Morning Messages & Their Impact

As everyone is in the middle of their new school year, procedures and routines are in full swing. I want to bring you something that I treasure and believe is one of the most important parts of my classroom's day. Morning Messages.

I know many people use morning messages, but if you don't, or you just need new ideas as to why you should keep using them, you have found the right place! Morning messages are just what they say they are, messages that are put up in the morning as the students come into the classroom. People do morning messages in many different forms, some use chart paper, some use their chalk or white board, and some use their computer. I am one who uses their computer (well my promethean board). I have compiled a list of the amazing impacts morning messages can have on a classroom.

Stops the Repeating Questions

Repeating the answer to the same question a hundred times a day could go down as one of my biggest pet peeves as a teacher. Morning messages can be a solution to help minimize the number of questions you have throughout the day! On your morning message you can give the kids the daily schedule of whats going to happen in your classroom. They become informed and ready to face the day. It is also perfect for those days where you have  a convocation, picture day, or you have a two-hour delay and the schedule is weird. I have found that including that information in the morning message prepare the kids for the day (especially those friends who are schedule oriented), whether is be a normal or wonky day.

Encouraging Words 

One of my favorite parts of writing a morning message every day is including an inspirational quote. If you are anything like me, you love quotes. I am pretty sure this is the reason some kids leave my class loving quotes because I give them a new one to think about everyday! You can get your quotes from anywhere, but I have a few favorite sources. First one is 365 Days of Wonder, it is a book of Mr. Browne's precepts (if you have read Wonder you know who this is). It is a book full of 365 quotes, some famous, and some by kids. Another book is the Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome it also has some great quotes, and who doesn't love the Kid President?

I also have a large Google Doc that I made this summer of quotes from my notebooks, planners, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. On my Google Doc, I can go easily copy the quote, then paste it in my message. My trick is once you have copied the quote, change the font color in Google and you will never repeat or lose you spot in the list. Why not start your students' day out with a little inspiration?

Simple & Quick

As I said previously and what you can gather from the pictures, I type my messages and project them on my Promethean board. That being said, they are super quick and super easy to type up every morning. When I feel like I am rushed and running around like a chicken with my head cut off, a morning message will always be written because they take that little time to do! I know as teachers we have very full plates that are constantly being added to daily, but this is one that doesn't even take up a tiny part of the plate. My morning messages are all typed on Keynote (Apple's version of PowerPoint), and I use the same template everyday, so I just type what I want to say and its done!

Celebrate Your Students

Morning messages are a wonderful outlet to celebrate the successes of your students. It could have been something they did that was amazing yesterday, they could have won a game/activity, or helped out a friend. Nothing is better than seeing their faces when their names on up on the morning message!
 Another easy way to incorporate your students in the morning message is when birthdays roll around, post a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and some days will be completely changed! I am using Ron Clark's house system this year in my classroom and every Monday I update who the house leader is, and the kids love it! Any chance we have to celebrate our students we must do it, and what's easier than typing it up for all to see?

Fun for Clipart/Digital Paper Lovers 

If you are anything like my and have a slight obsession with digital papers and clipart, this is just another way to use all of those goodies you purchased on TPT! I love making new combinations and showing off new clipart, and I love using older clipart I forgot I had! You can get creative! I like to think of it as a blank canvas!

These are just a few reasons why I love using morning messages in my classroom!

My hope is that you give morning messages a try in your classroom if you don't already! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!

Using Books to Build Your Classroom Community

The official countdown is on, I have 2 weeks from Wednesday until I get to greet my new kiddos at my door. (Insert panic face emoji!) There are still lots, and lots, and lots of things on my to-do lists, but I am slowly checking them off. 

I have three days to work with during our first week, and I recently planned those days out focusing around community building and building relationships among the students and me. I think my favorite part about teaching is building those relationships and seeing relationships build between my kids. What better way to start the conversation in my classroom than through books. I love books, especially when I get to read aloud a good picture books to my fifth graders. I am going to share 3 books I plan to use at the beginning of the year to help build my classroom community.

