Classroom Ideas

Since I knew what I was going to be teaching, more than 3 days after school started (that's what happened last year), I decided to get craftier and use my knowledge of Pinterest to help me organize my classroom.

Last year, I bought these really cute hall passes from Canton and spent more money than I should have. It was about halfway through the year that I realized that they were not working out. 1) The kids constantly knocked them off the wall 2) Half the time they would leave them in the restroom (ICK!!) 3) I had no idea what the passes were touching in the bathroom (MORE ICK!!) While I was debating on asking maintenance to put in some new nails in the wall for my passes, I thought that although these passes were pretty, they weren't very functional or hygienic.

I looked on Pinterest and found this:

Source: 4thgradefrolics.blogspot.com via Jenny on Pinterest

This person used inexpensive clothespins to clip on the student's clothing when they leave the classroom so they aren't germy or lost! This will solve my problem of hall passes!! Mine aren't that cute yet, as I only wrote my last name and the type of pass with a sharpie marker, but I will work on that later.(Note: While typing this I decided to spray paint the clothespins so they would have some color to them...I couldn't help myself )

Also last year, I kept all of my students' names in a tiny box that was split down the middle with construction paper to distinguish classes for picking names. I didn't really like it and it won't work for my 5 different classes this year so, I had an idea. Luckily, my husband is Bohemian and keeps everything that normal people would dispose of, i.e., spaghetti jars, aluminum foil, medicine bottles, etc. I went looking through the cabinets and found several Planters nut cans.

I had some chalkboard paint in the garage and painted five of them. I used the chalkboard paint so I could change the class names for years later.
Here they are

I put all of my students' names in the cans and displayed them in my classroom today. Now I know which class is which and can change out the cans for something else down the road. Honestly, I did this in 30 minutes between getting home from in-service and going out to dinner.
You can see on the left side that I took one of those spaghetti jars and put hard candy in it for my students.
There are still a few more things I would like to implement this year, but sensing that this is going to be a busy and stressful year, it might have to wait for next year.