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How to Create Audio QR Kids using Seesaw
First, Open House was great! I had 16 of 20 families come! I love seeing how excited the kids are to show off all their work! They were s...
Earlier in the year I created a Scavenger Hunt for our Open House . It was a HUGE hit in our classroom. My kids keep asking me when they w...
Hilarious original drama game in which students play realtors and home buyers! Original drama lesson plan you will only find on Drama Notebook.
I just finished my second week of school, and we had our Open House for the students and their families on Thursday night. I think I am finally getting a handle on Open House and speaking to groups of adults (read: anxiety, heart palpitations, dizziness, here). This was the first time in 18 years I had no butterflies or nerves, at all. I really just had fun mingling and speaking with the parents of my new students. Here are some pics of some student work I had up for the parents to see. This "The Many Pieces of Me" Activity is available in my Tpt store, Here. I love these "All About Me" dolls. Now, I did not create the pattern for the dolls. I just happened to have the boy and girl patterns from something else I used to do, and thought they would be a perfect backdrop for this great writing project. But, what the kids do is write an "I AM" poem. Then, I type it up, and place the poem on the students' hearts. I love it! Here is the FREE writing template for the "I Am" poems. This writing template comes from my End of the Year - Countdown to Summer! Writing Journal, available in my Tpt store. Here is a preview of the template: I also have a couple of tips I thought I would share that have made Open House a success for me. 1) Incentives! Sometimes parent participation is lower at my school than we would hope for. When I was first teaching, I remember an OH that totaled 8 people....including myself! Sad. Very sad. Some easy "tricks" that just might get your families through the door are: No homework passes: Free, easy, and the kids love em'. If their parent shows up, they will have a No Homework Pass on their desk the next day. The promise of food and drink: In the past, I have offered juice boxes, small bottles of water, and plates of cookies. I like the "party" type atmosphere it created. However, the last couple of years, I have been reluctant to do this because of so many food allergies. So, proceed with caution here. Open House Raffles: I normally start OH with a Scavenger Hunt. The kids take their parents through the classroom and show them the important work and systems that we have created in our room. It takes up the first 10-15 minutes while we are waiting for families to file in. After the students complete the last task on the Scavenger Hunt, they are directed to bring their completed "hunt" to me. I, in turn, gave them a raffle ticket. In the past, I have raffled-off gift cards to Toys-R-Us, and had almost 100% attendance! Gift cards were anywhere from $15-$20 dollars. I know, I know...that is just us spending more of our own money. But, to me, it was worth it, because it gave me a chance to clearly communicate my expectations to parents right from the beginning of the year. However, this year, my budget was tight, because as you might remember, I decided to do a classroom mini-makeover. So, this time, I still gave kids tickets, but held the raffle the next day, with the prize being something from my Treasure Chest. Results? The kids were still very happy! My wallet was also very happy. This is a pic of the Scavenger Hunt (right). It's not fancy. But, you get the idea. (Update 2015: I use the most adorable, EDITABLE, and FREE one, from 3 Teacher Chicks! Check it out here.) First dibs at Conference sign-up: My colleague does this and the parents love it. She prints out conference sign-up sheets for our Parent-Teacher Conferences to be held in September, and lets parents who attend OH have first crack at their preferred dates/times. She has little slips of paper where the parent can write down their date/time and take it home with them. I didn't do this on Thursday, but will definitely try to do it next year. (Update 2015: Here is how I did this!) My parents love being able to sign up for conferences right at Open House! Here is a cute Conference Reminder Slip FREEBIE for you. Click below to download. 2) Babysitting! The last two years, a classified school employee has taken all of of the kids next door to watch a movie during the teacher presentation portion of OH. This year, she had some 60 kiddos in there. But, it works BEAUTIFULLY! It is so nice to be able to discuss standards, procedures, homework, etc... in a quiet, distraction-free, room. At our school, grade levels all choose different nights for OH. That way, parents are not forced to choose which class to visit. If your school does this as well, maybe you and your grade level can babysit for another grade level, who is having their OH on a different night. They can then return the favor on your night. You can make this work. You just might have to get creative. 3) Don't get trapped! Don't get me wrong. I love parents who want to know how their child is doing. But, I think we can all agree that OH is not the time, or place, to discuss this. I give myself an "out" by printing up a quick Conference Request sign-up sheet and posting it in the room. That way, if a parent starts to make personal inquiries, I can just direct them over to the sign-in sheet. 