Sunday Sanity Saver: Workshop Organization

This weekend was incredible!  I had the privilege of sharing my passion for Readers' Workshop with other educators at the Oregon Reading Association's Winter Institute.  I presented on tips for managing an engaging Readers' Workshop.
One of the most important parts of this, is organization.  As teachers we know that organization is the foundation to all of our teaching.  Without it many of us are lost.  For that reason, I wanted to share with you the organizer that I use when planning out my Workshop overview each week.  This does not replace my lesson plans.  This overview is my plans for my workshop each week.  Just like my lesson plans it may change, but I love that I can record notes and observations on it, which I revisit daily.

This planner can easily be used with writing and math as well.  I hope this saves you a little bit of sanity as we enter a crazy week.

What do you use to keep all of your groups and conferences organized?  Leave a comment below, I would love to hear from you.

Valentine FREEBIES! Yes, more than one!!

Valentine's Day is around the corner and I don't know about you, but I feel like it has become worse than Halloween in the terms of sweets and treats.  Several years ago, I informed my student that treats would no longer be allowed.  I encouraged them to make cards and tokens of their affection for each of their classmates.  With food allergies and the need for healthy choices in schools, I am sticking to it.
This year, I am giving my students fortune cookie erasers with these fortunes (you can grab a free copy here).   Oriental Trading also has an awesome assortment of fortune cookies.  From charms to plastic cookies, these novelties make the perfect valentine gift with these tags.

These erasers are super cute and the tags, which I printed on cardstock, can be rolled up to make the message a surprise.

My students and I recently read the book The Biggest Valentine Ever, by Steven Kroll.  It is an adorable story of two boys that realize that working together isn't easy, but it is so worth it.

Together they end up creating the most amazing valentine ever,  a Valentine Mouse for their teacher.

This craftivity pairs perfectly with the book, but can be used without it.  Honestly, is the perfect craft for any day of the year.  I mean, how cute is this mouse.

All of the pieces and directions can be found by clicking on the picture or this link.

What is you favorite Valentine's Day book and craft?  Leave me a comment below to let me know.

Classroom Organization: Cubbies

This year, instead of tubs and bins for student materials I have cubbies.  I am super grateful that these were left in the classroom I moved into.  They have provided a place for students to keep their individual tools and materials.  However, I am scared to know what my students' rooms look like based on how messy their cubbies are.
I decided I needed an incentive so enter, The Cubby Fairy.  She drops in when no one is around and checks the status of our classroom cubbies.  If she likes what she sees, she walks into the cubby, leaves some fairy dust behind, and drops a note off.  The note indicates that the student did an awesome job keeping their cubby organized and can head to the prize drawers.

This has been a game changer.  Now I have kiddos taking the time to organize there space.  I have had a decrease in students complaining because they can't find something or they don't know where a particular paper should go.  They have taken ownership and I LOVE it.  You can grab this Cubby Fairy Letter or a more generic one, in case you don't have prize drawers, here.

What game-changing classroom organization tips do you have?  Leave a comment below and let me know.
Also, are you on Instagram?  If you happen to use this Cubby Fairy letter be sure to tag me, @searching4tchrbalance.

Sliding Number Lines

Number lines are one of the most used manipulatives in my classroom.  My kiddos are great about knowing which tool they need to support their leanring, but these sliding number lines have been their go-to recently.
The perks to this tool is the kinesthetic approach that is brings to counting.

Students start their bead at the first addend or subtrahend and then move up or down based on if the problem is addition or subtraction.

The number lines are also a snap to put together.  Just print, on card stock for durability, laminate, hole punch, and attach a pipe cleaner or string with the bead.  TADA!  You have the perfect tool for your mathematicians!

You can grab the template here.  Try it out and let me know what your kiddos think in the comments.

I Am Thankful For You!

I am so grateful for this amazing community!  I wanted to say Thank You, by sharing one of my all time favorite craftivities; The THANKFUL Book!

For the last, well more years than I can count, I have been guiding my students through this awesome project.  This puzzle book shows different components of the earth that we are grateful for.  We work page by page so that everyone's book ends up in the correct order.

I have learned that starting with the last page and working backwards is the most successful.

I love how these pages create such a beautiful scene.

The front cover is tricky.  I used to cut out the circle for my students, but now I just make a slit for each one.  I make sure that students know to stay inside the circle and they seem to get it.
This craftivity is all about gross motor and scissor use, but there is also a writing component.

Students are able to reflect on two people, things, places, whatever it is that they are thankful for.  The final book is the perfect gift for kiddos to share with their families.
Please let me know if you end up trying this project with your students or children.  If you are on Instagram, please tag me (@searching4tchrbalance) so that I can see your creations!

Thank you, again, for your amazingness!!!

Student Vacations...What Do You Do?

We don't have a fall or mid-winter break.  Boo Hoo!  Because of this, I feel like parents try and take full advantage of the long holiday weekends in November and January.  Each year, I have students that vacation with their families and end up missing several days of school.  It seems harsh to send classroom, but sending nothing seems crazy to me, too.
That's why I send a vacation journal.  I have several bags prepped and ready to go.  Each bag has a journal, pencils, eraser, sharpener, and colored pencils.

I also have a note on the inside of each journal explaining the purpose of the journal.

The journal is meant to be a way for the student to create learning opportunities, while recording memories.  I always allow kiddos to share their journal when they get back.  It is so fun to hear about their favorite part of each day.

Grab this journal cover and letter here or by clicking on the above picture.

