Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Getting Organized

I don't know about everyone else, but I usually find myself spending the month of May limping to the finish line. It's so stressful, and I feel like I always just spend the entire month in survival mode, counting down the days until my kiddos are gone for the summer (and then I may just shed a tear when I realize that I will never see some of them again). For some reason, this year was sort of the exception.

Don't get me wrong. There was still some limping involved! This year, though, I spent a lot of time during the last month of school trying to get my students' input on what would help make next year better. I spent a lot of time rethinking some of my procedures and planning how I would make next year better. I don't know where the extra spurt of energy came from, but my creative drive kind of kicked it up a notch, and I can't seem to turn off the flow of ideas for what I want to do differently next year.

One of the biggest areas that I wanted to get organized was my filing cabinets. I will have to share that system another day because I left my camera in my classroom over the summer. It took me an entire day to do, but I went through every paper in both file cabinets and reorganized the whole shebang, What a chore, but it will be so worth it next year! I also made new binder covers for the materials that I am not storing in the file cabinets. You can check them out by clicking the picture below.



I have been rethinking my classroom rewards. Most of them worked really well and were things that my kids were motivated to earn, but I didn't have a good system for how I used these rewards. I wanted to work on that. I made a set of reward coupons for all of these free or really cheap rewards so that I can print them on card stock, laminate them, and hopefully use them all year long instead of reprinting them like I did this year. 


I have a love/hate relationship with Schoolwide Behavior Systems. When we got out for the summer, I think that our schoolwide behavior system was being revamped, so I'm not sure what that will look like next year. That's a little bit frustrating to me since I seem to be in creative overdrive right now and would love to start really planning ahead. In the past, we used "Pioneer Pay" to reward students, and then they could use their Pioneer Pay to purchase other rewards. My new coupon cards will work really well with that system, but I will have to set prices. I've also used ClassDojo points as a means of purchasing rewards. I'll probably have a post with more specifics of our new behavior system when school starts back. You can click on the picture above to snag my reward coupons from my TPT store.

I also wanted to revisit my Class Job board. I can't wait to print and use this cute set of jobs that I made to match the other two resources.



Last year was my school's first year of dabbling in the Leader in Me. We are officially getting training this coming schoolyear, and I'm really excited about learning more. Does your school do the Leader in Me? Has it helped your students? I think I'm most excited to learn more about the Leadership Notebooks because I think that will really help my students to take ownership for their learning. 

**Bundle information: I am offering the materials above as a part of a bundle in my TPT store. The individual products cost $8 altogether, but I am offering the bundle for $6. Here's the best part of this bundle, though: I'm just getting started with the new chevron theme, and I will be adding to this bundle as I continue to plan how my classroom will be organized for the coming year. If you snag the bundle now, you will get these 3 products PLUS any other products that are added later for just the $6 price. As new products are added, the purchase price for the bundle will increase, so the sooner you buy, the more you will save. Click on the picture below to see the bundle in my TPT store.



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