More School Food!

We have a new manager in our school cafeteria and every week we have new foods added to our school menu. This week I added pictures of Turkey & Cheese Pita, Chicken Filet Salad, Toasted Cheese Sandwich (not grilled cheese) and I corrected the Taco Bites picture. It looked nothing like the picture I had chosen.Click here for the new document. If you have printed everything so far, you will only need to print the last page to have the updates.

School Food in Pictures

It's so hard when children think they are ordering chicken nuggets like mom makes, and then they go to the cafeteria and they end up with something very, very, different. Or maybe they've never heard of a "rib meat sandwich". Having a picture, especially for young children and new students, to show what your school food really looks like helps kids make the best choices they can make. This file includes 48 food choices, most of which my school serves regularly. Click here for the file.

SOME TIPS:
1.  I made lunch choice cards for as many of our regular school menu items as I could remember. If you want to use these and your chicken nuggets look really different from ours, I would make a new card so your students are not surprised, or disappointed.

2.  I used the free font KG Seven Sixteen from dafont.com. 

3.  Be careful and try to make sure your images don't show side items. Some kids might make their decision based on the side item in the picture, and be let down when they are served cooked carrots with their sloppy joe instead of french fries. 

4.  If you teach with me at CES and can think of something I forgot, let me know and I'll add it!

Oh the Job of all Jobs!

I report to pre-planning....NEXT WEEK.

I moved and crammed my classroom into my new classroom in a couple of hours back in May and I haven't been back to work....

I have the job of jobs in front of me, and of course I am racking my brain trying to come up with a way to get help...threats, bribery, begging....there's no shame in this game.

I will have 22 five year old helpers in a short matter of time, so I made a huge list of potential jobs for my job chart. I use a pocket chart with their names. In front of their name is their job, and behind their name is their Trojan G.O.L.D (tokens for our school wide Positive Behavior System).  Kills three birds with one stone and changes out super easy. Click HERE to get this UPDATED freebie.

I would not suggest introducing all these at once, but slowly. I just made a whole bunch because I really don't know what I'm going to need. :)

If you think of a job that's not listed, let me know!

Storage Wars: ClassroomVersion

I have a LOT of stuff. I've been teaching in one capacity or another since 1994...and I'm only 36 years old, so you do the math! Yep, I've been teaching half my life...not counting all the bossing teaching I did to my younger siblings and cousins as I was growing up.

So along with a lot of stuff, comes the need to organize. I love organization tools. I stop by the plastic bins every time I am in Target or Wal-mart, whether I need something or not, just to look and dream of the possibilites. When I walk into someone else's classroom, I immediately start eyeballing their organizational elements...or lack there of, and my wheels start turning. I like things compartmentalized. I like to be able to find what I'm looking for. I like my students being able to be independent and manage their own materials too.

Clutter free classroom has a linky party to showcase your storage element. That's a hard one, because I have so many, and I have seen so many I don't have that I would like to have!  I chose to highlight my student cubbies lockers because they help my students keep up with their jackets, book bags, papers, books, etc...and they *might* even cut down on the exchange of germs and lice since it keeps jackets/book bags from touching.

I am taking a BIG risk here for saying this outloud...so I'm going to whisper it and knock on wood....I've had these units for 6 years and have not had a single case of lice *transferred* in my classroom during those 6 years. I've had children get lice, but never give it to someone else in the classroom.

I really hope I did not jinx myself.

New timers! Score!

I've been using online timers for a while now.  Today I pulled up the usual site I used and just out of curiosity sake I looked to see if they had added any new timers....and they had!

They actually had a section of timers I'd never seen....highlighted in yellow below.."Classroom Timers". 

Candle counter

Times up!

Dyno-MITE!

Boom!

My favorite...baby you're a firework!

The fireworks are complete with whistling and popping sound effects. The kids LOOOVED it! Try it out at Online Stopwatch!

Time Management: It's for me as much as it is for them!

 Third grade is so much faster paced that I imagined. My day flies by and if I don't watch it...I get wrapped up in one mini-lesson, or one coaching session, and BOOM! I'm off schedule. I've taken to using Online Stopwatch to help me stay on schedule, and to give the children a visual to know how much time they have left before we transition to our next segment of our day. I use it on my Promethean board, but even if you only had a computer screen, you can adjust the size to fill the screen, and adjust the volume to be loud enough for the class to hear well enough to transition.

Check out the super cool visuals this site offers:

Analog Clock: The time is set automatically, and you set the green hand to be the "stop" time. An alarm will sound when time is up.

We are the BOMB: The fuse burns down then BOOM!

The hand moves and lets students see how much time we've used, and how much we have left. 

Simple digital count down.

 

My favorite: the sand timer. I use a chime at the end, and it's a soothing way to transition.

 Customizable!

The best part is all of this is customizable. You can pick if you want to countdown, or maybe you want to count UP, to track stamina. You can customize the sound of each alarm also.

I'm still here.....

  I report to pre-planning Monday, and I will have my students next week! EEEEK! I have been working in my classroom as much as possible. I come home dirty, tired, burned fingertips, and my brain full of ideas! I am so excited to share my "after" pics of my classroom...just give me the weekend. I have just a few loose ends to tie up...literally!

So I wanted to share a little something to make up for my short hiatus! Here is a transportation form for parents to fill out at orientation. Most important thing to the first day of school....how to get these babies safely home! Click here for the file.

                                                 

Teaching Responsibility

 A major part of early childhood education (and yes, 3rd grade is still considered "early childhood") is teaching social skills and responsibility. I gave a lot of thought to how to change my "classroom jobs" to fit the students I will be teaching this year. In years past, I just gave every one a job. They had said job for a week, then it rotated. I wanted to make my 3rd graders more aware of the responsibilities of having a job, as well as giving them ownership of the job they have been given.

What resulted was 12 job descriptions, with 2 slots available at each position. Jobs are for 1 grading period (6 weeks), and students have to fill out an application. I'm sharing my job descriptions here, and the application here. 

I am using the Carson Dellosa Sea Life Dimensional Accent pieces seen above, with 2 names written on each card (wipe off marker).