What do you do for kiddos that are going to miss school days for vacations?

Summer Blog Hop

Ahh summer...I can almost taste it!  Two more weeks and I get to bask in the idea of sleeping in and regaining my health.  What is it with the second half of the year?!  It aways seems to knock the wind out of me.
This summer is all about reading books, blogging, sleeping, and kinda thinking about next school year. As a way to celebrate summer I am linking up with some of my favorite blogging buddies for a Summer Blog Hop.  Plus there are freebies involved!  Grab my freebie below and then make sure to hop on over to Inspired Owl's Corner by clicking on the adorable shell.

Happy Hopping!

GoNoOdle Goals - Making Cross-Curricular Connections

I truly believe in cross-curricular connections.  In my mind, education and learning need to be real and not cut-and-dry.  I do my best to embrace teachable moments and on-the-spot learning opportunities.  It can be tricky to bring the entire class back from some of these "detours," but there are ways; GoNoOdle being one of them.
If you are not familiar with GoNoOdle, it is a free site filled with brain breaks to use with your students.  There are a variety of energizing and calming activities to do with your kiddos.
GoNoOdle has become and integral part of my day, so I knew I needed to start creating more connections to it.  Since this year's focus is strongly on math, I decided to make GoNoOdle a part of our daily math meeting.  At the beginning of each day, my students and I meet to create our goal for the day; this is the total minutes we believe the entire class will/can brain break for.  

 As we complete brain breaks, we round the time to the nearest minute and record the rounded time on our total log.  The times are continuously added together creating our total for the day.

 My firsties LOVE beating their daily goals!  I LOVE connecting number sense, estimating, time reading, rounding, and addition skills into these amazing brain breaks!

Click on the pictures below to grab a copy of the goal sheet and total time poster for your class.

Do you GoNoOdle?  How do you connect GoNoOdle to learning throughout the day?  I would love to hear about your brain break experiences.

Gallery Walk - American Symbols {Freebie}

I find gallery walks to be one of the greatest activities you can do with your students.  They allow students to share their background knowledge and/or learned concepts individually or as a group.  For the teacher, they provide a clear view of overall understanding.
I used gallery walks, also known as carousels, all the time when I taught 5th.  My student loved being handed different color markers to signify their comments.  The activity allowed my fifth graders to take responsibility of their learning while allowing me to observe the learning still necessary for skill mastery.
For those of you not familiar with a gallery walk/carousel here is how it works:

• prep chart paper with a question, vocabulary word, prompt, picture, etc on it
• place the chart paper all around the classroom
• assign student groups or individual students a writing color (this is not a necessity, but allows you to distinguish who provided the information)
• students walk around to each of the papers responding to the information on it
• I time students at each poster to keep students focused
• discuss and review the information that students have shared

After much thought I decided to try this with my first graders.  I placed an American Symbol on several pieces of chart paper.  I asked students to tell me what the symbol represented.  *Note* we did this activity towards to end of our unit on American Symbols.  I wanted to see who was able to verbalize each symbol's meaning.  The symbols included: the White House, American Flag, Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty, and the Liberty Bell.

Overall, I was very impressed with how focused my kiddos were.  They loved chatting with each other at each poster, sharing their thoughts and helping each other with words.
After reviewing their responses, we did a bit more learning with the Liberty Bell, White House, Statue of Liberty, and American Flag with the following matching activity:

You can grab of copy of this activity by clicking on the picture.

Have you ever done a gallery walk in your classroom?  I would love to hear how you use this learning activity.

Spreading LOVE Throughout the School

I LOVE Valentine's Day!  What I am not a fan of is the amount of candy it contains.  In order to keep the focus on spreading love, I ask students and parents to not bring candy to school.  I also make sure that our activities throughout the week, and specifically on Valentine's Day "spread the love."
One of my favorite activities is our cards to staff members.  When I taught fifth grade and even as an ESL teacher, I helped students write valentines to former teachers to detail why they are still in that student's heart.  This is a little tricky with first grade, due to their lack of years in school.  Therefore, I have students choose a staff member that is "in their heart."  First graders come up with the most adorable valentines and love giving their chosen staff member the card.  Here is the template that my kiddos use:

You can grab a copy of the valentine template I use by clicking on the picture above.

What is your favorite Valentine's Day activity?

We Have A Freebie

After 3 days of laying in bed and not being able to move from a fever, I was able to sit up and check 1 thing off of my To-Do List....a Facebook Fan Freebie!  I am so excited to finally have this up and working.  It was not easy, but thanks to a tutorial from Christi Fultz, I worked through it.

Be sure to like Searching For Teacher Balance on Facebook and grab the freebie.  I will be changing it up every so often, so check back!

Holiday Freebie

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  I am still in my pjs as I attempt to recover from eating TOO much.

In light of the winter holiday season, and my need to stay organized, I created a new editable binder cover

and matching binder spines.

Head over to my TPT store and grab this festive tool!

How do you stay organized this time of year?

Fall Word Work {Freebie}

We are learning new words everyday!  I have to say teaching my first graders new words is one of my favorite things to do.  Word families provide the quickest route to learning multiple words at one time.  We could easily write down lists of word families, but what fun is that?  NO FUN!  I tell you!  For this reason alone, I created this -all tree template.

Students write their -all words on the fall leaves of their tree.  My kiddos got a kick out of this craftivity.  Just click on any of the pictures to grab your copy.  Make sure to leave a comment if you use it with your students.

What kind of fun word work activities do you do with your students?