Bright Idea..... Cupcake Liners!

Hello again friends!

While I know MOST of you are winding down, but I find that when the year starts winding down, my brain starts taking off!  Hence why I can't.stop.thinking.about.next.year....... already.  So, if you're like me and are ready to get a *little* jump on next year, keep reading. 

The past few years, I've stopped using the typical teacher borders in trying to save a little bit of money.  For the last two years, I've used crepe paper which works pretty good, but the bad part is that I teach in a room with NO air conditioning.  Yes you read that right, no air.  It gets hot.  Really hot.  And humid.  Really humid.  So when that happens, the crepe paper sags.  It's not pretty, so I needed another solution.

Recently, my girls and I were on a shopping trip to Michael's in search of Beanie Boos.  Are your kiddos mad about these guys too?  Anyhoo, while shopping I came across some black, chevron cupcake liners and I bought them ALL!  I mean I seriously emptied the bin.  They were only 50 cents, plus a teacher discount?!?!?!  It was a steal I tell you. :)  So here's my new border that is slowly but surely going up around my classroom. Who knew cupcake liners could look so cute! 

 Happy decorating friends!!!!

For more Bright Ideas, please check the other bloggers below that have topics of your interest!  If you enjoyed this idea, please consider following us on Facebook or Maria's TPT.

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Bright Ideas: Add a Little Color to Your Writing

 We are so excited to share our first bright idea of 2015!

A few months ago Em and I were brainstorming how to help our firsties remember lead vs. closure vs. meat of their stories.  We have picture clues but found while we had them posted everywhere and even on the papers, it just wasn't sinking in.  Last year we would use M&M's as bribery, I mean incentives.... green for capital letters and red for punctuation.  Em had the "Bright Idea" to transfer this awesomeness to our paper.  She had recently picked up a pack of green from our teacher free store and I had some pink laying around... BAM!  Green for lead and red (well... pink in our case) for closure. :)  All pages in between are white.  My teacher heart sings!

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Be sure to check out the blogs below for more BRIGHT IDEAS by grade level and topic!

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A Bright Idea For A Part-Part-Whole Manipulative

I have been on a part-part-whole kick.  So let's just continue that with one more bright idea (well, for now!)

I love using number bracelets, divider plates, and shake and spill to work on part-part-whole.  But I wanted a manipulative that tied directly to the number bond graphic:

I started with chenille sticks (or pipe cleaners).

Then I created a number bond manipulative.  The two parts are one color and the whole is a different color.

Once it is made, students can use any kind of manipulatives to break apart numbers (buttons, beans, or beads.)  We used beads.

Students can move the beads around to create different combinations of a specific number.

The great thing...this number bond manipulative can be used over and over with different numbers.

If you would like to hear some more ideas, please join me on TPT and Pinterest.

Please check out the links below for a variety of bright ideas from many, many other bloggers!

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Empty Cereal Boxes.?...... SAVE THEM!

For the last two years, our firsties have stored their writing in binders.  Last year my desks got a little crammy (is that even a word?) with four binders in there, so this year I decided to change things up.  Fingers crossed this will work. :)  I'm still using binders for each writer, but this year as a portfolio.  I'm storing these.... well somewhere, I guess I should figure this out too.  Thank goodness for this blog hop, maybe I'll find an idea.:)

So, I felt like I needed to be creative with the space inside of our student desks since up to four children could potentially be sharing one.  .....IDEA ALERT......How many of you out there love a good bowl of cereal? Can I get a woot, woot?!?  My family would eat cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday if I let them.  I can't say that I'm against this practice, so we eat cereal at least once, maybe twice, but NEVER three times, per day. Except on the days we do because that's how we roll. :) With so much cereal eating going on, I had the *bright idea* to start using those boxes instead of recycling them. The Family Size cereal boxes seem to work best.  I may or may not have put that size on our grocery list more than one time this summer. Don't judge, I just love me some cereal!  :)

All you need to do is cut off the flaps at the top and voila.... storage solution!  Currently we are fitting two folders and two notebooks in each box. 

Since this idea came to me a little late this summer, I sent out an email to our district begging pleading kindly asking for the Family Size Cereal boxes.  Through this email I found another teacher whose family needs to go with my family to Cereal Eaters Anonymous. This gave me about 12 extra boxes, but still less than the like 46 boxes I needed to put two in each desk. Luckily, our principal also had a few of the magazine boxes (like the book boxes many of you have from Ikea) laying around, so I offered to take those off her hands since I couldn't shove any more cereal down our girls throats.

 Both of these guys work amazingly for storing our "magic".
Happy Organizing!

If you would like more bright ideas, please join me on TPT.

For more than over 100 other Bright Ideas, please check out the links below.

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A Rug Alternative

 Critters.
I know, I know.  It is this dreaded thing that we don't really like to talk about....but it is reality for some.  Little critters like to come to school with our kiddos.  Sometimes it is lice and sometimes it is a bed bug that likes to tag along.
We have had to make some changes to deal with these annoying bugs!  It stinks and it is hard to give up some things that you may love.  But we had to because...OH MY!...I don't want those things joining me on my trek home!

The first thing to go....rugs.  Those bugs love to cozy up in them.  No, thanks!

So 2 summers ago, after a frustrating attempt to install an Ikea hardwood floor, I had a box of hardwood planks that snapped together.  Maria (my idea girl!) decided we should use it in our writing classroom.  So we snapped the pieces together, put cute duct tape all around the edges, and VOILA! A homey-looking, cheap, clean (bug free) floor!

There are a couple of other options if you like the hardwood flooring look.  This wood is actually from the paneling section of a hardwood store.  It was under 10 bucks and it is just one full sheet.