4) Make each child a star! I use my Flip Camera to take snippets of student-narrated video of our classroom routine/procedures. I always make sure each child is featured in someway. Every parent loves to see their child onscreen! It is also a nice 5-8 minute breather for me! Just a note. Make sure you have parent permission before you make your video. At our school, a Photo/Video permission form is included in their first day packet. This year, I only had one child whose parent has asked that their child not be photographed. 5) Make OH Prep easy! I have all my OH sign-in sheets, parent flyers, ideas, in one folder on my desktop. Most years, all I have to do is change a date on a document and I am ready! One thing that has been a real life-saver is my OH Powerpoint. It is my agenda, and I use it to make sure I cover everything. I have included my PPT below. I did not create the background or style. But, someone was nice enough to share it, and now I will pass it on. I do have duplicate slides translated into Spanish. But, I left the download completely editable. So, add and delete away. Hopefully, it will be helpful to someone. FYI: It has all of its original pages. The slides I don't use are just at the end after the "Thanks for Coming" slide. (If you would like a copy, leave your email in a comment below, and I will send it to you. If you want to keep your email private, click on the "Contact Me" form at the top right of my blog!) 6) Ask for Help: I discovered this system for asking for classroom donations from my daughter's Kindergarten teacher many years ago. My daughter is in 6th grade this year. But, I still use this great poster to ask parents to help out with things that we will need all year long. The basic premise is that 1) parents decide what they would like to donate 2) take a post-it reminder from that section, and 3) sign their child's name on the poster. This system makes it easy to know how much of each item I can anticipate. I have had a lot of success with this system. I hope you will, too. (Update 2015: The newest version of this chart is shown below. I tape a small mirror to the chart to ask for volunteers for the classroom. Then, I just clip a Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet right next to it!) 7) Update 8/7/14: One last thing! I made this Open House/Back to School Night Parent Flip Book to share with my parents. I LOVE it! I like that they will have all this information in one place! Great news! I have made this book EDITABLE, and it is now available in my store for grades K, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5! Click on any of the images to find out more. Here is how my flip book turned out. First, I shared a little about me. Then, I included all the ELA and Math Common Core Standards for 2nd grade. Then, I included a detailed schedule for our classroom. I chose a General Information page for my 4th tab! Finally, I chose to put a letter template at the end. I haven't decided whether students will write a letter to their parents, or if parents will write a letter to their child, rip it off, and then leave it on their child's desk for the next day. Looking for more back-to-school ideas and inspiration? Follow me on Pinterest! Ok, well that's all I can think of for now. I hope you all have a wonderful new school year. Until next time, Nicole
Last year, I posted about our Open House and showed some different projects that our team displays each year. This year I took some more detailed pictures so you could get a closer look! Today, I'm going to highlight the Life Cycle Flip book. It's a really fun project and takes just a couple of days for students to finish. It's a great culminating project after students have learned difference animal classifications and their life cycles. In other news, do you follow the blog Fluttering Through First Grade? These amazing ladies are my sweet friends, and they are hosting an in-sane giveaway to celebrate their bloggiversary! Lots of amazing prizes including gift cards, jewelry, and some units! Now these gals know how to host a giveaway! Now that ought to keep you busy this weekend... prepping flip books and winning stuff. Doesn't sound too bad, right?
Why Teach Music
Whether conferences are planned or spontaneous, a preexisting dialogue with parents and readiness to praise student strengths can open the door to mutually supporting student improvement.
How can Spanish teachers engage parents at Open House? It's important to teach them about comprehensible input and provide a demo!
I use a variety of resources to help me in my journey towards a differentiated classroom, and I’ve had so many readers ask which resources I find most useful so I thought I would share a few of the things that have been helpful for me. I decided to separate this into two different posts. …
We post copious resources for the study of philosophy on this site, such that you can obtain a full college-level survey understanding of the subject on your own by taking the many free classes, listening to the many free lectures and podcasts, and reading the many free texts, ebooks and commentaries you’ll find here.
