Saturday, January 31, 2015

Bulletin Boards

The school I am student teaching at has been really pushing to showcase each grade's goals to the school as a way to motivate students. Since the forth grade needed a new bulletin board, we decided to incorporate our class goals with our curriculum, Nebraska history and the Oregon Trail along with trails in general that went across Nebraska onto a bulletin board. This is our board:


These are where our goals are now and we will change them and move the wagon as we achieve more and more. 

1st Grade stuck with the school's theme of learning targets. I love this idea!

This is a closer image of how they did it. 

2nd Grade is by far my favorite! As a schools, we work to be Hartley Heros, students and staff who are safe, caring, respectful and responsible. Each month they have an assembly and announce that month's Hartley Hero in each grade. The students love it and its a great way to motivate students to be all of these things every day. 

This is the school wide Hartley Hero Bulletin Board with second grade's.




Each time the grade increases their percentage, more lights are added to the buildings. If you look close you'll see that the super heroes are photos of the teachers who teach these students. 

3rd grade went with a road theme. It is very cute.

ELL also made a bulletin board but because they have so many different age groups and abilities it doesn't showcase their goals. 

Fourth grade just finished up with State Writing. In celebration of finishing and in anticipation of parent teacher conferences, we displayed their stories in our hallway like this. The colored paper is just colored paper folded in half with their story stapled inside.  




Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Valentines

With Valentines day just a few weeks away I decided to share my classic Valentines Day gift I've used with my practicum classes in the past. In my school district, candy and food are highly discouraged so I found this ideas a few years ago and have gone with it ever since. The kids love them!

The first one I did I found at this website. It's a simple butterfly template that I printed on pink card stock and then cut slits into. I used crayons in the slits one year and lip gloss the other. Both were a big hit!


For the boys, I used this website. I've printed the jar template onto both blue and brown card stock and both look fine. I went to Dollar Tree and found packages of plastic bugs that I glued on using a glue gun. A little caution when buying the packages, there are a one or two in each bag that aren't bugs so you may need to buy a few more than you think.


Photo from http://www.dandee-designs.com/2012/02/love-bug-valentines.html

If you have younger students, K-2 this will be a hit! This year I have a much older class of fourth graders so I will have to come up with a new or variation of this idea. Let me know if you have any ideas!

It's Been Awhile

It's been awhile since I've blogged but I was inspired today at a tech convention in Aurora, Nebraska. In this conference we talked about how as adults whenever we seek to find information we look to Google, YouTube or some form of social media for answers; but someone has to share these things so why not have it be us. In the past I have uploaded a few of my projects showing others how to make things  but I did it completely anonymously. This time around I am going to try to share not only what I've made but also what I am learning along the way. I am doing this as a teaching tool for others but hopefully also to learn from myself. I'll be reflecting on what I'm learning and how. Wish me luck!