What I'm Loving Wednesday and Classroom Pictures

Today is the first day of school my friends. The first day. Oy. There's always so much anticipation and build-up to the first day. I'm ready to be in a groove, in a schedule, with procedures down. Can we just fast forward already? :) 

Today is Wednesday so it's time for my weekly linky, "What I'm Loving Wednesday." 

First up is my classroom. I have to say that I love it simply because I've been spending so much time getting it ready. It feels good to finally be done. Or as done as I'm going to get before the kiddos come in.

Prepare for a photo dump!

My files for teaching for the week

My monthly read-alouds are kept in the black magazine files

Daily math papers in the crates sorted by lesson

Math wall and computers

Reading wall, cubbies, Friday Choice bins, and book boxes

Parent News bulletin board

Science and Social Studies wall and supply bins

Classroom library and small group table

Front of the room with the class rules

Front of the room

Carpet area at the front of the room

Another view of the front of the room

My desk

I'm also loving the genius idea I saw on Instagram about putting pool noodles in your boots to keep them from flopping over in the closet. 

I was shopping the other day and saw pool noodles for 97 cents so I had to try it out. I cut one up and put the pieces in my boots right away. Love it!

Last but not least I'm loving my new Substitute Binder that I printed out yesterday and am starting to fill in.

I feel like it's going to keep me super organized when it comes to substitutes, which always seem to take for.ev.er to plan for.

I'm hoping with all of this information already prepped and in a binder, the sub plans will be way easier!

 Check it out on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Well, that's all I have for now. I have a couple more projects I need to finish up tonight for the first day tomorrow.

What are you loving this week? Make sure to link up!

An InLinkz Link-up

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

Organizing the Paper Clutter To and From School

The other day I posted a picture on Instagram of my G.A.T.O.R. Binders being put together thanks to my mama's help and some people were asking what was inside. I decided to do a blog post about these babies. 

G.A.T.O.R. stands for Getting All Things Organized and Ready and the gator is our school mascot. The binders are a way to keep all of the paper clutter that goes to and from school organized. 

Each year my second graders are given their G.A.T.O.R. Binders on the first day of school after a lengthy talk about what's inside and how to take care of them.  The students and families take great care of them for the most part and I've had nothing but positive feedback from parents.

 The inside cover is where the students put their homework each week. This binder is ready for the first day of school with their only homework being a Student Information Sheet. I make a big deal out of the fact that really, this homework is for their parents. The students think it's funny that their parents have homework. 

 The first thing in the binder is this pouch. In the past I've used it for money that's brought to school for field trips, book orders, or lunches. This year I'm going to be putting a deck of cards and math games on a metal ring for their homework inside. 

Behind the pouch is a description of the different parts of the binder. This stays in all year and is a great introduction for parents and students. I can also easily refer back to this page if a little one needs a reminder to not color or tear out any pages. 

Next I have a Spelling Menu in a plastic sleeve that will be used throughout the trimester for homework. I have a couple different plastic sleeves behind this housing a monthly calendar of events, a writing calendar for homework, and directions for how to login at home to a computer program our school uses.

I bought these poly folders from Walmart for their Friday Folders. Friday Folders are where they put their weekly papers that come out of their cubbies. Parents look through the papers and clean it out each week. I initially thought I'd have trouble with families never cleaning out their binders, but the parents have been really great about keeping the binders in tip top shape. 

Behind the Friday Folder is a Room 23 News spiral notebook. We use this spiral notebook as a communication tool between the parents, students, and myself. Each morning when the students first come in the room, they copy down a letter to their parents that is written on the board. We talk a lot about the five parts of a friendly letter, handwriting, spacing, etc. at the beginning of the year. The letter usually consists of something that they did at school or an event that's coming up. In the evenings they take their binders home and their parents read the letters and sign them. As the students are writing their letters in the mornings, I walk around and stamp for parent signatures from the night before. What I love most about Room 23 News is that if a parent has a quick note to tell me, they write it underneath their student's letter and I see it first thing in the morning and we have an ongoing collection of our communication. 

After the students have written their news in the morning they put their binders on this corner shelf. Throughout the day if I have a paper that needs to be sent home to a particular student, I can easily go grab their binder and slip it inside. 

This year I'm going to have the students personalize the very back of the binder however they'd like. They can include photographs, drawings, etc. 

I let the families know at Back to School Night that if a student or family happens to lose the binder or it's damaged beyond repair, I will supply an extra one for $5.00 for materials. I've only had to replace one in the last seven years!

That's the G.A.T.O.R. Binder in a nutshell! I've seen a lot of acronyms used for these binders- B.E.E. Binders, M.O.O.S.E. Binders, etc. I'm pretty sure there's an acronym for any type of binder you want to create if you search the Internet. 

Questions or comments? Leave them below!

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

Taming the Digital Clutter- Saving Files and Staying Organized

Good morning! Today I'm going to share with you how I keep all of my school, TPT, and blogging files organized and easy to access whether I'm on my school computer or my home computer. There are many instances when I want to open a file at school that I created at home and Google Drive lets me do that in a couple easy clicks without having to carry any extra equipment with me. Google Drive and I are pretty much BFF's. It makes everything so easy and gives you 15gb of free space which I've found is a lot to fill up. I have ALL of my clipart, school files, blog files, and more on there. I hardly ever save anything to my actual computer.

If you're already a Google Drive user, then simply sign in to the website. If you're not a Google user, sign up! Once you're signed in to Google Drive, you'll notice in the lower left-hand corner it says, "Install Drive for your computer," - click that. This is where the magic happens!

After Google Drive has installed on your computer you'll notice the little icon for it in the toolbar at the top of your computer. Whenever you need to access your files, simply click on the icon. 

When I open my Google Drive icon my files come up. I have my files separated into categories for my blog, TPT, school, clipart, etc. This makes it really easy to access what I want quickly. (Originally it took a bit to put everything in to folders, but it was so worth the time!).

When I open my school folder, I have the files organized by subject or month. If I'm looking for something I teach in August, it's filed under the August folder. If I need an award it's located in the Awards folder.

When I'm creating projects for my classroom or products for TPT and I want to use clipart, I open the folder titled Clipart back on my main Google Drive screen. I have my clipart separated by the creator's name. This helps me get to know my clipart and the creators of the clipart so that I can give them proper credit. My go-to person for clipart is Creative Clips, so this is usually where I'm clicking 95% of the time. 

Once I click on a creator of clipart, the menu opens up to more folders with categories. If I know I'm making something reading related, I might click on the cute set, "Reading Buddies." 

Finally, it brings up the clipart in that category and I can easily select which image I want. 

What I love about storing my files this way is that I don't have to think! If I create something new or update an existing file I just make sure to save it to Google Drive and it does all of the hard work for me. When I get to school and click on the same Google Drive icon on my laptop (make sure to install that icon on each computer), all of my files are ready to go. No more wondering if you saved the latest version of a file to a thumb drive or which computer the file is located on. 

Easy and organized! 

Do you use Google Drive? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

Make sure to check back in tomorrow for my What I'm Loving Wednesday linky!

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com

File Cabinet Craziness

Hey hey! Today I'm sharing how I tamed my file cabinet mess this summer by blogging over at The Collaboration Connection.

Check it out if your file cabinet is out of control too and pick up a freebie while you're there!

Glitter Text @ Glitterfy.com