A blog for elementary educators everywhere.
Back to School Night is Coming: Marketing to My Parents In a couple weeks we're having our Back to School Night (BTSN) at my midd...
This lesson teaches the basics parts of a window, window treatments and how to measure for window treatments. It also allows students to physically "make" small versions of different window treatments. These projects make great display pieces for your department's display case or open house!Read more →
I just finished my second week of school, and we had our Open House for the students and their families on Thursday night. I think I am fin...
Hello Everyone! Just a quick post tonight. We are full on with open house projects. Open House is next week! So much to do! We will be working on producers and consumers this week and incorporating the concept of Food Chains into our science. Here's a quick look at what we'll be doing! (Hope we have time!) A six page mini book for kids to read and illustrate. Patterned after "There Was an Old Lady" Make a food chain pyramid Poetry! For your quick 10 page mini unit, hop on the food chain and click here!! Hope you can use this!! Hope the kids enjoy it!! Have a great night!!! Joyfully! Nancy
Animation Fundamentals: TGJ 2O
You’ve spent countless hours preparing your classroom and are ready to meet your students and families! If you are anything like me, you are anxiously waiting to meet the 20+ smiling faces that you will spend the school year with. Every year on Meet the Teacher Night, the butterflies start to settle
A contest has crowdsourced a set of 10 “non-commandments” for people who don’t believe in God.
Truoba Class 115 house plan expresses open floor plan, high ceiling and connection of interior and exterior. Plan 924-1 designed as 3 bed house.
Does anyone else have parents that are annoyed, aggravated, or even angry when you ask them to read at home with their child? I was AMAZED last year at our back to school night at the attitude toward reading at home. Is 20 minutes really that much to ask for? I don't think so, but some thought it was impossible. So this year, I will be prepared with some helpful suggestions on how they can read 20 minutes every night! Click on the picture to get this freebie from TpT!
The mysterious tragedy of the Dyatlov Pass Incident gets an explanation—but not necessarily one everyone accepts.
How to Create Audio QR Kids using Seesaw
Truoba Class 421 house plan is expressed by open floor plan, high living room ceiling and connection of interior and exterior spaces.
Truoba Class 115 house plan expresses open floor plan, high ceiling and connection of interior and exterior. Plan 924-1 designed as 3 bed house.
End of the Year/ Open House Foldable Project. . . Now on TPT!! Click "HERE" to Check It Out!
An important way to build relationships in your classroom is with a morning meeting. One of the components of morning meeting is a “game.” As a Spanish immersion teacher, I am always looking for easy, quick games that can be used during this portion of the day. I often use equity sticks and let the ... Read More about 12 Morning Meeting Games in Spanish
I love the way we created our class agreements this year. First, students participated in a carousel activity where they went around the room to each poster. They had a pile of small post it notes that they used to respond to the questions- A Great Classmate, IS-DOES-SAYS-DOES NOT... A Terrific Teacher, IS-DOES-SAYS-DOES NOT... A Learner, IS-DOES-SAYS-DOES NOT... A Classroom of Learners, IS- LOOKS LIKE- FEELS... Then each group of 4 students looked at all of the responses and came up with their own class agreements. Finally, we put them all together and this is what they came up with. I think they did a great job!
Effortlessly Communicate Your High School Curriculum With These Student Handouts Curriculum % %
It's Back to School Time which means new students and new parents. It's also the time for "Meet the Teacher" events and "Back-to-School Night." If you're like me, these two events created a lot of anxiety about having the perfect classroom space to make the best impression. Thinking about trying to create an engaging bulletin board or hallway display in those first few days for parents to peruse just heightened my stress level. If you've had similar feelings about this time of the year, I've got just the solution for you! I have two fun activities that I'd like to share with you that not only help you learn more about your new group of students but also impress your administrators and parents.
So earlier this year I pinned a wonderful activity from one of my all time favorite blogs EVER – Step Into Second Grade with Mrs. Lemmons –...
Truoba Class 119 modern house plan is expressed by open floor plan, high living area ceiling and connection of interior and exterior spaces.