Wild About Us! by Karen Beaumont

(Get it for your classroom here)

This is one I am very excited about starting the first day of school with! Sarah from A Rocky Top Teacher posted this book on Instagram, and I instantly went to Amazon and pressed add to cart, purchase, and in just 2 clicks it was on its way. Amazon is a scary, yet wonderful thing.

This book goes through the different animals in the zoo and brings out all the special qualities of the animals. It is fun, cute, and a quick read. After you read it, the conversation about being different and acceptance in the classroom will naturally happen. I cannot wait see what conversations come from this book.

This could be turned into a writing activity where students right about what makes them special and unique. I think this could be rather challenging because I don't know about you, I am not good at saying what makes me unique or writing about myself at all. It'll be a fun challenge for them.

The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig

(Get it for your classroom here)

Wow. What a powerful book. If you do not have this, I believe every class should have access to this book, no matter how young or old. This story follows a young boy who feels 'invisible' at school and how much of a toll it takes on his life. I will spare you the rest of the details because you need to go get it and read it for yourself! Once again, the conversations after this book would be incredible talking about including everyone in the class.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

(Get it for your classroom here)

This book, right here, is hands down my favorite book. If you have not heard of Wonder, please run to your nearest bookstore or Target and pick this up! I have read it more times than I can count, and every time it makes me laugh, cry, and feel all the feels. I have read it to both of the classes I have had, and each of them LOVED this book and fell completely in love with the characters. In May, they were still mentioning Auggie and this story. (Side note: This is being turned into a movie!)  I could go on and on about why this book is amazing, but I will save it all and allow you to go feel all the feels!

I hope these texts inspire you to use books to help build a community in your classroom this coming school year.

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Parent Teacher Communication & FREEBIE

I am busy getting ready for the back to school madness, that is quickly creeping up on me. When do you start back? My district's first day with kids is Wednesday, August 3 (a.k.a. too soon)! I am also dealing with a to-do list that continues to grow, and never seems to shorten. This crazy time of the year is one of my favorites though. Who doesn't love the smell of fresh crayons, and updating classroom decorations? It makes me all giddy inside thinking about it!

A very important part of the beginning of school is establishing relationships with not only the kids in your class, but the people who see those kids as they whole world, their parents.

I am going to share how I organize my parent communication, ways I use to communicate with parents, and one new way I am going to give a try this year!

ORGANIZATION

I use a binder like most people to keep track of when I called which parent. It isn't anything fancy, but it keeps my ducks in a row.

I keep this binder right next to my desk, which is by my computer and phone. Every phone call, gets written in the binder, and every email thread, is printed and put in the binder. 

I have it organized with tabs that I have written numbers on. Those numbers correspond with the numbers I give each student to make my life so much easier. I also do numbers because I don't have to update it every year by relabeling, I just have to update the papers.

The form I use is pretty simple. I start the year off with each tab having 2-3 pages behind it, so it is ready to go.

The diagram(ish) below just shows you what I use each part for and its significance.

If you want my binder cover and this form, get it for FREE in my TeachersPayTeacher store, or click 

the picture below.

WAYS I COMMUNICATE

I do the normal ways of communication, phone calls and emails, but below are two different ways I reach out/planning to reach out to parents.

BRIGHT NOTES: I started something new last year that I love doing. I call them "Bright Notes". They are simple, and honestly my favorite type of parent communication because I get to brag on their child. The "Bright Notes" are literally notes that have been written on AstroBright paper. The notes are specifically for positive things I saw during the day/week. I love them because I can send home a note saying how proud I am of a student about something super small or big he/she did in the classroom. This allows me to keep the parents informed on the small things their kids do throughout the day. I encourage the parents to keep them those notes on the refrigerator to keep the student motivated! :)

These notes can only be found in the student's mailboxes. During pack-up time when students go to their mailboxes they get so excited to see a "Bright Note" and secretly hide it with their other papers to keep it a secret. The looks on their faces melt my heart, especially when its a child that has worked really hard on something.

