Were You Absent?

As promised, here's another of my latest projects.  And again, I got the inspiration for this project from Pinterest. (You can find the original post HERE.)

Part of what has been keeping me so busy lately is trying to figure out the "procedures" that I want to use in my first classroom.  While student teaching, I pretty much kept a lot of procedures that my cooperating teachers already had in place because the students were already used to it.  I've been trying to think of as many "What-ifs" as I can, so that I can present my classroom "Rules and Procedures" at the beginning of the year.

So, I asked myself, "What if a student is absent?" One of my pet peeves during student teaching was when students would come up to me in the middle of class with an absence slip and expect me to stop class and sign their slip.  So, here is my proactive approach to cut down on those interruptions. Now, KEEP IN MIND that I will still encourage students to come to me so that we can discuss what they missed before or after class, but they will be able to quickly get the information they need from the class they missed by just going straight to the Absence Box!

Since I will be teaching Language Arts to all the middle grades (5,6,7, and 8) I put tabs on the calendars as well as the files so that students can find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Behind the front "Were You Absent?" sign, there is a calendar for each grade that will have information for each day of the week.  After students check the calendar, they can then go to that day's file and grab any handouts or worksheets that were passed out from the day they were absent.

Here is a top view of the box, with the big tabs for each grade and the smaller tabs for each day of the week.

There ya have it.  What are your procedures for absences?

Best,

Ms. M

"If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders." Abigail Van Buren

Where has the summer gone?

What? July 18th already? I can't believe how fast this summer has gone! In less than one month I will be settled into my new classroom and gearing up for my first Open House! I can't wait! Preparing for this rapidly approaching school year has taken over my body and soul the last few weeks... I have been planning, planning, planning, trying to get my curriculum mapped out, but I've also been busy working on all sorts of fun projects for the classroom! That being said, I'm going to dedicate my next few blog posts to showing them off! Enjoy! (Also, I must apologize for the poor quality of the upcoming photos... a new camera is on my wish-list!)

"No Name Paper" Holder

I got the idea for this project from this pin a few months ago and loved the idea from the start! I know that no name papers are a struggle for many teachers and we all have our own procedure when it comes to them.  I teach in the middle school setting, so my classroom procedure has been that if I come across any no name papers, I tape them to the board and students need to claim them if they want credit for the assignment.  This has worked fine in the past, but the mess of papers/ ripped off tape has always bothered me. (Yes, I do have a "type A" personality...) So, this cute little holder will get rid of the "mess" on my whiteboard and also lets me keep my procedure in place!

I teach at a small school, so the number of no name papers that I have to deal with will be smaller than most, so that is why I only included 6 clips on my board.

Here's how I made it:

Supplies:

• Hot Glue Gun and Hot Glue
• Cardboard Letters
• Clothespins
• Flat Canvas
• Scrapbook Paper
• Ribbon
• Mod Podge
• Acrylic Paint

The best part about this project for me was that most of these "supplies" were already sitting in my craft bins! Super inexpensive and quick!

I took the flat canvas and painted the edges with orange acrylic paint.  While that dried, I cut the scrapbooking paper down to the desired size and secured it on the canvas. ( I used double sided tape, but I would suggest something stronger because the Mod Podge made the tape slip off.) Then I mod podged that baby down.  While I was waiting for that to dry, I painted my cardboard letters.  I then hot glued those down on the surface, glued my clothespins on and Waaaa-la! After gluing a ribbon on the back, it's ready to hang in my classroom!

Isn't that cute?? I hope you're all enjoying your last few weeks of vacation as much as I plan to!

Best,

Ms. M

"Creativity is contagious; pass it on." Albert Einstein