Parent Communication Binder & STUFF

Too Much Stuff!

After what seems like a million years of waiting to have my own classroom, I had accumulated quite the collection of educational junk materials!  Between seeing things on clearance, teachers retiring, and going crazy waiting for my "own" class, I just kept getting more and more "stuff."  It was all in plastic tubs in my basement while I patiently waited for a full-time position.  I didn't realize just how much there was until I found out I had this 5th grade job.  I ventured to the basement to start the great sort and it took quite awhile!  I'm proud to say it's all organized now.  I have put the things from teaching language arts, social studies, and primary grades in other tubs to be stored back in their corner in case I ever return to teaching those subjects or grades.  Now I have a new pile!  It's all the stuff that needs to be transported to my new classroom.  I'm supposed to be able to get in next week and I'm extremely excited to do so!  

All of those clear shoe box tubs are full of the many supplies I've gotten at Staples during their penny sales!  If you don't check their weekly ad to see what they have leading up to school, you're losing out!  PS-Do you see the box for that 10 drawer cart?  I got that at Sam's Club for $25.  I saw the same cart at Michael's yesterday for $60!  Check out your local Sam's to see if they still have it for that bargain price!  Those 3-packs of Puffs are only $3.99 at Staples and Target.  I've stocked up for at home, too!

Parent Communication Binder

I worked on creating my forms for my parent communication binder today.  In my New {School} Year Resolutions post, I mentioned that I had some ideas for organizing contact information.  Inspired by Pinterest, this is what I have in mind for my Parent Communication Binder:

1. Parents will fill out a front & back form at the beginning of the year.  This will allow me to have an easy reference with names of family members, best way and time to contact, medical/allergy information in addition to how the parents feel their child perceives school, their strengths & weaknesses, and other information vital to success.
2. After this form, I will have a copy of the contact log.  This will allow me to quickly record who I've contacted, when, and how.  It also has a big box for recording the reason for the contact and the parent's response.  At the top of this page, I've made a little box for checking off positive contacts for 1st and 2nd semester.  I think it's incredibly important for parents to hear from their child's teacher when they've done well with something and not just when they're in trouble!  I want to do this more than just twice in the school year but no less than 1 time per semester.  This little checkbox will help me meet this goal!
3. After the 2 pages, I'm putting a clear page protector for each student.  I will use this to store notes from home, copies of discipline referrals, IEP meeting invites, printed emails, etc.

Each student will have their own section in my binder where everything will be kept together for easy reference.  Hopefully I won't have to print extra copies of the contact log because I'm sure all of my students will be angels :-)  I'm going to keep this all in one of these pretty binders I got from Staples (super cheap...don't remember the exact price).

This 3 page packet is available as a PDF at my Teacher's Notebook shop for 75 cents!  If you'd like a copy for free, comment and tell me how you think this would help you in your classroom this year (please include your email address).  I'll give a free copy to the first 2 followers to comment!

Checking Things Off of the To-Do List!

I've been busy today "creating" things for my classroom!  

These are my turn-in bins for classwork, homework, and notes from home.  I got the plastic tubs from Target out of the Dollar Spot butttttttttttt they were $2.50 each.  I wanted to do yellow letters originally because our school colors are purple and yellow but I couldn't find yellow stickers at JoAnn's.  It's hard to see in the picture but I used yellow permanent marker to put polka dots on and outline the letters.

I also got these cute cardboard tubs out of the Dollar Spot at Target and printed my own labels.  I used Mod Podge to attach the labels to the boxes.  I'll be using these to keep my pencils organized as I quickly found that pencils are the bane of many teachers' existence!  I think I had a pretty good system for pencil management last year with my 2nd graders.  I didn't let the kids sharpen their own pencil unless they had a personal sharpener in their desk.  I made sure that I had at least 20 sharpened pencils each morning.  In order to get a new pencil, kids either had to put a dull pencil in the "unsharpened" cup or throw away a pencil that was too short to write with.  They weren't allowed to keep more than 3 pencils at their desk or else I dubbed them "pencil hoarders!"  I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to approach this with my 5th graders but it will definitely be a similar system.

The "no name" clothespin board has been floating around Pinterest.  This is my version.  I'm not super crazy about it.  I think it might be too much yellow.  I might add some white polka dots or something to help break it up.  This was a pretty simple and cheap project.  It cost about $3 or $4 in supplies from JoAnn's.   (BTW, I buy gift cards to JoAnn's and Staples at Giant Eagle to earn Fuel Perks!)

The last thing I did today was create these cute printables based some ideas I got from Pinterest.  I use Power Point to create PDF files as it is much more user friendly than Word.  The files are going to be posted in my Teacher's Notebook store for free!  I bought the black frames from the dollar store.  I think this will help add uniformity to my classroom.

I'm also working on a cute incentive for class discussions.  I bought glow bracelets at the dollar store (5/$1) and I'm going to put little flags on them that say "What a Bright Idea!  Thanks for Sharing!"  I also want to make an organizer out of a cereal box for putting my absent folders in but I didn't have a cereal box like I thought I did!  What have you been working on?