What I love about these notes is how easy they are. I have them printed and ready to go whenever I want to write one. Of course, I have them printed on many different beautiful AstroBright colors!

CLASSROOM WEBSITE/BLOG: After being inspired by multiple bloggers, I have decided to have a classroom website this year. I cannot wait to have another outlet where parents can get information, so those papers that "got lost" on their way home aren't an excuse to not know what is happening at school.

I plan on using it for important dates, a copy of my newsletter, and weekly posts about what we did. I want to try where each child is assigned a week, and they will write the weekly post for the class telling the parents what we did that week. I cannot wait to roll this out in August!

I read up on how The Brown Bag Teacher (she has a wonderful blog post explaining how she uses it) uses Weebly, and I decided to give that a try. It is really easy to use. I will come back and review how I like it later in the school year! :)

I hope you found something useful in this post you can take back to your classroom!

Monday Made It #2

Happy Monday ya'll! I hope you are staying cool in this hot month of July! I am excited to link up again with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made it!

I honestly have no idea what I did before there was Instagram. I think it is my favorite social media outlet! Especially for teachers! I get so many good ideas and things I want to try or use in my classroom. I was perusing my feed and saw some of the amazing things the Target Back to School Section has. My eye was caught on the magnetic locker bins. I am always losing my dry erase markers and erasers, so I bought them! The long one can be found here, the shorter one can be found here!

They are relatively cheap. The longer one was only $3.99, and the shorter one was only $2.99. 

The magnets on the baskets are very strong, so you don't have to worry about it sliding down your white board!

I wanted to make labels for these bins because who doesn't love labels?! I also love to label things for my students just for them to know where things go in the classroom. 

I am going to use the long one for my dry erase markers.

The shorter one fits white board erasers perfectly. I think it'll even fit two erasers!

First, I laminated both of the labels to make them more durable because I tried without laminating and it one, didn't look good, and two, it was too flimsy. 

I then used these velcro circles to attach the labels to the bins. I tried magnets and tape, and neither of them worked at well as the velcro. They seem to be staying with out feeling like they are going to fall off.

After attaching the labels, the bins were ready to go and be used on my white board!

I have created a FREEBIE for you. If you are wanting these labels to use in your classroom, you're in luck! I have made a freebie on my TeachersPayTeachers store that includes 8 different colors of the labels! Click the picture below to get your labels! 

Until next time,

Task Card Organization

If you are anything like me, you have a ton of task cards floating around in your files. I normally cannot find them and end up printing and laminating them again. Such a waste. I am putting an end to the waste of paper, ink, lamination, and time. Teachers already need more time. If you need help organizing all of your task cards, read on to see how I'm going to do it.

I am using the IRIS 4x6 Photo Cases I bought from Michael's on super sale over the July 4th weekend. I have linked them from Amazon, if you want to purchase some for yourself.

I personally feel like I have more math task cards than anything, so I focused on my math topics. I chose what topics went together and put them on a label together. When I get back into my classroom I am going to put my task cards in the corresponding container

I made these simple labels that I cut out, and should've laminated, then taped on with packing tape. It was that easy!

These labels fit perfectly on the top lid of the photo cases.

In the classroom, these will be great when preparing your math centers, literacy stations, or class scoots. I cannot wait to go to the container I need rather than going to my TPT purchases or computer to find the ones I am looking for!

These also give me no excuse to organize the new task cards I make or purchase.

If you are interested in organizing your task cards I have made these labels accessible to you! I have put the labels in my TPT Store the labels, click the picture below to get these for your classroom!

Here are behind the scenes pictures to show that it isn't all hunky dory. I work best in a mess, don't judge.

I also had an ongoing battle with the stickers. That is all I am going to say about that.

Happy organizing :)

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