Workin' On It Wednesday

Today I am linking up with Kinder Gals for "Workin' On It Wednesday".

I have been going through all of my products and updating ones that needed a face lift. My newest update is my "School R.O.C.K.S" back to school read alouds and craftivities.

The first week of school is so important for you to get those rules and expectations in place and this unit does just that!

R.O.C.K.S stands for Respect, On Task, Cooperation, Kindness, and Shine. To shine you are showing all the parts of R.O.C.K.S. I introduce one letter a day with a book and craftivity. The kids just eat it up and respond so well to it! Then the rest of the year all I have to say is "are you R.O.C.K.IN'?" and they straighten up! Most of the time ;)

Want to win a copy? Fill out the rafflecopter below! Giveaway ends on Saturday 7/5 at midnight.

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A Walk Around The Classroom {classroom tour linky}

As we are nearing the beginning of school I know everyone is busy busy putting their rooms together! So I thought it might be fun to do "A Walk Around The Classroom" classroom tour linky. This way, you can look at lots of classrooms in case you are still needing some inspiration for certain parts of your classroom!

If you link up, make sure to include the linky graphic and link back to my page. Don't forget your linky etiquette, make sure to comment on the two before you and one after you! :) Everyone loves some comment love!

Without further ado, welcome to my classroom! Enjoy looking around and seeing how my classroom works!

This is the view into my classroom from the door.

Once you walk in and look to the left you will find our math manipulatives and also our pocket chart for reading and math centers.

Here is an up close look at our reading centers rotation chart.

Here is an up close look at our math centers rotation.

These folders are found behind the door. This is where my students turn in their work.

Here is my calendar area that is on the wall where the door is.

 If you keep moving to the left you will find my desk area and my small group area! My bookshelf holds all of my binders with all of my instructional documentation (guided reading, running records, writing conferences, math small groups, first steps)

If we keep moving to the left you will find my anchor chart wall. This wall is empty at the beginning of the year, but is quickly filled up as we dive into the school year.

In the picture of above, you can see our classroom library in the left corner. Here is an up close look at our library. My books are sorted by genre. They each have a sticker on them. The sticker on the bucket is the same. So if the book has an orange sticker with a 1 on it, the students find the bucket with an orange sticker with a 1 on it. Best way to organize!

 As we keep moving to the left you will see the overflow of anchor charts on the window and also my students listening center area. I have 2 listening areas with multiple headphones so students don't have to listen to the same book as their centers partner.

 Here is a close up of the listening area. It is organized just like the library. The books and buckets have colored stickers to help students put them back in the right bucket.

 As we move to the left you will find my students writing center. They love pulling the bench up to the table and they will write and write!

 This is where my students keep their extra supplies. They each have their own baggie with their name on it. If they run out of glue or crayons, they can go grab their extras. This is where the white boards are housed as well and textbooks too!

 Our computer area includes 3 mac books. Our district is very blessed with great technology!

These are our math tubs that we use during math centers. These math tubs include lots of different games that they students have learned how to play either in whole group lesson or small group with me. 

And that's it! You have seen all the way around the classroom! I hope you enjoyed the tour and let me know if you have any questions about how I put my classroom together!

I want to be the line leader!! {classroom jobs}

If you have ever had a classroom without classroom jobs I'm sure you heard the phrase "I want to be line leader" or "I want to be last in line" or "I want to turn off the lights"

Oh goodness!

I don't even know how I could have a functioning classroom without classroom jobs, especially in 1st grade! By the end of the year my kids know the jobs so well and it just works like a well oiled machine!

For me, I rotate my classroom jobs every week. I only had 10 jobs so the kids got a job every other week. I've also seen it done where each kid has a job every week.

I had 20 kids this year, but even when I had more than that I still only had 10 jobs. So sometimes they wouldn't have for 2 weeks and of course they would complain, which I would respond with "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!"

Yep. That's my go to phrase with complaining :) My kids love saying it to each other too!

So now the question is "how should you display the jobs?" Here are some great ways to display them. Click on the picture to be taken to the original post.

 Hope over at Second Grade Shenanigans attached hers to a ribbon and then you can use clothespins with the students numbers on them to show who has what job.

