Secret Santa Blog Hop

Happy holidays friends, here at The Elementary Entourage we've been cooking up some extra special holiday fun that we can't wait to share. We are having a Secret Santa Blog Hop for the rest of December in which each of our bloggers has a special Secret Santa surprise for you. So please take some time to hop through the different blog posts and score some treats for yourself! 

We also want to thank you for following our little blog. We hope you take some time over your break for you and your family so you are refreshed and recharged for the upcoming year.  We know you'll find some awesome ideas to try out and can't wait to hear from you in the new year. We'll see you in January!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Evolution of Homework Collection - A New Routine To Keep It Simple

Teaching is a wonderful world of constant change. Although some of the changes we make in our classrooms are mandated, many are based on our own professional judgement. We are given the creative power to tweak our classroom environment and routines in ways that make each school day meaningful and exciting for students. One of the best things about being a teacher is making small tweaks within a year or throughout several years to maximize efficiency in the classroom. 

Tweaking Your Homework Collection Routine

One of the classroom routines I have been tweaking every year for seven years is my routine for collecting homework. Those first few minutes when students walk into the classroom are filled with a lot of hustle and bustle...and an occasional unexpected surprise. Homework collection should be quick and seamless. A few routines I have tried with short-term success are:

TURN IN BIN

Students place their homework in a turn in bin. The pros? Homework submission was quick for students. The cons? I often found nameless papers and it took too much time to sort through the pile to figure out who had & hadn’t turned in homework.

CORNER OF THE DESK

Students place their homework on the corner of their desk before starting their morning work. Teacher walks around and collects homework from each student. The pros? I was able to greet each student at their seat first thing in the morning. It was easy to see who had & hadn’t turned in homework. The cons? The collection process was time consuming and homework crowded students’ work space.

STACK ON THE STATION 

Students place their homework in a pile at a central location on or near their table group. Teacher walks to each group’s “turn in spot”, thumbs through papers and collects. The pros? I was able to collect homework fairly quickly. The cons? My less organized students who benefit from visual cues (they didn’t take note of the flat stack of papers piled near their seat) consistently needed reminders to turn in homework.

My Favorite Homework Collection Routine

The routine that has been most efficient for my students is very similar to the group station routine with an added layer of organization. The Homework Drop Box makes turning in assignments quick and easy for students and teachers. 

HOW IT WORKS

At the end of each day during Tidy Up Time, our Teacher’s Assistant places a drop box at each table group. 

When students arrive the following morning, they walk to their group drop box, find the file folder with their name on it, and drop their homework inside the folder. Students place their assignments in their folder standing tall in portrait-style rather than laying down in landscape-style. This allows the teacher to quickly walk to each station, thumb through each folder and instantly see who has and hasn’t turned in homework. 

The teacher can then grab the top of all the papers at once and pull the assignments out into a neatly organized pile. 

In my classroom, the Teacher’s Assistant then moves our drop boxes out of the way until we need them later in the day, or until the next school day. 

Having a smaller file box at each group, rather than a larger one for the entire class eliminates the problem of a long line to turn in homework. This means students settle into their seats and start their morning work without wasted time.

Although some of the changes we face as teachers tend to throw off our equilibrium for a moment, focusing on smaller changes that benefit our students helps bring us back to a more balanced and efficient groove in the classroom. 

BRING THIS ROUTINE TO YOUR CLASSROOM

If you are interested in trying the Homework Drop Box routine in your own classroom, grab my free Homework Drop Box Labels here and my favorite study, slim file bins here.

Tricks and Treats (with The Friendly Teacher)

 This time of year students begin to lose some of their engagement. It is the time right around the holidays were you need to up your engagement strategies. This lesson was a HIT in my classroom! Students were working so hard on text evidence, text features, main idea and detail and more! The best part of this bat lesson is that you can do it on anything you want to! This is a way to get your students to review any standard that you need too!

Here is what you do!
*Create a bat cave on your door. All I did was crunch up black paper and made it look like a cave.
*Tell your students to wear all black and bring a flash light. The key here is to not tell them why. It will add suspense and your students will be talking about it at home all night long.
*You can create a cave inside your classroom or you can just  turn the lights off and put a cave picture on your smart board. This is the area where you can go far out and create something awesome or you can just keep it simple!
*Create wings for yourself. All you do is take a black piece of paper, fold it in half, then cut triangles out of one side! You have two wings! (I was going to take pictures of this, but it was so easy I felt like you all would think I was silly ;))
*Rip your bat wing in several places.
*Run into the classroom telling your students that you were flying and your wing got caught on a tree. It is ripped and you cannot fly any longer. The only way to fix it is if all of your bat family works hard to help you. Their job is to finish the assignment at hand correctly. If they do, they receive a piece of tape to help fix your wing. To fix the entire wing each person/group will have to complete the activity.
*Students complete whatever you give them. (For me, I had lots of passages with questions to answer) Then, when they get them all correct you hand them a piece of tape and they tape a spot on your wing. Once everyone is done your wing is fixed.

Extras:
**When they got done they got to read Halloween books and eat Bat Poop. (Chocolate Raisins)
**When everyone got done we watched a small Halloween show!
**We had every student make bat wings and tape them on their backs and they LOVED it!

My favorite fall activity is to have my students color a pumpkin. Once they color their pumpkin they write a how-to writing on how they colored their pumpkin. Then, they give the writing to one of their friends in the classroom. That friend tries to color the exact same pumpkin. This is a great lesson to teach students the importance of adding detail in their how-to writing pieces. My newsletter followers received this for free last month and now you can also grab it for FREE here! 

(If you want more freebies like this sign up for my newsletter here)

Tricks and Treats {From The Kindergarten Connection}

Fall is here, and Halloween is just around the corner! It's on a Monday this year too, which is kind of like every teacher's nightmare.

But we are here to help make Halloween more exciting this year with some tricks and treats for you! (As in, teacher tips and free resources - yay!)

Teacher Tricks

In thinking back on this past school year, I settled on my top 3 tips that either made things easier for me, or more fun for my students.

1. Spray Paint Your Magnetic Letters

This fabulous organization trick was sent to me by TeacherKel (find her here on Instagram!) and she allowed me to share her fabulous photo setup with my readers.

Use spray paint (check labels of course and be sure you are doing so safely) to color code your magnets for word work centers.

No more mixed letters - the individual sets will stay organized!

2. Fun Pens in the Writing Center

If you have a writing center, write the room, or anything of the sort, fun pens or unique writing tools are essential! 

It increases interest and engagement instantly, and provides kids a break from traditional pencil writing. 

I got these fun pens from Scholastic, but you could pick up some on Amazon, the dollar store - anywhere you see them. 

3. Color Sort Your Extra Crayons

The teacher before me had a ton of these small microwave meal trays (because we all know teachers save everything, and I was glad she did!) but any small container or drawer set would work. 

I put crayons in them on a shared shelf space. If anyone needs a color they don't have, they can just run over and grab one. 

No more, "I don't have a pink!" or color searching chaos. 

Teacher Treats!

Treats and freebies are always fun, right? Well, I have a fun freebie for you that is perfect for fall!

Turkey Ten Frames is great for a quick and fun math center. Head over and grab your copy by clicking the link or photo below.

Grab Turkey Ten Frames Here!