the decor on this for different holidays/seasons.

The side of my 4 drawer file cabinet

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of my past projects that I use on a daily basis in my classroom.

Monday Made It- July 6th

I had such a fun filled 4th of July weekend and I cannot believe it's Monday.  The good news is that my husband has the day off today.  My youngest starts basketball camp today and Friday is my birthday so it will be a busy week for us. I'm linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for her Monday Made It link up.

This year I revamped my CCSS posters that I display on my math focus wall because they added a letter after the domain letter.  This was an easy project other than a few laminating mishaps here and there.

New CCSS posters

On the back of each poster I wrote the lessons it corresponds with

I'm a very goal oriented person and find I tend to accomplish more when I have my goals written down.  It has been several months since I formally wrote down my goals, so I decided to spend some time yesterday thinking of what I would like to accomplish this month.  

July Goals

This morning I made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, per my sons' requests.  I am sharing my recipe for extra fluffy pancakes using Bisquick.  I usually double the recipe so we have some leftovers that I can either leave in the fridge or freeze for later.  If I leave them in the fridge they will be gone in a matter of days.  I add chocolate chips to the pancakes (no measuring).  These are great pancakes and you may want to use 1/3 c. measure for slightly bigger pancakes.

My recipe

Breakfast

That's it for this week.  I was really busy with all of the 4th of July festivities this past weekend so I really did not have any time to work on school projects.  Hopefully I will have time this week to create some fun things for next week's Monday Made It.  Have a great week everyone!

Monday Made It- 6/29/15

I am linking up with Tara at 4th Grade Frolics for this week's Monday Made It link up.

At the end of the school year I did a lot of planning and organizing for the upcoming school year on Google Docs.  Teaching middle school means I cannot do all the fun and cutesy things I see elementary teachers do, but my students still love a nicely decorated classroom and they still love to get little trinkets, candy, or stickers.  I made a doc with all the ideas for monthly decor and treats.  I like to change out my window borders and clings to easily change the decor in my classroom without spending a ton of time putting things up and taking them down.  Some things stay up for more than one month. depending on the season.

I have three seasonal bins (Fall, Winter, Spring) for storing items like pencils, paper pads,  and stickers.  I store items for September, October, and November in Fall, December, January, and February in Winter, and March, April, May/June in Spring.

Fall items container

I got really organized at the end of the school year (when I should have been packing up my room LOL) and separated items into monthly baggies (instead of having everything loose in the container) that now go into each seasonal container.  I like that I will be able to easily grab the bag of goodies for the month rather than sifting through the whole container to see what I have.

Baggies of items for each month of the school year

I finally got around to making my own font.  The process of creating the font is super quick and easy.  Being able to neatly write the letters in the small space without cutting anything off is not so easy.  I will have a blog post soon about how to create your own font.  Stay tuned.

Love it!

Ok I just had to post a photo of these Spanish Go Fish cards that I had over 25 years ago!  I was a double major in Eled and Spanish in college and spent a couple summers teaching Spanish to young children.  Sidenote I completely designed the course myself and got it up and running.  After college I then taught summer school Spanish for three summers.  I made this cards way back then and my parents still have them at their house.  We were at my parents' house the other weekend and my youngest was playing go fish with my dad (they play a combo with Spanish/ English) and I just had to take a photo of the cards my son had won so far in the game.  I just have to say these are not even laminated.  If TPT had existed back then I could have made a mint off the teaching materials I created for those classes.  Everything was done via *GASP* spirit duplicating master!  LOL

Spanish Go Fish Cards

I have already made this Nectarine Muffin recipe twice this summer.  It is very quick and easy.  It's especially great if you have any peaches or nectarines that are getting overripe.  I had two nectarines today that were on the verge and so I made another batch of muffins.  My changes:  I use two nectarines and no peach, I make 12 muffins instead of 8, and I just sprinkle the brown sugar on top, no measuring of that.  These are the moistest (or juiciest if you hate that word) muffins.

Nectarine Muffins

Planner passes

I am linking up 4th Grade Frolics a few days late for her Monday Made It.

I did a previous blog post about How Our School Handles Passes.  It drives me cray cray when students are coming up to me in June and still.not.filling.their.passes.out.properly.  For the past two years I've had "How to fill out a planner pass properly" on my "Passes to Make" over the summer To Do List.  At the end of the school year I finally followed through on making a poster for my classroom.  I will post this in a couple key spots in my classroom and then next year when students come up to me for the umpteenth time with a pass with no date or time, I will politely refer them to the poster.  This may save my sanity next year, we shall see.

Every student at our school gets a student planner that has 6 passes per week.

A close-up of what the planner passes look like.

This is the poster I made:

I will mount this on black paper.

I posted here how I keep track of Student Passes.  I code them LP-Locker Pass, BP-Bathroom Pass, and DP-Drink Pass. Those are really the only three passes they would write out in their student planners.