 Erica Bohrer did something alittle different. She used numbers and velcro. This allows them to be rotated easily.

Jessica Heeren did something that I do in my classroom. She attaches the jobs to decorated library pockets and then write the students names on index cards and rotates them! 

You can also use popcicle sticks instead of index cards. Love this idea too! (can't find where the original post came from. let me know if it's yours so I can give proper credit!)

I hope you got some great ideas for how to display your classroom jobs. If you are still looking for a set of classroom jobs, check out my chevron or polka dot classroom job sets. They are 20% off for today only!

Good luck as you are getting your classrooms ready for your chillin's (that's children in Texan). They are the luckiest students to have you as teachers!

ok, but next time, I'M SERIOUS!

Have you ever heard yourself saying those EXACT words? I know I have! I am a guest blogger over at Teaching 4 Real. Pamela is on vacation (JEALOUS!) and I agreed to keep her readers busy with my ramblings. I thought, "why not keep my reader's busy with my ramblings too?!" HA! Just kidding! I don't ramble too much, do I? Don't answer that. Moving onto the topic of this post.

CONSISTENCY!!

We hear it all the time. Be consistent. Be consistent in your teaching. Be consistent in your classroom management. Be consistent in your discipline. But it’s easier said than done right? Of course it is!

This is my 5^th year of teaching and I still struggle with this, but I hope that this post gives you a little insight into how I have grown over the years and made my classroom a more consistent learning environment.

It is important to start on day 1 with consistency and expectations. This is the first day your students will see you and you have to show them what you expect. I’ve heard the rule, “You have to be mean till Christmas. Then the kids will know what they can and cannot get away with.” I completely agree with this! Maybe not the mean part, but the principle that you have to stand strong in what you expect. Both in academics and behavior. Your students will thrive off of your expectations! I promise!

How do you promote consistency? Here are some ideas.

1.       Start a behavior system on day 1 and stick to it. I use a clip chart. You can use any behavior system. You must make sure to clearly lay out what deserves a consequence and what deserves praise. I use the terms “peacemaker” and “peacebreaker”. We brainstorm what a peacemaker and peacbreaker is the first week of school and put it on an anchor chart that hangs RIGHT by our clip chart. After the brainstorming is done I introduce the clip chart. (See my Teachers Pay Teachers store to look over the clip chart I use in my classroom). We talk about how if you do any of the peacemaker actions, you will get to clip up. And if you do any of the peacebreaker actions you will have to clip down. No arguments. And if you do argue, you clip down again! This one was a hard one for my firsties. They would argue with me about EVERYTHING! I have helped most of them stop doing that this year. Thank goodness!

2.       When a student breaks a rule, there is a consequence. NO MATTER WHAT! I understand that there are extenuating circumstances and you have to use your judgment, but I’ve learned from experience, if you let them get away with it once, they will try again and again and again to get away with it!

3.       Also, make sure that even if one of your sweet ones breaks a rule, you have to give the same consequence you would to your trouble student as you would your sweet student. I find myself sometimes thinking “oh, they won’t do it again”. Again, I say, consistency!

4.       Keep a schedule! This helps with academic consistency! We are in our last 2 days of school, but we are still doing our calendar and problem solving till the LAST day! And guess what? My students expected nothing less. We do it EVERY morning and they know this is what we do. This also removes the chance for behavior because they know the schedule and know what’s coming next in the day. This way they won’t sit there and think “well I don’t know what we’re doing, so I’m going to goof off!”

5.       Set expectations EARLY! At my school we do the workshop model for reading, writing, and math. In writing my students can write for 30 minutes STRAIGHT! Yes, I know, I’m very proud of them! Of course, we didn’t start there, but the 1^st day I introduced writer’s workshop to my students, they were told that eventually we would reach 30 minutes of independent writing time. And we did reach that! We wrote EVERY day this year at the SAME time, upping our writing time every day. They knew we wrote during that time. And if we didn’t (very rarely happened), they would ask “why aren’t we writing?!” They really do thrive off schedules!

I hope that through this post you learned a little bit about consistency and you can try it in your classroom. I promise you won’t regret it. Have a good week!