 Another option is stick tile.  This is a big sticker that looks like hardwood.  You could easily peel it, stick it to a flat piece of cheap wood, and that's it!  You would have a new floor for your room!

This was our bright idea for our writing classroom!  If you enjoyed this idea, please consider following us on Facebook or Pinterest  Please check out more Bright Ideas below!  There is a variety of topics and grade levels!  Happy reading!

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Real World Reading Materials

Our classroom libraries are FILLED with good books that are of different levels, about different subjects, and that piques different interests.  "Real world reading" material can also be added! (I put this in quotes because, of course, books are in the real world.  But I am talking about reading material we see when we are "out and about" in day to day lives.)  And summer is the perfect time to build a collection of these reading materials!

Here are some of the different materials that you could collect:

(sassy design paper, barrio and stars in our eyes fonts)

Once collected, just laminate (or not) and place them in your reading library!  Some of the words may be too difficult for our young readers; however, the material is motivating, colorful, and interesting to them!  And it helps bridge that connection between what we are doing in the classroom and what they need to be able to read out there in the big, wide, "real world"!

It can even to be helpful to pull some of these reading materials and show how it connects to a story.  For example, a campground brochure or map could be pulled out when Henry and Mudge and the Starry Night is read in class.

I hope you are able to use this Bright Idea. Please consider following me on Pinterest or TPT.  For more than 100 other Bright Ideas, please see the link-up below and choose a topic that interests you!  Happy Reading :)

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Highlighting Tape in Guided Reading

I am not sure about you, but my guided reading lessons include many reminders like this:
"Look for parts you know"....."Look for chunks you know"....."Find small words inside of big words"....."Use your nonsense words to help"....."It's a know-by-heart word"

We demonstrate.
We model.
We practice.
We remind.
But some students just need more.  That's when I grab the highlighting tape.

I will use it right in the leveled reader that we are using.  Sometimes we use it to highlight small parts of the word.

Sometimes we look for high frequency words that we are working on.

Sometimes we highlight phonics chunks that we might be studying or that an individual student might be struggling to read.

I have even been known to use it to show phrases within the text.

It gives our students a model and provides them with a visual.  It is direct.  And it is motivating.  The trickiest part about it: remembering to take it out of the book.

I hope you are able to use this Bright Idea. Please consider following me on Pinterest or TPT.  For more than 130 other Bright Ideas, please see the link-up below and choose a topic that interests you!  Happy Reading :)

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Bright Ideas: iFluency

A few of my students really need a fluency boost.  Anyone else in the same boat?  I needed something quick, meaningful, to the point, and (to be honest) easy.

We know that listening to stories, listening stations, and just reading make better, more fluent readers.  But I have a few readers that just need more.  So I decided to add a little video to our fluency work.

Here's what I did...

My struggling students really need additional practice with their guided reading books.  They could read the text but it was not quite a fluent read.  They needed some additional support.

As you record the video, make sure that you are reading at the pace you want to model for the student you have in mind.  Also point to the words as you read.  They will be pointing along with you as they read the text.

Now it is their turn to read.  Put the iPad in front of your reader, along with headphones and some kind of plastic tracking tool. (If they use their own finger to track the print, the iPad will react to it.)

As your student listens to the video, they track the print AND read along with you.  The modeled practice will help them to improve their own fluency.

Here is a quick 30 second video to show you what it looks like in action.  You will hear my voice on the video and then the child is reading along with it.  My finger is pointing on the video and the child is pointing along with me.

If you are interested in following me, just click on the options below!

Hope you can "hop" through the link-up for more Bright Ideas!  The links are all listed below!

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Bright Ideas-Motivating Math Manipulatives

This is the first year I have heard these words from my students about story problems.  (Actually, it is the first time I have felt this way about story problems)  What is the difference?

 I wish I would have used this Bright Idea years ago!

All year long I have been posting about our individual themes for problem solving (under problem solving with story boxes) but today I want to focus on our math manipulatives for story problems and how motivating they have been for our students.  For each theme, my teammate (Natalie) and I created manipulatives to match.  We really feel that this has helped our students to visualize and connect to the problems.  This visualization helps them to determine if it is an addition, subtraction, multiplication, or missing addend problem. 

 So jumping right in....Bus Theme

 These are just lids.  I used a Sharpie and some stickers to make them look like people.  We used these manipulatives in our small groups for each story problem.  Our students used the lima beans below as their "people."

Fall theme:

The pumpkins and ghosts are just buttons that we found at Joann Fabrics.  Then we used spider rings but cut off the ring part.  These were small and could be moved around quickly!

Giving theme:

These "gift boxes" were made using the cube blocks.  We had our students paint all the blocks with sparkly red and gold paint.  Then we glued ribbons on some of the "gifts."
This theme included some problems with groups of tens and ones.  So we wrapped up some of the rectangular prism blocks.  Our students knew that each of these large packages contained 10 small gifts.

Teddy Bear Store Theme:
We introduced this theme by asking the students to be the teddy bears.  They each held up these sticks with the bears attached.

 For individual practice they used little bear manipulatives.

All of these materials have helped to bring our instruction to life this year.  What kind of materials do you use to help your students visualize story problems?  We would love to add more ideas to our collection!

Thanks for joining me for the Bright Ideas Blog Hop!

 

Next stop...my fellow Ohio blogger, Kate, from EduKate and Inspire!  She will describe a very engaging writing and art project with shaving cream snowmen! Just click on her image below to head on over there.

Enjoy the hop! I can't wait to learn from everyone's different BRIGHT ideas!

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