Must Haves For Your Classroom!

This is my Top 10 List of Must Haves for the Classroom!

1. Name Tags:

My purpose is not really to identify the student but have a learning resource available for the students. I prefer the ones that have the cursive alphabet, place value, multiplication chart and if I can get a hundreds chart too that's really great. I find they last a long time and are used by the students.

2. Mr. Sketch Markers

These smelly markers are long lasting , vibrant smelly markers that I use for my anchor charts.
No student use allowed!

3. Crayola 10 Pack Markers For $1 Dollar. 

I buy a class set when they go on sale for $1. My school doesn't provide them and students will often bring their own and donate them at the end of the year. I refresh every other year.

4. Colored Pencils:

I also buy when they go on sale for $1 and buy every other year.

5. Extra Long Pencil Boxes:

I like the desks to look neat and require students to use my pencil boxes that are about 18 inches long. I reuse them and hope to only replace about 10 a year. They go on sale for less than $2 if you watch the ads. This is my third year using them and I've only has to replace 1-2 a year. Magic Eraser will get them clean including permanent marker.

6. $1 scissors

I buy 5-10 a year, I've never had the Fiskers brand break.

7. Black & color Sharpie markers

I get a class set of black fine point from Costco and ask for donations of color and ultra fine. I keep these for special projects. Students are not allowed to keep them in their desk.

8. Painters tape

I use it to make frames on student work I put in the windows

9. Fabric
I go to Walmart and get fabric for my bulletin boards. I can relate it to my theme, fold it up and put it away til the next year.

10. Erin Condrin Custom Plan Book

I bought a beautiful custom plan book from ErinCondrin.com not cheap but look for coupons.

Hope that helps you think about what you need to get for back to school!

Table Trash

I'm a stickler for the students being responsible for cleaning up their desks.  Often we will do projects with small scraps or they are engrossed in something and don't want to walk to the trash. I will occasionally find trash hidden in my library! Yikes! My solution is based on an idea I saw on Pinterest. Each desk group will have their own trash can and the table captain of the day is responsible for it. I think it will work well and keep the getting up and down to a minimum.

Birthday Fun

I've seen some really cute birthday balloons on pixie sticks for classroom birthdays and wanted to try a non-food version. A complete set of 35 cost about $3.00. Here's what I did:
1. Make a star in Word and insert text "Happy Birthday - No Homework Tonight!"
2. Copy on scrapbook paper. I found some cute cupcake paper at Michaels.
3. Cut out stars
4. Staple two together
5. Insert glow stick carefully between two stapled together stars.
6. Keep in a tall vase to prevent glow sticks from snapping.

Variation: use birthday pencils

ISTE Day 2

It was heaven, Christmas and summer vacation all rolled into one! Five football fields of Ed tech exhibits filled with cool gadgets, contests, and freebies. I saw the coolest pencil box/iPad holder from Belkin, a neat tablet called a Boogie Board that I see having tons of Special Education uses. Promethan had their new table that looked really cool and I saw my San Diego Unified Ed Tech Friends.

ISTE 2012

ISTE is in San Diego this year and just got home from being totally inspired by Sir Ken Robinson and my favorite Mayim Bialik, Amy from Big Bang Theory. The message is that we have to find our passion and student's passion to create real learning. We can have all the technology but it's the teacher that has the empathy and the ability to reach the students. At the student showcase I talked with two teachers from Indiana that told me about some really cool projects they have done. Check out this website to get some great ideas.  www.projectsbyjen.com and www.iearn.org . They have great ideas to expand your classroom beyond your four walls.

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