This could be the start of something BIG!
Use this friendly whale to invite your new students into your classroom at the beginning of the year and then inside have little whale name tags on each of their desks.
Sharp Students in Room ___
Let your students feel proud of the class they are in! Have them write their own names up on the bulletin board or have them draw their name on pieces of paper w/ whatever colors they’d like and then staple it around the pencil on the board.
Get work done by playing Homeworkopoly
Homeworkopoly is a fun way to encourage children to do their homework! Here are some basic instructions, but feel free to use your own judgment and change things around to suit your class needs.
Bring the Summer Into Your Classroom
If your students are suffering from the cold-weather blues, turn your classroom into a summer resort for a day or a week. They will get a chance to pretend it’s warm, and also do comparison activities that will put their brains to work.
Classroom Decor Ideas
Create custom spaces in your classroom to set a whole new feeling for the room overall.
Build a Classroom Pond
I have seen ponds at lawn and garden shops made simply by laying cinder blocks on the floor to shape the pond, then draping the liner over them and capping the top with a row of rock (which would be optional.) The goal is finding some way to shape the pond and contain the water safely. Read on.
Classroom Theme: Welcome to the Real World
“Welcome to the Real World” was a theme for the entire year which I used with my fifth graders last year to communicate responsibility, bring their grade school experience to a close, and increase their awareness of the community around them.
Computer Time in the Classroom
Ideas for how to handle the management of one computer – or several – in your classroom.
Recycle Everything, Even Broken Crayons
Take it a step beyond having extras around in case someone forgets or loses theirs or you somehow pick up an extra student. If a kid runs out of blue, you just give them another. But when the tub of brokens gets too large to be practical, it’s time to get creative.
Customized Lesson Plans
There are so many software packages on the market today, there is no way we could possibly review them all – at least, not in a timely manner. Our basic Lesson Plan Template was originally designed for AppleWorks, which is no more, but we are still offering the files as a free PDF download.
The 2-Minute Rule
If you are wondering how you managed to forget to return that important form to the office yesterday, you don’t need a better brain. You need a better system. Here’s what some of our readers are doing.
Phone (or email, or SMS) Home
Reaching parents is a major frustration for many teachers; most parents work and can’t be readily contacted at their place of employment. Or in some cases, a telephone doesn’t even exist in the home. We can’t make a phone appear out of thin air, but here are a few suggestions for tracking down the elusive parent.
Time Management & Calendars
Calendars can be cumbersome, cluttered, or sometimes just inconvenient. Here are some ideas that will put you on your way to discovering a system and style that suits you perfectly.
Classroom Organization: Record Keeping
You need more than a pad of sticky notes to keep track of the complex environment that is your classroom. Here is a sampling of records we think you should keep, and why.
Story: The Fence
A short story about choosing nice words.