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.

An InLinkz Link-up

Blasting Off A Great Year

Do you ever have those moments when an idea just appears?  You are not even sure where it comes from, but it is there.  This summer...it happened.  And I just could not get that idea out of my head.  It just kept pushing its way forward until I finally did something about it!
After much creating, printing, cutting, laminating, and mounting, my idea is ready to "blast off" and help our firsties have a great year!

So what was this fantastic, ground breaking idea?  Face-Off--Book Style.

I wanted more interaction between my students and the bulletin boards we spend so much time on (or in my case, a hallway wall).  So I decided that I would post two books.  Both books would be read-aloud books that all students had heard the previous week.  For example: maybe during the first week of school I read "The Crayon Box That Talked" and "Falling for Rapunzel."

   Then students vote on the book that they would recommend to others.  Voting materials could include die cuts or stickers (for a pictograph) or rectangles (for a bar graph).  They would place their vote right there on the board (or my wall). Once the data is collected, oral questions about the graph could be asked.  I have some of our questions posted right on the wall for students to ponder.

As the year progresses, our questions will change.  One week the questions may be more math related and another week they may be more reading related.
Once I started coming up with more oral questions, I decided that I may need some response sheets.  So now I have sheets for graphing, comparing/contrasting author's purpose, comparing/contrasting plot, and opinion writing.

And I am so excited.  REALLY excited.

It is something new that will be easy for me to change out each week (just the books).  I can make it a quick voting activity during transitions with oral questions.  Or I can decide to go more in-depth with responding through written work.  It can take a couple of minutes a week or a couple of hours.  It is up to me.

I like the flexibility of it.

Here is a free download for you.  It is the "Face-Off" banner.  If you want all the question cards and response sheets, just click any of the images above.

I am so happy that I got to share this idea with you!  I hope it helps you to "blast off" to a good year with your students! 

Head on over to Literacy Spark for your next literacy stop!

Bulletin Boards and BTS with TPT

It has been a bulletin board week for me.  I have been working hard on getting my "Take Your Pick" boards up and running for the year.  My OCD has kicked in at full speed and these boards took me FOREVER! I used wrapping papers, scrapbook paper, placemats, and clip boards to help me this year.  Take a look!

Here's how it works: students earn tickets (this is determined by the classroom teachers).  Then they put their name on the ticket and choose the book they would like to try to win. They put their ticket in the little pockets that you see.  Last year I only had one board, which meant I gave away 5 books a week.  It was such a hit that we have 15 books to give away a week!!
I am really excited to see how it turns out this year.

I am linking up with Christina to showcase the BTS with TPT.

So I was never voted anything significant in my senior class of 800 people but here are my TPT choices for my "best and most yearbook" page.

My "teacher's pet" was a toss up for me because there are a few activities that I really enjoy.  But I had to go with my Letters, Words, and Sentences Pack.  First of all--I love the colors!  But (most importantly) this pack includes a Powerpoint and corresponding sort.  I know my firsties respond really well to Powerpoints, so this activity is really effective for me.

My "most likely to help your students succeed" needs to go to the Phonics Scoot Bundle.  I used these a lot last year and my students seemed to really benefit from them (especially my struggling readers).  It helped them to practice reading and writing the words with particular spelling patterns.  For a couple of the games they had to decide which pattern would "look right" in the word before writing it.  Those games were particularly helpful!

My "best couple" has got to be my daily math activities.  There is my Number of the Day sheet and it is a FREEBIE.  I cannot wait to see my teammate Natalie use this during her math meeting this year!  Our goal is number sense, number sense, number sense!  It is coupled with my Daily Common Core Math Warm Ups.  I will be using these sheets everyday to help me review common core skills quickly before we dig into our lesson for the day.

Hope you find some great materials to use this year.  Let us know if you find a great TPT product...we might have to jump over and buy it before the sale is over too!